Bible Design and Binding

Cover to Cover: Two Good Bookbinding Methods ... and One Bad One

Ever wonder how your Bible's cover is attached to the book block? Have questions about the differences between traditional paste-off bindings and more exotic edge-lined bindings? With help from a variety of sources, I will attempt to shed light on the fascinating topic of cover construction and binding style. 

First the basics. A paste-off binding attaches book block to cover by means of adhesive applied to the endsheets, which are then pasted off -- i.e., glued down all along the length of the cover. Most Bibles are made this way, as are hardcover books. The process of attaching book block to cover is called "casing in," which is why another name for hardcover bindings is casebound. The "case" is the constructed cover. Edge-lined bindings work a little different, but we'll get to that in a second.

1. PASTE-OFF BINDING

This is what a paste-off cover looks like before casing in:

Imagine the leather upside down on the work table, nice and flat. Two large pieces of bookboard are glued down to form the front and back covers, then a thin strip of bookboard is attached for the spine. The edges of the leather are folded over the bookboard and glued down. Because the corners are rounded, the leather has to be folded in a series of puckers to finish each corner. The example pictured above comes courtesy of Nicholas Gray at R. L. Allan. It's the split calf cover from the Brevier Clarendon wide margin. 

Here's another example, courtesy Bob Groser at Cambridge. It's split calf again, this time from the Clarion ESV:

You could easily confuse the two, right? That's because they both originate in the same shop, Jongbloed. The covers are manufactured via a semi-automated process which Bob describes like this:

The leather will have been cut from the tanned hide and then pared around the edges to aid the 'turning in' of the outer cover. In the case of the paste-off it will be turned in and glued over pre-cut latex-impregnated cartridge paper (the liner). Cambridge liners have the channels along which the covers will 'hinge' cut out as 'voids' to aid the flexing of the covers.

To visualize the binding process, imagine the finished book block resting with its spine aligned along the spine of the cover, like this:

The glue is applied to the white sheet you see above, which is the underside of the endsheet. Now imagine the endsheet descending onto the cover:

And being pasted flat against the cover:

The endsheet must overlap the turned-in edge of the leather. That, my friends, is how it's done. The endsheets are glued to the book block on one side and to the cover on the other. This holds the book together. Should you decide to have your Bible rebound, a bookbinder will take the binding apart using special tools that separate sheet and cover. Or, if he's a brute like me simply curious about how books are put together, he might run a razor down the hinge in the endsheet, severing the book block away from its cover. (Bad boy.)

For a better idea of how the paste-off binding is all put together, here's a cross section provided by Margie Haley of Leonard's Book Restoration, which does lovely rebinding work. This represents the standard cover Leonard's offers:

From left to right, the first section is the underside of the leather cover. Next, the grayish section is the bookboard underneath. If you look along the bottom, you'll note that the leather turn-in, which is overlapped by the endsheet/liner. I am assured that no actual rebinding projects were injured in the course of this illustration!

2. EDGE-LINED BINDING

The second style of binding -- rarer, but quite prevalent in high-end editions -- is called an edge-lined binding. I'll admit, the first time I heard the term, I entirely misunderstood what edge-lining was all about, assuming it had something to do with the edge of the cover. Banish that thought. Instead, there are two key differences to keep in mind.

First, apart from the spine, an edge-lined binding does not use bookboard between the lining and the cover. The two layers are glued directly together, which is why edge-lined bindings are so incredibly limp. Personally, having experimented with the thinnest bookboard I could find, there is no board supple enough to rival having no board at all. 

The photos above illustrates the second difference between edge-lined and paste-off covers. The edge-lined cover has its lining attached to the cover first, not the book block. Then, flaps are cut at the spine. The book block is glued to these flaps. The photo above shows the Brevier Clarendon wide margin's cover. This is the natural goatskin cover with a blue leather lining. The point where the book block attacheds to the flap looks something like this:

As you can see, the flap extends under an attached endsheet like a tab fitting into a slot. Bob Groser describes the extra labor necessary for prepping book blocks for edge-lined binding like this:

A hand cut imitation leather or real leather 'topper' is positioned on top of the spine flap from the inside cover of the edge-lined case and connected to the endpaper by 'stiff leaving' a portion of the join to disguise the flap. Thus the endpaper is glued down about 1/4 to 1/3 of the width of the endpapers.

The amount of contact between endsheet and bookblock is actually quite similar to what you'd see in a paste-off binding, since only a strip of liner near the spine is actually glued to the endpaper. (This is why you'll often find that the stiff endsheet and the edge of your book block seem to be stuck together. They are.) Here's another edge-lined cover, this time from Cambridge's Clarion ESV. The black goatskin is lined with polyurethane, with the flaps cut in a similar fashion to what we saw above:

The turn-in on Cambridge edge-lined Bibles is also sewn for extra reinforcement. Whether this is necessary or not is a good question. The only time I've ever experienced a popped up turn-in on this kind of binding was on a vintage Bible. I think it sat in the box so long that the glue dried up. While the stitching is probably redundant, it does contribute to the overall aesthetic. The Allan cover depicted above does not have this extra stitching. 

3. BOOK BINDING GONE WRONG

Our tour of binding styles wouldn't be complete without a little horror story, would it? This one comes courtesy of Leonard's. As you can imagine, given the number of rebinding projects they do every year, quite a few interesting covers cross Eric Haley's work bench. This one left him particularly ... let's say, perplexed. After all, the printing on the back of the cover declared it to be "deluxe," but what he found under the hood seemed anything but. 

(Let me pause here to suggest that, on a quality Bible,
one ought not to find the leather grade and ISBN stamped
in gilded type on the outer cover.)

