Title: Memoirs of the life and campaigns of the Hon. Nathaniel Greene…
Author: Charles Caldwell
Published/Created: Philadelphia, Published by Robert Desilver, no. 110 Walnut street, and Thomas Desilver, no.2 Decatur street. J. Maxwell, printer. 1819
Owner: Special Collections, Rare Books, University of Chicago
Dimensions: H 22.9cm x W 14.0cm x D 4.4cm
The book is a full leather binding with gold tooling of simple double horizontal lines and a red leather title label on the spine. The leather on the boards has a marbled “tree calf” decoration. The binding has a tight, smooth back and tight joints with minimal rounding and backing. The textblock is ploughed with yellow-colored edges and sewn sawn-in on four cords, though only two cords are laced through the boards.
The primary condition issues include a fully detached front board and a back board attached only by the sewing support cords. The leather cover shows red rot and cracking on the spine and edges. Both endcaps are missing, and the leather title label is partially detached.
Due to the decorative spine, it was decided to face the spine with rubber cement before lifting it for rebacking and board reattachment. While some loss of leather fragments was anticipated due to the red rot and cracking, this approach was taken to preserve as much of the original spine as possible. However, given that the leather was easy to lift, alternative facing methods may have been preferable to reduce leather loss.
Once the leather spine was faced and removed, the spine was cleaned and lined with multiple layers of Japanese papers (Uso Mino Thin and Okawara). Brown Moriki was applied as the final layer and toned with Golden acrylics. The original leather spine was reattached to the new paper spine using PVA to prevent discoloration. The rubber cement was removed with some loss of gold tooling and leather fragments occurred.
This treatment was conducted in consultation with Ann Lindsey.
