Hello booklovers!
A few weeks ago I ran a poll on my community page for my next video, and this wander through
my bookshelves to pick out some of my favourite page edge designs was the winning topic.
I’m going to focus on the more interesting designs, but I’ll just start by saying I
do have a lot of books with gilt edges, this one here is a recent edition of Wuthering
Heights by Emily Bronte, and they’re also on Barnes and Noble leatherbound editions,
Easton Press etc.
In addition to making books look more beautiful, gilding of page edges was actually introduced
around the fourth century as a means to protect pages from damage caused by the oils on human
hands.
In medieval times, gilt edges were also sometimes impressed with patterned designs, which is
a cool technique called gauffering.
Because in these times books were often stored with the fore-edges displayed outwards, it
was actually one of the ways that different volumes were differentiated from each other.
Marbling of page edges is another beautiful way of decorating page edges, and it can be
found on even some of the driest books from the turn of the century – this pretty one
here is actually a French manufacturing dictionary.
I’ve experimented a little
in making my own hidden fore-edge paintings, where you can only see the design when the
pages are fanned out because the rest of the time they are hidden under the gilt edges.
This book here is Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, from Cornell University.
But today’s video is really about more recent books, because recent advances in digital
printing technology have meant that printers can now economically print large runs of multi-coloured
images along the head, foot and fore-edge of books, which finally puts them within reach
of the average collector.
So, I’ve picked a few of the more interesting designs out of my shelves to show you today.
This first one here is Box of Demons by Daniel Whelan – this one is a fun children’s
book about a young boy trying to send a box of mischievous demons back to hell.
The black-sprayed page edges are held closed by a mock clasp, and it has a hidden pop-up
cover under the front boards.
Next we have Song of Sorrow by Melinda Salisbury, sequel to State of Sorrow – a high fantasy
young adult novel about a land in mourning.
This beautiful detailed sprayed edge is a Waterstones exclusive, which I’ll include
a link to below as there are still a few copies available.
The lightning bolt design is from the latest in Maz Evans’ humorous children’s fantasy
series Who Let the Gods Out.
These adventures feature slapstick versions of the Greek Gods and lots of comic one-liners.
A limited run of first printings for the books in this series featured the same design with
different coloured page edges for each book.
These gorgeous painted beetles are from the first print run of Beetle Boy by MG Leonard.
This is a fun middle grade novel that also teaches you some interesting beetle facts
along the way.
Waterstones also printed a limited number of matching edges for the later books in the
trilogy.
These double helix designs feature on Emily Suvada’s dystopian science fiction trilogy
about gene hacking, This Mortal Coil.
The story does feature a few typical YA tropes, with an angsty protagonist and a bit of an
instalove triangle, but the science is addressed accessibly, which is nice in a post-apocalytpic
novel, and the story works well as an atmospheric thriller.
This gorgeous edge painting is from the Waterstones exclusive edition of Malamander by Thomas
Taylor.
This is a fun middle grade fantasy, with lots of creative wordplay and a wonderfully eerie
seaside setting.
An interesting tidbit for you is that the author is also the illustrator who painted
the cover art for the first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
He has done the interior artwork for Malamander as well, although the cover design is by a
different artist.
This one with the orange and black stripes is meant to look like the body of a bee, as
it’s for the English translation of Norwegian author Maja Lunde’s The History of Bees.
This novel is an epic narrative that follows three generations of beekeepers against the
backdrop of a global crisis that arises as our population of pollinators collapses.
It’s quite a slow read, and rather grim, but the symbolism of the relationship between
the parents and their sons, and the earth and its bees is clever and interesting if
you like literary fiction.
Next up we have The Chalk Man by CJ Tudor, which had a limited print run of these chalk
figures that actually run around the whole book block, including the spine instead of
a title, so it looks pretty cool on the shelf.
This book is a thriller set in small town England, and the chalk men are initially used
by a group of kids as part of a secret code, until they are co-opted by a murderer.
This rainbow edge for Birthday by Meredith Russo represents an lgbt-coloured birthday
candle, as the book traverses six different birthdays in the lives of two small town friends
who were born on the same day – one of whom is transgender.
All the first print runs for this edition have this design.
