![[The] Silmarillion; book-collecting minutiae](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgT-faC2Y_gBpt3IpK_4nvGVC6GsDDpolwU5rS-6Ujo5ouvuH5JGUcpoRAAt5patgsOjxpNQrOJK9yIAzPSHhYoPXWK7Ri-3RFv0mCbIqlM2Pxoy5nNbuccgXj14mNQy75iQlRC5PuyPsxEMh70tqmDdJ8veSeUFA09l7gdXfDd1zP-JMfs-klLu2nWWGef=s456)
Blocking Style: Lord Halsbury and Messrs. Whiley's Newvap Gold
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In the post The Silmarillion — Clowes Book Club (1977) I mentioned a ‘file copy’ of The Silmarillion sent by WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS (printers), in August 1977, to BOOK CLUB ASSOCIATES (BCA). Inside this copy, aside from the date (and job number), are details of the binding materials and blocking style used by CLOWES. The covering material (‘Designation of Cloth’) is given as ‘LINSON’; this is a cloth substitute, which I may discuss later. But the ‘Style of Blocking’ I didn't recognise; or, perhaps more accurately, the handwritten word wasn't very clear to me.
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Over the years I have occasionally (and fairly indiscriminately) bought book-trade material from around 1977 in the faint (or delusional) hope of chancing upon information pertaining to The Silmarillion, or matters relating. One such item was British Book Design and Production 1978 (The National Book League, 1978)—featuring books published in 1977—which, of course, had nothing directly relating to The Silmarillion; there are a few CLOWES printed items. Reading through British Book Design again, more recently, I found I was more familiar with some of the content than some fifteen or so years ago (when I bought it), particularly in regard to printers, typography and design, technical detail, bindings, etc.
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| British Book Design and Production 1978 |
The catalogue itself is unfortunately lacking in decent photographs; short comments are given like ‘refreshing spine design’ with no corresponding image(s). There is an abundance of proprietary binding materials given in the descriptions; whether bookcloths, buckrams, or papers isn't clear (to me). The catalogue Introduction has some scathing criticism of submitting publishers too. Of the books submitted a ‘large proportion’ were of ‘no merit whatever’ with many publishers submitting imperfect copies with ‘obvious manufacturing faults’; they later observe that ‘the determination to save money at all costs seems to have got out of hand’. In fact the standard was so ‘disappointing’ the selection brief—fifty best books plus fifty runners-up—couldn't be met; there weren't 100 books published in 1977 ‘worthy of selection’. Poor quality clearly not a new phenomenon in trade publishing.
Of the books that were selected, some of the descriptions prove informative. In one entry the binding is described (no photograph) as ‘Linson, blocked in Newvap Gold’. Here we encounter LINSON again, but more importantly the partially indecipherable handwritten word in the ‘file copy’, the blocking style, is now clear.
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| BCA file copy (S.167) |
GEORGE M. WHILEY were manufacturers of gold leaf; founded in London, in 1783, and later incorporated as GEORGE M. WHILEY LTD, in 1908. Up until the 1930s they were concerned for the most part with gold and silver beating; they claim to have developed the first successful method of gold beating by machinery. By 1934 they had developed an ‘entirely new high vacuum process’ for the manufacture of genuine gold stamping foils; in the 1940s they were using this same process for metallising capacitors (in the burgeoning electronics industry) with aluminium. By 1945 WHILEY were manufacturing a ‘bright aluminium stamping foil’ marketed as VAPCO. By 1957 they had developed coloured aluminium foils using chemical dyes; the gold coloured aluminium stamping foil was marketed as NEWVAP.
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In bookbinding, genuine silver is susceptible to discolouration (more so than gold), hence is less commonly used or encountered on early bindings; this drawback—along with cost—would likely be one reason why WHILEY were interested in developing an aluminium based silverlike product generally. Their own literature refers to foils in ‘many colours’, but implies that NEWVAP referred initially to a gold-coloured foil—or foils, there may have been several gold variants (there certainly were by the 1970s)—only. The name, and what product(s) it referred to, may have evolved over time to include other non-silver colours besides gold. (My focus might be bookbinding, but the book-trade likely only accounted for a small proportion of WHILEY's total business at this time; they list many uses for their products.)
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In the 1960s GEORGE M. WHILEY LTD were established gold beaters, manufacturers of gold and silver leaf, and stamping foils; they were also wholesale and retail dealers in general artists' sundries. They had a factory based in Ruislip (then in Middlesex) and premises at 54–60 Whitfield Street, London. In 1965 they acquired ‘pigment’ (cold stamping) foil manufacturer NULEAF. In 1975–1976 they consolidated their manufacturing operations and relocated to Livingston, Scotland. In the 1980s GEORGE M. WHILEY LTD were acquired—along with other small companies—by API GROUP; in 1992 they became WHILEY FOILS. By 2006 all companies within the API GROUP had ‘adopted’ the API name; the Whiley name slips from view and into corporate history. API FOILMAKERS are still in existence today, UK headquartered in Livingston, still manufacturing stamping foils. The historic connections to GEORGE M. WHILEY are given notable prominence on the company's current website.
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In the March 1958 issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Arts—published by the ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF ARTS, MANUFACTURES AND COMMERCE (RSA)—three interesting articles were published under the heading ‘Some Practical Aspects of Book Production’; these were based on talks delivered in December 1957 as part of the Cantor Lectures.
