Beautiful Books Part 4 - An Antique Books Guide

Here is part four of the Beautiful Books blog series. As before, there'snot much writing but there are lots of photos of some amazing antique books. Whether you're here for ideas or just bored, I hope you enjoy! As ever, if you like this post please share!

Thanks for reading!

Beautiful Books - Part 1 - An Antique Books Guide

Feast your eyes on some of these beautiful books - part two to follow. This time there's no writing - just a whole host images to give you some inspiration in your book hunt.

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A Plunge Into Space - Early Sci-Fi & Jules Verne (An Antique Books Guide)

Early Sci-Fi

Science Fiction has been around in various forms from the tenth century an more recently with Jonathan' Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' and Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'.

However, true Sci-Fi, as we know it today, truly bloomed when developments such as electricity came about. Jules Verne is the most notable pioneer, with dozens of books focussing on Sci-Fi topics such as 'Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea' and 'From the Earth to the Moon'.

These works developed the public's general understanding of technology and considered what the future may hold. For example, in 'Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea', Verne writes about an electric submarine that uses electricity to protect itself and as a weapon. This is the kind of remarkable fore-sight that lead to Verne's popularity.

However, there is also a British writer who followed in Verne's footsteps and explore the topic of space travel specifically in an 1890 novel titled 'A Plunge Into Space'. This Victorian novel delved into space exploration, albeit of a rudimentary form and was in fact one of the first works of fiction that dealt largely with space.

Below are a few examples of this book from the fabulous covers to the foreword by Jules Verne and then the content itself.

Thanks for reading and as ever please share or comment if you can!

Poetical Works - an art of Illustration (An Antique Books Guide)

Poetical works are a staple of British literature, forming an important section of printing history.
Yet these books are also valuable as examples of the art of illustration for poetical works display some of the most extravagant and attractive decorations around.
A poetical works book can focus on any poet, from Longfellow to William Cowper, and generally feature many different poems and several illustrations.

Below are a selection of some that I have had the pleasure of owning. Hopefully my readers might find poetry more attractive once they see what the books are like.

Cover design

Poetical works are most commonly gilt decorated, featuring intricate gold patterns that integrate the book's title and often floral designs to create a highly presentable exterior.

Some feature multiple colours for decoration and generally black is used to complete the effect.

Illumination

Another aspect of these books is the art of illumination.
You can read my blog post about illuminating here:
http://anantiquebooksguide.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/illuminating-illuminated-books-antique.html

These books will often features the usual decoration for the covers but will also feature a similarly designed title page inside which uses colours and gilding to create a design of stunning beauty.
These books are often sought after purely for this page.

Other designs

There are of course other designs for the book overs of Poetical Works - the ones I have shown you already are mostly Victorian era and so similar in appearance.

The book below is Victorian too but features a more subtle design styled in the Art-Nouveau fashion. Note that flowers and gilt play a major role in the design still.

This is a more simple poetical works yet features gilt and a black design on the cover just with lesser impact than some of the more highly decorated editions.

This design is more subtle still and exhibits the style of a Georgian or Edwardian era book. The blank covers are cheaper for printers to create but the decorative spine makes the book look presentable on a bookshelf. 

This highly decorative book is early Edwardian and displays more inventive design with a range of additional colours, partly due to artistic taste and partly due to new technology allowing this.

And that marks the end of this post.
Thanks, as ever, for reading!
 

Illuminating/ Illuminated Books - An Antique Books Guide

Illuminating is the art of illustrating or decorating text to make it more visually impressive.

Generally you see illuminating in manuscripts and the best examples tend to be dating between 1200 and 1700.

A lot of time and effort goes into illuminating text and thus these works all command a high price.

Take Loftie's 'The Art Of Illuminating' for example.

I have twice sold this late Victorian book for £49.99 purely due to the great beauty of the illuminated plates inside:

With illuminated books the covers do not matter as much as the inside.

Usually illuminating will involve bright colours and often gilding to make the letters stand out.

One of the most famous and readily available illuminated texts is 'The Sermon On The Mount', popular for it's beauty and extreme illumination.

You can also get black and white and less extravagant illuminating such as seen below in 'Smith of Wootton Major' by Tolkien.

Yet for purists the illuminated manuscripts of 1300-1700 are the most valuable.

These will often be only a few pages (or even just a single page), often made of vellum so the page is rigid.

These can often be hand-drawn and may be one-of-a-kind hence the huge sums such items sell for.

An Illuminated bible dating circa 1200's sold on eBay for £7,000 so there is big money in the larger, older examples.

Regardless of costs, illuminating is a lost art and holds great artistic value in the freedom given to artists for such pieces. 

 Thanks for reading.

The above photo comes from Abebooks.co.uk which you can access from the following link:

Illuminated Manuscripts on Abebooks.co.uk