This edition was printed and bound in China. On the outside, the leather feels super soft. It reminds me of a pair of inexpensive gloves, except there's a certain thickness, a certain spongy heft to the cover. While the leather doesn't impress, the binding itself seems quite limp. Deluxe? It certainly looks the part at first glance. When Eric cracked it open, though, the story got interesting.

So the white sheets above are the endsheets. Think of the tears as excavations. The black stuff that appears to be a lining Eric believes is actually some kind of latex paint. When you pull at it, the feeling is similar to yanking on a particularly fragile balloon. Underneath that layer, instead of the underside of some fine deluxe calfskin, we find that gray stuff, a woven fabric reminiscient of a cotton T-shirt. This is what gives the cover that soft, spongy feeling. 

The spine does not feel spongy like the covers, and that's because the black pigskin board is attached directly to the calfskin. The calf itself is thin -- again, think about the gloves on clearance at Wilson Leather or somewhere similar. 

If you enlarge the photo, you can make out the notes -- including my favorite, which compares the mull used to back the spine to gauze from a First Aid kit. After picking the cover apart, the only way I can think to descibe it is this: a parody of edge-lining, with some fabric stuffed between the layers to give the impression of heft. 

Fortunately, that's not what you're getting when you buy a quality edge-lined edition from the likes of Cambridge or R. L. Allan. Whatever method of construction your Bible uses, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. Quality materials make for quality covers. Good construction is worth paying for. Hand bound products will show variation. And nothing lasts forever. If you buy good shoes, when the leather sole wears down, you can have a new one sewn on. In the same way, a well-constructed book block can outlast its cover, which can be both repaired and replaced. 

Crimond House Two Version Bible (KJV/RV) in Black Calfskin

Crimond House is the publishing wing of Ards Evangelical Bookshop in Northern Ireland. In 2007, they published the Two Versions Bible, resurrecting an out-of-print text setting from 1899 which includes the King James Version with variants from the Revised Version noted in the outer margin. Not only is the edition a fascinating historical artifact, but it also provides an opportunity to highlight a small publisher who decided to do everything right. 

In the late nineteenth century, as the project to revise the venerable King James Version came to completion, English-speaking readers were faced with a challenge very difficult for their twenty-first century descendants to imagine. They had grown up with a single translation of Scripture, its words interwoven into their culture and literature going back nearly three centuries. And now at long last, the translation was being revised -- not just modernized, but actually changed. How was one to keep track of the differences?

Come to think of it, maybe that's not such a difficult scenario for us to imagine. Even today, when revisions are announced to favorite translations, a wave of uneasiness spreads through the ranks. "What are they going to change this time?" people ask, sometimes with excitement, often with dread. It's like finding out the government revised your birth certificate and changed your middle name to Maurice. In other words: unsettling.

For Victorians, there was an answer to the dilemma in the form of editions like the Two Version Bible, which spelled out the differences clearly. I have seen a couple of KJV/RV interlinears before, including a hardcover Cambridge which sits on my shelf:

Above: Cambridge's KJV/RV Interlinear Bible

Confusing? Yes, it is. Once you get the hang of it, though, not so much. The Cambridge Interlinear gives you the text of the KJV right up until there's a variant. Then the line breaks into superscript and subscript, with the King James reading on bottom and the Revised Version reading on top. In the photo above, if you were reading verse 36, you'd see that the KJV has it: "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only." Whereas the RV reads: "But of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only." The two changes are immediately evident as you scan the text -- though it does get a little difficult to disentangle them. 

The Two Version Bible takes a much simpler approach. The text of the King James is in the column, with notes in the margin indicating where the Revised Version differs.

Whereas the Cambridge approach allows the nimble-eyed to read either the KJV or the RV aloud, the Two Version Bible is geared more to the KJV reader who'd like to be aware when the RV differs from what he's accustomed to. As the photo above illustrates, the KJV's reading of Matthew 24:36 is given in the text column: "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."

The superscript numbers next to "man" and "but my Father only," signal marginal notes, where we find the RV substituting "one, not even" for "man," and inserting "neither the Son," between the angels and the Father. For good measure, there's another note on the second instance explaining that "many authorities, some ancient, omit neither the Son," taking back with one hand what it gives with the other. 

Both editions feature cross references in the inside margin. Because it renders the KJV in an uninterrupted flow, the Two Version Bible can still serve its original purpose for modern readers of the King James who want to be alerted when the text underlying the translation is in doubt. 

Contributing to the Two Version Bible's continued usability is its form. Crimond House had never ventured into the world of Bible publishing before, though in the past they had commissioned special editions from oxford and Cambridge. To ensure a good result, they enlisted the help of an agent who had formerly been Oxford's Bible manager in the UK, Nigel Lynn. The edition was printed and bound in the Netherlands by Jongbloed. 

The Two Version Bible features one of Jongbloed's excellent edge-lined bindings, in which no bookboard is inserted between the outer leather and the polyurethane lining, resulting in a limp, flexible cover. It also comes with beautiful art-gilt page edges. There's only one ribbon. It's black and a bit skimpy. Otherwise everything about this nicely-appointed edition feels right.

The cover is soft, grainy calfskin that peels back easily (see above) offering very little resistance. Even better? Jongbloed recommended a 40 gsm paper manufactured in the Czech Republic. As a result, the Two Version Bible seems impressively opaque in comparison with many of its contemporaries. Like vintage Bibles, there is some showthrough, but it is less pronounced than we've grown accustomed to in modern editions. Isn't it strange that a small outfit on its first outing in the world of Bible publishing can manage what so many of the experienced players don't? 