In the first article, I. THE PUBLISHER'S APPROACH AND RESPONSIBILITIES, Philip Unwin (of GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN) makes a few notable comments. Publishers, in his opinion, have a choice to use either ‘first-class’ printers or ‘one of the competent second-grade firms’; the choice of weight (thickness) of book-boards is very important in respect to the export trade, as British books are often sent great distances including ‘through the tropics’; he also hopes the ‘so-called ‘perfect’ binding method’ will be more widely utilised in ‘higher-priced’ books. Unwin's talk is a little heavy on the economy of publishing; ‘efficiency’, costs, etc. He also criticises various other parts of the trade. I can't imagine this was the brief.
In the second article, II. THE RÔLE OF THE PRINTER, John Lewis opens with a withering critique of publishers, the materials they choose, and the problems this creates for the printer forced to work with them; he then dismantles various other arguments made by Unwin (the previous week); notes that ‘every mechanical improvement’ in the printing trade has been ‘accompanied by a corresponding lowering of the aesthetic’; thinks books printed by Mardersteig at the OFFICINA BODONI ‘fair to say... better printed than any others in the world to-day’; also mentions the potential for ‘conflict’ between binder and printer in respect to paper grain direction. This was more interesting; in some respects many of the issues discussed are still relevant today. And paper grain is something you really don't see written about very often.
The final article, III. THE BOOKBINDER AND THE FINISHED PRODUCT, by Lewis Kitcat, covers the most ground. He reminds his audience that the public ‘know nothing of the points of binding as understood in the trade’ but do discern a poor product when they encounter it; makes clear that all trade bindings are case-bound bindings at this time (as this is the only binding style executable by machine); responding to Unwin's call for the ‘elimination of hand processes’, asks what further efficiencies can be made, stating the industry to be mechanized ‘to the hilt’, the only remaining (significant) hand processes being the insertion of plates and short-run jacketing; concludes by discussing the decoration of bindings (now largely overshadowed by book-jackets) stating the blocking process to have been ‘revolutionized by the mechanical method of ribbon feed’. Kitcat's talk is an interesting overview of trade bookbinding in the late 1950s generally. And in respect to blocking, he doesn't name GEORGE M. WHILEY by name, but it is clear this is one of (if not the) manufacturer he's referring to as having made vast improvements over the last few years.
In the editorial section of this same issue there is a long opening piece on H.R.H Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, who was (in the 1950s) the Society President. A smaller write-up on stamping foils follows, drawing on information taken from a production guide ‘recently issued by the Technical Advisory Service of George M. Whiley Ltd’. Attention is drawn to Kitcat's article, but the greater technical detail is to be found in this short editorial; NEWVAP is specifically mentioned. This ‘Aluminium Stamping Foils’ piece (two paragraphs) was the first technical reference to NEWVAP that I found; surely one of the earliest trade references, aside from something GEORGE M. WHILEY might have written themselves. The entire editorial (‘General Notes’) is credited simply to ‘Halsbury’.
Earlier issues of the Journal reveal the Earl of Halsbury's involvement with the RSA from around 1952; he became an Ordinary Member of Council in July 1954. Although his name is not given, this can only be John Anthony Hardinge Giffard, the 3rd Earl of Halsbury (1908–2000). The title was created for ‘Tony’ Giffard's grandfather, and this hereditary peerage—I'm guessing hereditary—allowed Tony Giffard (also referred to as Tony Halsbury), the 3rd Earl, to sit in the House of Lords. His maiden speech to the House was in 1952; hence ‘Lord Halsbury’.
Lord Halsbury will be known to readers of Tolkien biography. Three letters to Lord Halsbury—numbers 174, 334a, and 353—are published in Humphrey Carpenter's The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (HarperCollins, Revised and Expanded Ed., 2023). Tolkien described C. S. Lewis as one of only three people to have read ‘all or a considerable part of my ‘mythology’ of the First and Second Ages...’ in a letter to Dick Plotz (no. 276) in 1965; but Carpenter notes that ‘at least three’ people besides Lewis had—by 1965 (I assume)—read ‘the mythology’, namely Christopher Tolkien, Rayner Unwin, and Lord Halsbury.
Whatever the case, Halsbury was one of the very few people in 1957 to have read ‘The Silmarillion’ material. In a letter to Rayner Unwin in December 1957 (no. 204) Tolkien quotes Halsbury—from a letter that he temporarily misplaced (see Scull & Hammond's Chronology)—as thanking him ‘for the privilege of seeing this wonderful mythology’. The ‘commentary and criticism’ Halsbury sent Tolkien was considerable, as Tolkien mentions ‘another 14 pages’ that Halsbury sent following his initial letter(s). Coincidentally, Rayner's visit to Tolkien, in the first (full) week of December 1957, was the same week that Philip Unwin delivered the first 1957 Cantor Lecture; Philip Unwin's talk was on Monday 2nd.
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| BCA file copy (faded) and S.005 (top) |
To conclude this meandering post, I think it can be said, with some certainty, that the Clowes Book Club variant of The Silmarillion—bound by CLOWES in 1977 for BCA—was blocked in NEWVAP Gold, an aluminium stamping foil made by GEORGE M. WHILEY LTD. It seems reasonable to suggest that all CLOWES produced copies of The Silmarillion were similarly blocked; there is no evidence to suggest NEWVAP was unsuitable for use on bookcloth.
The kind of minutiae you never needed to know.
For more on Lord Halsbury and his relationship with Tolkien see Scull & Hammond's The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion & Guide: Reader's Guide (HarperCollins, 2006, p. 358–359), and the numerous references also in their Chronology.
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