Bernard Middleton Creates a Designer Binding for his "History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique"

Bernard C. Middleton (1924-2019) was one of the leading hand bookbinders in England during the his long life that spanned from 1924 to 2019. He was also a pioneer in the creation of so-called antique style replica bindings, and the leading historian of English bookbinding from the standpoint of bookbinding technique. His A History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique underwent four editions between 1963 and 2008.

Probably in the late 1990s I acquired a copy of the third edition of Middleton's History of English Craft Bookbinding Technique in a fine designer binding. When I purchased the book the dealer from whom I acquired it could not identify the bookbinder who had created the binding. However, I liked the binding, and set it aside on my shelf as an unsolved problem. Over the years it remained in my personal collection of unusual bindings.

Somehow in August 2021 I decided to re-examine the designer binding, and for the first time I noticed a small binder's stamp dated 1991 on the rear free endpaper. The stamp was hard to read but it seemed to me that it could stand for B C M (Middleton's initials). Searching for designer bindings on the internet, I found the article published on 26 October 2014 in the Collection Care Blog of the British Library entitled Bookbinder Bernard Middleton celebrates 90th birthday. There I found a reproduction of a binding by Middleton on Tidcombe's The Bookbindings of T. J. Cobden-Sanderson (BL shelfmark C.188.b42) that used a tool identical to a tool used on my binding. That and stylistic simularities suggested to me that I had finally identified the creator of the designer binding on my copy--none other than Bernard Middleton, himself.

Remembering that Middleton's archive and library is preserved in the Cary Graphic Arts Collecton at the Rochester Institute of Technology, it seemed reasonable to assume that Rochester would hold designer bindings by Middleton that might contain the same binder's stamp. I emailed photographs of my binding and its stamp to Dr. Steven Galbraith, Curator of the Cary Graphic Arts Collection, who was kind enough to email me photographs of similar stamps by which Middleton had signed other designer bindings. Thus one small bibliographic mystery was solved!