It's really time for the opacity of Bible paper to increase. While no one expects miracles, I would like to see publishers start disclosing the specs of the paper used in their editions -- not to mention using higher spec paper. Even if the increased cost were passed along to readers, we would be happy to foot the bill. When I asked people on the BIble Design Blog Facebook page whether they'd pay an extra $10 or even $20 to cover the cost of opaque paper, the affirmatives were overwhelming. In reality, the increased cost would be less, perhaps much less. 

Glued bindings are great for Bibles nobody is reading. The same goes for cheap, translucent paper. Those of us who buy Bibles with the intention of using them expect quality binding and quality paper.

The Two Version Bible delivers both. I have to say, it's quite strange to be handling what looks like a vintage Bible in decidedly non-vintage ways. The cover pancakes under the weight of the book block when I apply one of my patented yoga moves:

Like the edge-lined covers from Cambridge, which it strongly resembles, the Two Version Bible has a stitched turn-in providing additional reinforcement and decoration. 

When I hear of small publishers resurrecting long out-of-print books, I tend to imagine muddy photocopies and cheap glued bindings. Nothing about the Two Versions Bible fits this stereotype. It's nicely printed on fine paper with a quality leather binding. It even comes in an attractive, sturdy crimson box. If you like your King James with a twist of late Victorian RV, the Two Version Bible would be an excellent choice.

Inside a Book Block

Thanks to Cambridge's Bob Groser, I'm able to offer an inside look at how a Bible's book block is assembled and prepped for "casing in" (i.e., for having the cover attached). Bob provided a trio of book blocks in various stages of completion and stepped me through the process. The Bible in question is the Clarion ESV, but the process illustrated is common to quality Bibles.

1. THE LOOSE SIGNATURES

The Clarion is printed on a Timson web press "specially configured for accurate lightweight printing." An interesting geographical note: while the sheets are printed in the Netherlands, the Timson is actually manufactured about fifty miles from Cambridge in Northampton, which is also the manufacturing center for English shoemaking.

After printing, the sheets are folded into signatures -- in this case, 80 pages per booklet, which works out to twenty folded sheets. The tick marks on the spines of each signature are designed to ensure proper order. They're numbered -- twenty-six, not counting the maps -- and the marks form a diagonal line for easy visual confirmation. 

If the Kingdom of God is already and not yet, the same might be said for this Bible. Holding the loose signatures tightly at the spine, you can flip through it and envision the finished book it will become. At the same time, the pages are untrimmed, which means the front edge hasn't always been separated. There are grayscale guides along the bottom and, of course, the whole thing is easier to part than the Nile River. 

2. THE STITCHED TEXT BLOCK
Now it's time for sewing:

The signatures are Smyth-sewn together. The trick is to do this loosely. As I learned in my bookbinding class, when a book block is bound too tightly, the pages don't open as easily as they ought. Before binding, a sewn text block will show gaps between the signatures when opened, the stitches clearly visible. The process of binding tightens things up a bit and closes those gaps.

Note that these blocks are machine-stitched. The result is a little different in appearance from hand-stitching. The former looks stronger to me -- perhaps because there are so many more holes! I've hand stitched books together, punching six to eight holes in each signature. With the machine there seem to be more points of connection. Someone with more knowledge of both processes would have to say whether one is stronger than the other. Suffice to say, Smyth-sewn bindings are very good.

Endpapers are sewn on, too, while the endsheets are "tipped on" -- i.e., they are glued. Cambridge typically uses imitation leather endsheets. In a paste-off edition, which is the traditional method, the text block is connected to the cover by pasting the endsheets down onto the back of the cover. 

At this point, the book block feels very much like a book. There are still some details missing, however. The bare spine will have to be prepped before the cover can be attached. The three edges will need trimming before they can be gilded. And we'll need decorative headbands and some ribbon to finish the look.

3. THE FINISHED BOOK BLOCK (READY FOR CASING IN)
There are two types of binding common on Cambridge Bibles, the traditional paste-off edition mentioned earlier and the more labor intensive edge-lined edition. The text block illustrated here is prepped for a paste-off binding -- specifically, the brown calfskin cover. Hence the brown ribbons and the brown-and-gold headbands.

First, the sewn book block is compressed prior to gluing -- "a rather alarming and noisy process," according to Bob. In the parlance of binding, the text block is said to have been "nipped" or "smashed." Now that the signatures are nice and snug, glue is applied and the book block is rounded, which gives the spine a gentle curve. Then it's ready to be backed. Backing consists of applying a thin layer of glue, then wrapping the spine in a net-like wrap called mull. This strengthens the spine, in particular the bond between the block and its endsheets. 

Next, the edges are trimmed and gilded. As Bob describes it, gilding is quite a complicated process:

"Three passes through the gilding machine (one for each side) then round cornered trimming and corner gilding with gold metallic foil (occasionally real gold is also used) followed by the art gilding process to give the 'red-under-gold' effect if required."

Somehow, I'd always imagined three swipes and you're done. Rounding the corners and re-gilding them came as a surprise. I also thought of gold gilding and art-gilding as two completely different processes, so the workflow interests me quite a bit. 

Applying ribbons is quite simple: they are positioned by hand then affixed with glue. The decorative headband goes on top, giving both ends of the book block a finished look. In the old days, headbands were sewn by hand, but now the near-universal practice is to use pre-made ones, even in handbound books. A wide varity of colors are available. 

For those of you interested in Bible hacks, such as adding additional ribbons, the photos above help illustrate the cleanest way to achieve a result. The easy method is to slip the ribbons down the spine and glue them in place, but this results in them traveling over the headband, which doesn't look correct. Ideally, you would need to use a tool to separate the headband from the book block, then pass your additional ribbons through the gap, pasting the headband back in place when you're done. It's much trickier, but results in a better outcome.

