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Another gorgeous leather book just waiting for its former beauty to be restored, this 163 year old binding of the Pilgrim’s Progress was mostly suffering from typical problems: deteriorated leather, worn joints, cracked inner hinges and bumped corners. With some leather restoration, new period-appropriate endsheets, and strengthened corners, the book looks beautiful while still gracefully displaying its age and is structurally sound enough to last another hundred years.

This once-beautiful 134 year old copy of Haydn’s dictionary of dates had fallen into sad disrepair. Both covers were completely detached, the spine was cracked, worn, and missing pieces, and at some point in its lifetime someone had attempted to reattach the covers with a few strips of tape, further marring the leather. I wanted to preserve as much of the ornate original binding as possible, so I chose to strengthen the text block and reback it in matching leather, attaching the old covers and using the old spine as a label.

A client’s childhood Bible had a dry rotted leather cover and loose, insect damaged pages. They requested a new leather cover and minimal, stabilizing repairs to the pages so the text could be sewn back together.