Next of course we have the Harry Potter house editions, which have the house colours sprayed
around the edges and the scarf design down the fore-edge.
Also, before anyone asks about Hufflepuff, I am buying one house for each book in the
series, so obviously I will be getting the Hufflepuff design for Goblet of Fire.
I Am Number 4 is the first in Pittacus Lore’s Lorien Legacies series of paranormal young
adult thrillers – and all of the first print runs for the UK hardbacks featured the title
sprayed across the fore-edge.
The sequel series has a matching ‘Lorien Returns’ sprayed on it as well.
The books have foiled titles under the dust jacket, but for some reason my edition seems
to have the title printed on upside down.
This next one we have is Vox which is a dystopian set in a future America where women have been
silenced by having the number of words they can speak rationed to 100 per day.
It’s obviously not a particularly realistic future, but the set-up is really about creating
an opportunity for the author to explore the importance of language in ensuring political
and personal freedom, which was for me the most interesting aspect of the book.
This hardback is the Goldsboro limited edition, but I’ve seen a paperback edition with a
similar design on edges floating around as well.
This book here with the creepy ‘one more soul’ stenciled on the fore-edge is The
Edge of Everything by Jeff Giles.
It’s a YA urban fantasy romance thriller starring a supernatural bounty hunter who
harvests souls, hence the tag line.
It’s the first half of a duology but Bloomsbury did not print a matching hardcover for the
second book, which – argh – is so annoying!
This gorgeous design is on A Thousand Nights by EK Johnston, and the whole book design
is really stunning.
As well as the gold stenciling on all the edges, the book has a pretty die cut dust
jacket which you can also take off to reveal this glorious hidden cover.
It even has patterned endpapers.
It’s so pretty.
The book is an inventive reimagining of 1001 Nights, set in a beautiful desert kingdom,
with the action spurred forward by fierce love between two sisters.
The last one from this pile is Unsheltered by Barbara Kingsolver.
The patterned fore-edge actually continues the wallpaper from the dust jacket.
This novel is another literary fiction that weaves together stories from past and present
of two families living in the same house in New Jersey as they navigate cultural shifts
– one a science teacher excited by Darwin’s new theory of evolution, and the other a family
split by current political divides.
It’s a little didactic and I found it hard to escape the feeling that I was being lectured
to, but I was quite drawn to the use of place as character.
Now, this next stack of books are from the Reimagined Classics series – I’ll add
a link to a more in-depth review of these above, as I think they are really well-done.
So here I’m just going to high-light the edge treatments.
Unfortunately, the most recent three books have been a little plain, but the first printings
of the earlier volumes are exquisite.
The Wizard of Oz uses geometric shapes that are emblematic of the illustrator’s style
along the edges.
(I was kind of hoping it was a code actually, but it appears it’s mainly decorative.)
Pride and Prejudice has really striking orange edges with a pretty floral pattern all around
the external edges.
Poe’s stories features a suitably creepy silver on black which appears to have Poe’s
signature and a sketch of his face hidden under ink splotches.
Grimm’s Tales features a rhyme from Sleeping Beauty, reading ‘Mirror, Mirror, here I
stand, who is the fairest in the land?”
And my favourite, Alice in Wonderland, has three famous phrases from the book, with ‘We’re
All Mad Here’, “Who in the world am I?
Now that’s a great question.”
And, of course, “Off With Her Head!”.
A quick post-script here with Something to Live
For by Richard Roper which just arrived in my mail today, which has this cool train track
on page edges.
Obviously I haven’t read this one yet, but it’s supposed to be a contemporary fiction
about the lies we tell ourselves to fit in, and the risk of falling through the cracks
of life I hope you’ve enjoyed this tour – and
if you’re someone who loves finding this sort of extra artwork on books, I’ll add
a link below to a page which has a really long list of these and other interesting treatments,
along with links on where to find them if you can.
As well as a preorder link for this cool limited edition of Rainbow Rowell’s Wayward son
which has patterned edges to match Baz’s suit, because it is selling out fast!
I’d love for you to share your own favourites in the comments, whether they are ones I’ve
covered here, or if you have some other hidden gems in your own libraries.
Thanks for watching, and I look forward to next time!
Bye!