Now we have a book block ready to be cased in. In every respect but one, this is a finished product. In fact, I have used it in its unbound state on a number of occasions for reading. Trust me, no cover at all is the limpest binding you can imagine. (Sadly, you do end up fraying the backing, as you can see in some of the photos above.)

I'd like to offer special thanks to Bob Groser for the time he invested in illuminating the process. Needless to say, any errors in the recounting are mine alone. 

New Cambridge Paragraph Bible (KJV) in Black Calf and Hardcover

A quick history lesson: Bible Design Blog started in 2007 in advance of the publication of my book Rethinking Worldview. Before then, I posted the occasional essay about Bible design and binding at jmarkbertrand.com, a site devoted primarily to my writing. The idea was to move all the Bible-related stuff to a blog of its own, perhaps even to update it from time to time. The four or five people interested in such things could follow along. I honestly worried that no one would ever be able to find the blog.

The original posts on this site were grandfathered over from the old one, so they actually date back farther in time than their dates suggest. My original post on the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible, for example, is dated September 2007. In reality, it's older than that. The NCPB was published in 2005, and while it heralded the dawn of a new era, borrowing its name from Scrivener's nineteenth century Paragraph Bible, my review noted some disappointments, primarily having to do with the size of the book.

The NCPB was a single column, paragraphed setting of the KJV at a time when no one offered such a thing in print. Unfortunately, it was also a brick. So I urged Cambridge to come out with a hand-sized edition of the NCPB. In 2011, they finally did. The problem is, by that time they had also released the Clarion KJV, another single column setting. So in this update, we're going to look at the new editions of the NCPB, comparing them both to the original and their obvious rival, the Clarion. 

The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible isn't just another KJV. This description from the original listing captures the spirit of the project well:

The standard editions of the 1611 King James Bible (or Authorised Version) currently available give, with little variation, the text as established by the Oxford edition of 1769. They give the reader, therefore, a seventeenth-century text in mid-eighteenth century clothes – clothes which are neither original nor modern. In this new edition of the King James Version the text has been collated with the translators' original work in order to give the reader as closely as possible the exact text on which the translators decided. It has also been given consistent modern spelling and presentation in order to make it easier to read and study than standard editions. The text is presented is paragraph form, with marginal notes.

In other words, you're getting the text as the translators intended you to read it, the form accommodated for readers four hundred years later. The result is a beautifully proportioned layout, with text set originally in 12.5 pt. Swift. The new Personal Size editions are 87% reductions of the 2005 setting, which lowers the type size to roughly 11 pt. (see the photo below).

These editions, like Crossway's Legacy ESV, were printed and bound in Italy by Legatoria Editoriale Giovanni Olivotto, or L.E.G.O. for short. They're available in hardback and black calfskin. For a sense of how they size up in comparison to the original and the Clarion, let's take a look at all three:

Above and below: Clarion (top), Personal Size NCPB (middle), and original NCPB (bottom).

Looking at the image above, think compact Bible/full-size Bible/pulpit Bible and you've got it about right. The Personal Size NCPB is large enough that it doesn't spoil the majesty of the original layout, but handy enough to carry with you without the aid of a servant. It is also large enough to disguish the NCPB from the Clarion, minimizing the apparent redundancy in releasing two hand-sized paragraphed KJVs so close together. 

Before this release, the handiest way to experience the NCPB was the Penguin paperback, which is roughly the same trim size as the Personal Size NCPB but half an inch thicker (1.5" vs. 2"). 

Comparing the two, we have an illustration of the frustrating trade-offs involved in Bible publishing. The Penguin edition wouldn't know the difference between fine India paper and Kleenex. It's printed on the sort of paper you'd expect in a Penguin paperback, perhaps slightly thinner in deference to the book's size. As a result, this edition (which you can pick up on Amazon for a tenner and change), appears substantially more opaque than the leather bound edition. See if you can tell:

There is ghosting -- i.e., show-through -- on both pages, but the Penguin (top) fares better than its upscale cousin. And you can enjoy this superior opacity if you're willing to put up with the additional bulk. The thin paper Bibles are printed on trades opacity for width and weight. Frankly, I wouldn't mind an extra half inch or so for an increase in opacity. Unfortuately the Penguin's glued binding makes it clumsy and unsuitable for rebinding. 

Compared to the smaller Clarion, the Personal Size NCPB offers some distinct advantages, but also displays some of its shortcomings. The Clarion is slightly thinner. It is also shorter and narrower, which combined with a limp binding allows more of a short and stout feel in the hand. 

There are no cross references in the NCPB. The marginal notes are located on the inside margin, as opposed to the Clarion's more traditional outer margin location. This gives the NCPB an advantage: the text doesn't curve into the gutter. The Clarion's text appears slightly denser on the page, although laying one page of the NCPB over the Clarion, the space between the lines nearly matches. Even the fonts, Swift and Lexicon, don't look that different, although Swift seems a little more spacious. Typographically, the NCPB abounds in elegant touches -- for example, the way the psalms are headed is much more attractive than the type treatment in the Clarion.  

Where there is no comparison, however, is the quality of the binding. The Clarion, printed and bound in the Netherlands by Jongbloed, manifests a superior level of fit and finish. As I pointed out in the video, the gilding on the page edge is marred by a very noticeable wavy line. The cover construction also seems a little rough at points. Based on this example and the issues Crossway had with the first generation cowhide Legacy covers, I think L.E.G.O. still has some work to do in the quality control department. If the major publishers use them more, perhaps the resulting pressure to improve will help. 

Above: The wave. Below: The rough.


The calfskin cover is, however, very soft and limp. Bible yoga proved no trouble whatsoever. The bookboard under the leather seems much less substantial than the Clarion's, for better or worse. 

The photo above really illustrates the beauty of a limp binding paired with a single column setting -- particularly one with the notes in the inner margin. The text column flows uninterrupted, and the unread page can be folded away handily. 

