1855. Hewitt’s Ancient Armour.

Ancient Armour And Weapons In Europe: From The Iron Period Of The Northern Nations To The End Of The Thirteenth Century, by John Hewitt. Oxford and London: John Henry and James Parker, 1855. First edition. 8vo. Decorated blue cloth. TEG. Illustrated. 387 pp. [The Bookmark]

Pictured (right) is the second copy of this title to come to light in a dust jacket made from a scrap sheet from another book. In both cases, the scrap sheets are from the same book, Catechetical Notes and Class Questions, Literal and Mystical, Chiefly on the Earlier Books of Holy Scripture, by Rev. J. M. Neale, D. D. (Rivingtons: London, Oxford & Cambridge, 1869); or from its 1872 edition.

The bindery for both the 1855 Hewitt and the 1869/72 Neale was Burn of London. When the first jacketed Hewitt came to light, it seemed it might have been Burn’s file copy in a unique jacket. Now that two are known, this may be how the bindery jacketed the books for distribution, by using waste paper lying around the shop.

Ancient Armour was issued as one volume in 1855 with second and third volumes added in 1860. The work was also reissued in three volumes that year. One set has been noted with 1855 on the first title page and 1860 on the second and third, with all three volumes numbered on the spines. Another set has 1860 on all three title pages but no volume numbers on any spines. The two jacketed copies are dated 1855 and have no volume numbers. If they were bound in 1855, they were evidently in storage for years before being jacketed. Or they may not have been bound until circa 1869.

Jackets made from printed scrap may have been common in the nineteenth century. Some binderies probably used such paper (as well as plain and wax paper) whenever publishers did not order specifically printed jackets. Scrap paper was also used to some extent to cover unbound sheets. Jackets made of printed scrap would have been discarded more often than any other type—at least it is unlikely that booksellers would have put books out for sale wrapped in the unrelated printed sheets of other books, or that purchasers would have saved such jackets. They truly were for storage and shipping only. The two Hewitts evidently were never displayed or sold. Except for some browning to the endpapers, they are in new condition. They were found in a Belgian bookshop that was cleaning out old forgotten stock—just the kind of shop one would like to browse in.

(right) Binding and jacket of the other 1855 Hewitt. In both cases the bindings are identical and the jackets only differ in that they are different leaves of the Table of Contents of the 1869/72 Neale. The sheets are printed on both sides with parts of six pages showing on each side. They were machine cut into jacket form. Image shows underside of jacket with folded flaps. There is offsetting on the jacket from the binding design. Click to see larger. [The Bookmark]