My second rebinding! The World of Words by Eric Partridge was printed in 1944. With chapters like “How Words Began” and “English: Good; Bad; and Worse,” this is definitely an interesting find! I avoided my mistakes from the last rebinding and can honestly say this is near perfect (downfall looming).
The book was in pretty good shape but aging more rapidly than the previous 1915 book I rebound. The tanning of the edges is darker and the pages have foxing. I tested the paper and it’s acidic, so one day, this book will be dust.
Considerations:
The original book cloth was a dull black and the red spine title looked angry against it, so I went with a rich red cloth and reused the title. It still looks a bit sinister, but I can’t get over how well the reds match! I again used my favorite “Archive” colored paper for the end papers and rounded the corners to suit the pages. For the headband, I went with a nice rich brown and cream. I lightly sanded the book block edges, but the tanning was pretty extensive and I didn’t want to overdo it.
I won’t outline the rebinding process since it’s the same as the first one (Short Stories for High Schools). I will mention that the old spine glue was much harder to remove, and I eventually had to accept the results or start to damage the paper.
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