I'm grateful to Cambridge for releasing these Personal Size options, and also for making one of them a hardcover. I wish every text setting was available in a nice hardcover. They're great for reading, great for study, and allow you to pack the Bible anywhere without having to worry about damaging your lovely leather binding. The hardcover opens flat, too, which is essential. 

 

Pitt Minion vs. Compact Text ESV

Appearances can be deceiving. Which of these two Bibles is bigger, the green or the brown?

If you said the green, it's no surprise. Although it appears perhaps a hair shorter in the photo above, the green Bible, a Compact Text ESV from R. L. Allan, is clearly the thicker of the two -- at least 1.5 times larger than the brown volume, a Cambridge Pitt Minion. 

But turn them around and ask the same question. Which of these two is smaller?

See what I mean about appearances? Because of its semi-yapp cover, the Compact Text appears to be as tall as the Pitt Minion. In fact, it's both shorter and narrower. When you hold it in your hand, the Compact Text feels much smaller than the Pitt Minion. This photo tells the story best:

A third question: does smaller mean better? Let's admit from the outside that a post called "Pitt Minion vs. Compact Text ESV" is about as absurd as, saying, "Legacy vs. Clarion." There are similarities, sure, but there are big differences, too. Still, the comparison is relevant in at least one regard. Before the Compact Text ESV came along, the Pitt Minion was arguably the best all-around "compact" edition, even if its form factor stretched the definition just a bit. The Compact Text existed in the form of Crossway's Deluxe Compact, but its binding wasn't in the same league as the Jongbloed-bound edition from Cambridge.

Now there's a new version with an excellent binding, so the question is, "Can the Compact Text ESV replace the Pitt Minion as the leading small-format copy of the ESV?"

Above: My four-year-old, broken in Pitt Minion (left)
vs. a brand new Compact Text ESV (right).

Viewed from above, the two Bibles manifest that deceptive similarity in form. Inside, the two layouts appear quite different, though there are interesting parallels. The Compact Text doesn't have a center column filled with cross references. If you pulled those references out of the Pitt Minion and butted the two columns together, however, you'd end up with a proportion similar to the Compact Text's. That's because the actual text columns in the two Bibles are the same width -- 1.5" across. The Pitt Minion's type is set in 7 pt. Lexicon. The Compact Text is slightly smaller at 6.5 pt., and while the type is presumably Lexicon as well, there's less letterspacing, so the lines look tighter all around. While a Pitt Minion text column is six inches tall, the Compact Text's column is only 5.25". 

Boiling it all down, I would say the Pitt Minion is easier to read, while the Compact Text is easier to carry. In terms of layout, however, I'm giving the nod to the Pitt Minion.

The Pitt Minion excells in another area, too, which is opening flat. As you can see in the photo above, the Compact Text required an assist to keep Ephesians 1 front and center, whereas the Pitt Minion can hold that pose all day long. While the Compact Text will perhaps improve with use in this regard, I can't imagine it ever rivaling the Pitt Minion's open-flat friendliness. 

In terms of paper quality, my first instinct is to crown the Pitt Minion again. It was printed in the Netherlands, not China -- isn't that enough? Well, here's the thing. While the Compact Text shows enough bleedthrough to make me wish Crossway had printed it on more opaque paper, the Pitt Minion sports a five o'clock shadow, too. I'm going to call this one a wash, although I lean a little toward the Pitt Minion because its paper feels nicer to the touch. 

Where the Pitt Minion really can't compete is aesthetics. I'm not prepared to say that an Allan binding is more durable, longer lasting than any other. The Pitt Minion's classic pastedown binding, in which the endpapers are pasted securely all along the cover's length, might be more rugged than the Allan's edge-lined style, where the book block is secured to the cover via tabs at the spine. Then again, maybe not. I have no idea. But the elegance of the latter is indisputable. The Allan binding is more refined to the eye and feels better to the touch. 

Which is not to say that the goatskin of one is infinitely better than the other. I imagine they're comparable in quality. What makes the Allan binding so nice is the semi-yapp cover, the leather lining, the gilt line around the inside, the neat gold imprint inside the front and back cover, even the lined paper in back. It's all very nice, completely delightful. The overall effect wins you over at once.

Is that enough, though, to crown the Compact Text triumphant?

Here's what I think. The Pitt Minion is still the best all-around edition. No, it isn't the most compact, but it does small pretty good. You get references, a slight bump in type size, and that coveted flat-opening cover. There's a reason some people use the Pitt Minion as their one-and-only, and the Compact Text won't change that.

However, while the Pitt Minion is a superior all-rounder, the Compact Text delivers true small-format performance. If you're looking for a small edition to fill the portable niche, then form factor will be more important to you than font size and references. The Compact Text is a better choice.

The Swiss Army's Solution to Tiny Type

"My poor eyes can't take the strain!" This lament reaches my inbox every couple of days, aimed at the increasing difficulty aging readers experience with the tiny print inside their Bibles. In a context where 12 pt. type is considered large print, this is not surprising. Sadly, there isn't a miraculous ultra-thin, super-large-print compact Bible on the market that nobody's told you about. 

Victorinox, however, the makers of the iconic Swiss Army Knife, have a solution:

If you are straining your eyes to figure out what's in the picture above, it's a magnifying glass. This model knife is called an Explorer Plus. (The Plus means there's an extra screwdriver, a pin, and a ballpoint concealed within the handle.) I'm not sure which styles of SAK come with the magnifying glass, but if you struggle with the small print, you might consider finding out. 

I'm serious.

Antiquarians and consulting detectives throughout the ages have availed themselves of a magnifying glass in order to read fine print (and discover clues). The principal is similar to that employed by the cheap "reading glasses" they sell at the drug store: a little lens magnifies the size of what you're looking at, making it easier to see. The problem with the glasses is they slip to the tip of your nose and make people think you're a judgmental librarian type. With the Swiss Army Knife, they assume you were going for the scissors and pulled the wrong lever. 

I wouldn't exactly call the level of magnifcation provided by the SAK "robust." Laying on the page, it just about doubles the size of what's beneath, which is not too shabby. Examining the photo below, you'll notice that the word "hear" in the magnifier is a lot easier to read than the word "hide" in the next verse. Wave one of these in front of the R. L. Allan Compact Text ESV and that 6.5 pt. type expands to, like, 11. If you hold it back a bit, you're in large print territory.

Whenever the Levenger catalog arrives in my mailbox, I always flip through to make sure the Franklin Library Stand Desk is still there. One day, I hope to have one of these -- or a vintage equivalent -- in my office, with a nice big lectern Bible on top:

See the little globe poking up above the book? That's a magnifier. It comes with the desk, which is a thoughtful touch. Here's another image, illustrating the domed magnifier a little better:

The idea is that, as you're reading, you place the dome on top of the page and it makes the words freakishly large. If you carried one of these things in the wild, you'd be mistaken for a fortune teller -- not to mention the risk of starting unintentional fires. But in the comfort and privacy of your reading abode, using such an aid is perfectly acceptable.

For reading out and about, I recommend the Swiss Army Knife. 

R. L. Allan Compact Text (ESV) in Black, Brown, Green, and Crimson Goatskin

The original Compact setting of the ESV was so tiny and hard on the eyes that, the first time I visited Crossway, they cried mea culpa when the subject came up. Just to show how out of step I am, the reason I brought the little Bible up was to lavish praise on its portability. I've always been a fan of tiny Bibles. Remember the snap-closure Bibles they used to sell that were so small they came with magnifying glasses? Normal people saw this and thought, "Something has gone terribly wrong in the world." Me, I was delighted. In an anticipation of my future life as a Bible design blogger, my first question was whether, if you tried these things out in the sunlight, the pages would burst into flame.

Crossway replaced the original setting with the Deluxe Compact, which featured darker and larger print at the expense of a slightly larger overall footprint. I liked the result so much that I had one rebound in tan pigskin. Now, R. L. Allan has come out with line of exquisitely bound editions of the text setting, available in four colors: black, brown and crimson Highland goatskin, and (a new addition to the line) sea-green Alhambra goatskin. Now called the Compact Text ESV, they are available from R. L. Allan direct and at EvangelicalBible.com. 

Featuring the revised 2011 ESV text, these Bibles start with Crossway's standard text block, which is printed in China. The paper appears off-white, especially in lower light, and there is noticeable bleedthrough, particularly in verse passages. 

As you can see in the photo below, the Compact Text is a two-column, paragraphed setting without references. At 7 pt., the type is crisp but small. Make no mistake, if you have difficulty reading fine print, this is not the right Bible for you. No typographical magic exists to compensate for aging eyes. If you can handle the print, however, the Compact Text has a lot to offer. 

If you ignore the difference in text settings, a good way to think about the Compact Text ESV is this: It's an Allan Reader's ESV zapped down to miniature size. You get the same range of features : the limp goatskin binding with leather lining, three ribbons, art-gilt page edges, semi-yapp cover, even the additional lined notepaper in back. Only the 6" x 4" form factor makes everything so ... cute. 

Later in the week, we'll compate the Compact Text to its obvious rival, the Cambridge Pitt Minion. For now, one anecdote that illustrates the quality of the Allan binding. When the Compact Texts arrived from Glasgow, I handed them one-by-one to my wife and asked her to pick a favorite color. Then I handed her my brown Pitt Minion along with the brown Compact Text. "Which one would you choose?" Like a sensible person, she looked inside. It was a no brainer: the Pitt Minion was much more readable for her. Handing them back, though, she asked to see the Compact Text again. "If it was just about the aesthetics, this would win hands down." She could hardly make out the words, but was tempted to choose that one anyway. Behold the power of Highland goatskin and three golden ribbbons.

Because I received the black review copy a few weeks prior to the others, I had a chance to spend more time with it. Typically, if there's a choice of color, black doesn't appeal to me much. Without a choice, I found myself re-evaluating. The black goatskin cover paired with blue ribbons is truly elegant. Nine times out of ten, when it comes to Bible binding, black is blah. It's the knee-jerk, traditionalist wrapper, about as intentional as the scuffed black dress shoes at the back of your closet you only wear at funerals. Here, however, black is beautiful. 

Since the Pitt Minion mates perfectly with my personal-sized Filofax, I wondered how the Compact Text would pair up. It's thicker than the Pitt Minion, but also shorter and narrower. I've tended to think of the two formats as roughly equivalent, but the Compact Text feels like a smaller Bible. As a result, things that carry easily in the hand along with the Pitt Minion feel too large for the Compact Text. This should help illustrate the point:

The Compact Text (top) may sport some additional girth, but it's a good half inch narrower and shorter, which makes it feel substantially smaller. The Pitt Minion's wider pages probably handle better -- but then, that's one of the trade-offs when you sacrifice size for portability.

One of the things I have always admired about R. L. Allan's UK-bound ediitons is the level of fit and finish that goes into the covers. They remind me of vintage deluxe editions (like this Eyre & Spottiswoode) much more than they approximate their contemporary rivals. Refined without being showy, they exude old world elegance. Of course, the cover is only part of the story. A beautiful binding can't transform a poor text block. In this case, I give the overall effect a thumbs up.

I also appreciate the fact that, as the covers change, so do the linings: black for black, red for red, brown for brown, and green for green.

Highland goatskin is a term of art R. L. Allan uses to describe natural grain goatskin. In other words, this leather has not been stamped with an artificial grain pattern. Rather, it's natural grain in all its wonderful, organic asymmetry is on display. This allows the leather to remain limp (the process of imprinting grain uses heat, which stiffens the skin) and ensures irregularity. The covers show similarities, but they also differ from one another substantially.

The sea-green Alhambra goatskin cover, by contrast, features a much more regular grain, without the fissures and creases you find on the natural skin. While the imprinting hasn't resulted in a stiff leather -- handling the two types, most of us wouldn't notice the difference unless it was pointed out -- in addition to the regularity of grain, the cover possesses a crispness the natural goatskin doesn't. 

Perhaps the best way to observe this quality visually is to compare the semi-yapp edges. The red cover, which was cut slightly larger than the others, curves more substantially and puckers quite a bit near the top of the spine. The black and brown are less pronounced, but you'll notice a soft, uneven look to the edges. By contrast, the green cover looks very clean and regular. 

Perhaps this qualifies as splitting hairs, but people often ask me about the difference between natural grain leather and printed grain skins, so I figured I would chime in here. In my world, there's a place for both. The differences are aesthetic, not qualitative. 

All of the Compact Texts come with three ribbons. The black and red covers have blue ribbons, the green has green ribbons, and the chocolate brown cover comes with gold ribbons. I'd be hard pressed to choose a favorite; however, while I could imagine the other colors working with a different shade of ribbon, to me the brown-and-gold pairing is ideal. I've never seen any color paired with brown that I preferred to this. Happily, a number of R. L. Allan's latest chocolate brown bindings come with these gold ribbons.

The Compact Text ESV is clearly a niche editon. I can't imagine very many people embracing it as their one-and-only. Having said that, the fact is, you could. This would make a great Bible to travel with, a great everyday companion. I would bring it to church in a heartbeat, knowing the small size wouldn't get in the way as I juggled hymnal, order or worship, and whatever else I happened to have at hand. As you read this, I am traveling cross country lecturing at Worldview Academy, and the Compact Text ESV is the Bible I've taken with me. 

While it probably won't replace your full-size edition and it isn't as optimal for pure reading as the Legacy and Clarion ESVs, the beautifully appointed Compact Text is smaller, more portable, and up to the job.

Breaking In the Pitt Minion

As I mentioned earlier in the week, my brown goatskin Pitt Minion has served as a mainstay during the past four years. If you had told me in 2008 that this would happen, I would not have believed it. Frankly, I hated the thing at first. Hate is a strong word, but you have to understand, I had such high hopes for the brown Pitt Minion. I'm not a black Bible kind of guy, nor am I a stiff cover kind of guy. So I needed the Pitt Minion to be non-black (check) and soft (uncheck). 

While the cover wasn't as stiff as some late nineties calfskin I could mention -- so stiff you could put an edge on it and slice fingers -- the Pitt Minion wasn't soft. It could stand all by itself, which is a great thing if you're a toddler learning to walk. Not so much if you're a high-end Bible.

"Don't think I'm going to treat you special," I told the Pitt Minion. "'Cause you're not special. You're stiff." True to my word, I twisted the cover, bent it, curled it, rolled it up like a newspaper -- and I did all this with white-knuckled intensity becasue I didn't care what happened. If I ripped the cover off, if I tore the binding, none of it mattered. 

A great man once said -- was it Bono? -- that karma is getting what you deserve and grace is not getting what you deserve. In the case of the Pitt Minion, I received grace. All this abuse didn't destroy the little Bible. It made the Pitt Minion better. I can't exactly recommend the procedure ... but it worked. 

If I had to describe my Pitt Minion's cover today, I'd called it "rubbed." It looks well-handled, because that's exactly what it is. All that twisting -- along with more conventional use -- has resulted in the cover wrapping around the edges somewhat. There's a little pinch at the spine. Near the headband and along the top edge, there are some pale nicks in the leather.  

No, the cover didn't turn limp. It still possesses enough of its original rigidity to support the text block in my hand. But I've found I quite like that. Part of the break-in process involved softening the cover. To be more precise, I was bending and stressing the board underneath. Part of the process was also, in some esoteric sense, making this edition my own. 

There's a tendency for those of us who appreciate well-made Bibles to consider them as objects to collect and admire rather than use. All bibliophiles are prone to this. Michael Russem writes about the phenomenon in the Fall 2007 issue of The Bonefolder in a piece called "The Failure of Fine Printing." See if this rings a bell:

Because we are so accustomed to mass market productions, the physical elements and processes traditionally chosen for fine press books -- handmade paper, letterpress, and hand bindings -- are foreign to the average reader and thus call too much attention to themselves, over stimulating the senses and spirit. It is impossible to handle them without relishing in the deliciousness of the materials -- though all the while feeling panic over the possibility of damaging these precious items. It is difficult to imagine curling up in bed with a full leather or a delicate paper binding as one would do so readily with a paperback. Because the editions are so luxurious and often unwieldy, it is impractical and terrifying to read these book. People are often afraid to even touch them.

The end result, with apologies to Augustine, is that we take, but we do not read. Ironically, in pampering "fine" books this way, we are giving in to the assumptions that drive mass market consumerism. Equating quality with luxury, perpetuating the idea that some things are too well made to actually use, is what keeps the abismal standards prevalent in the industry alive. And Russem is talking about true fine press books. By his standards, the high-end Bibles we cherish are mass produced. 

Above: Note the light dots near the head and where the top layer has flecked away.

When I stopped caring about preserving the Pitt Minion, when I stopped caring even what happened to it, I discovered this little Bible really was made to be used. It hasn't fallen apart. There aren't any missing pages. The ribbon hasn't even frayed significantly. The abuse hasn't ruined this Bible's looks. In fact, to me, it looks much finer than your shiny new ones in their glossy protective boxes. 

All it took was a little of this (see above). "I will break you," I said. And the Pitt Minion, channeling Paul Atreides, replied: "I will bend like a reed in the wind." 

Cambridge Pitt Minion (ESV) in Brown Split Calf

Four years after its release, the Pitt Minion ESV remains one of my go-to editions. To borrow from the late Steve Jobs, this Bible has a "magical" form factor. It's small and thin enough to qualify as a compact edition, but sufficiently full-featured to serve as your main (or only) Bible. I wrote about the Pitt Minion in depth when the new editions first came out. Today, we'll bring the story up to date and take a look at one of the new cover options: brown split calf.

In some respects, my love for the Pitt Minion makes no sense. As you know, I'm an advocate for single column, paragraphed text settings -- Bibles that look like the kind of books you read, not the ones in which you merely look things up. I also tend to prefer the "less in more" approach when it comes to inserting study apparatus in the text. If they're subtle, I can abide chapter and verse numbers, and even section headings. But everything else, including cross references, leaves me cold.

On top of that, the books that feel best in my hand tend to be short and stout. Our mania for thinline editions seems to do more harm than good, in my view. When your 1000+ page, small-print Bible is half the thickness of a 300-page thriller in hardback (and ten times more difficult to read), I'm not sure the trade-offs are really worth it.

And yet, for the past four years, the Bible I've done more reading from, more teaching from, and even more preaching from is the Cambridge Pitt Minion. Why? Despite the smaller size, I find the Pitt Minion quite readable. The relative proportion of type size to column width seems to work, even if I have to hold the page rather close to my middle-aged eyes in certain light. Also, the slightly-larger-than-compact size makes the Pitt Minion easy to handle, easy to hold onto. 

Probably the best thing the Pitt Minion has going for it is its spring-open binding. These Bibles lay flat, and that's the most important handling characteristic I look for. 

The Pitt Minion is printed and bound by Jongbloed in the Netherlands, and recently Jongbloed has been turning out some excellent split calf bindings. They're not as limp as goatskin, not as elegant as fine calf, but they are attractive and affordable alternatives to the run-of-the-mill bindings most publishers are still offering. They have visual and tactile interest.

Finely grained leather often appears more elegant. A deep printed grain like we see in this split calf conveys more rugged connotations. The covers feel more rugged in the hand, too, which may be as much a function of the board under the leather as the skin itself. The brown split calf cover in the photos reminds me quite a bit of my brown goatskin Pitt Minion when I first received it: nice to look at, and stiff enough to stand all on its own.

There was a time when I abhored such stiffness. I wanted Bibles to come out of the box like melted chocolate, as elegant and slouchy as an odalisque on her couch. While I'm still a fan of limp bindings, my experience with the brown goatskin Pitt Minion reminded me of something I've always known: there's something to be said for things that break in over time. Like a pair of good shoes (i.e., the ones with the soles stitched on, not glued), a Bible can break in as the result of frequent use, developing a lived-in charm that will never come fresh out of a box. Those of us who baby our Bibles and keep them sheltered in the box never experience this. It's a shame.

The split calf is an excellent choice if you're on a budget. It makes sense, too, if you're one of those people who actually wants a certain degree of stiffness in a cover. I'd trust one of these upright on a shelf far more than it's squishy cousins. Later in the week, we'll take a look at my four-year-old goatskin Pitt Minion and see how it compares to this one.

 

 

Summer Schedule

Every summer, I pack my bags and hit the road, lecturing across the country in conjunction with Worldview Academy. The weeklong camps, hosted at universities throughout the US, focus on practical theology, apologetics, and leadership training. While it's a wonderful experience, something I love doing, the usual consequence for Bible Design Blog is silence during the months of June and July. 

Not this year.

I've planned something special for you during Summer 2012. For the last few weeks, I've been feverishly writing and photographing and even filming, creating enough content to guarantee that Bible Design Blog will not only not go silent in June and July, but will be updated more frequently than ever before. 

In June, we'll be looking at the R. L. Allan Compact Text ESV (in four colors), the Personal Size editions of the New Cambridge Paragraph Bible, and a unique KJV/RV interlinear published by Northern Ireland's Crimond House. We will also check in with my well-loved four-year-old Cambridge Pitt Minion to see how it's holding up, and take an inside look at how book blocks are assembled. At the end of the month, we'll also look under the cover and see the inner workings of two types of binding: paste-off and edge-lined.

In July, after a peek at Hendrickson's facsimile 1611 Edition of the KJV, we'll go in depth with a series of recent R. L. Allan editions: the HCSB in luxurious crimson Highland goatskin, the new NIV bound in a less limp brown goatskin that I absolutely adore, and the NRSV in brown Highland goatskin (a truly welcomed edition for lovers of that strangely under-represented translation). We will also have a look at a series of interesting vintage editions: a mid-century masterpiece printed in Italy, a letterpress Gospel, a three-volume KJV that (for me) doesn't live up to the hype, and the fascinating Eric Gill-designed Aldine Bible. At the month's close, we have beautifully produced edition of the Hebrew Gospels. 

Along the way, expect a surprise or two. The fun kicks off this Monday, June 4, with a look at the Cambridge Pitt Minion in brown split calf, and it won't let up for the next nine weeks!

So I have two favors to ask: 

(1) Tune in. If you haven't already bookmarked the site or subscribed to the RSS feed, now is the time. We're going to have a lot of content coming out in a relatively short amount of time (especially by BDB standards), so don't miss it.

(2) Talk about it. I always appreciate being linked to, re-blogged, tweeted, etc. The videos included in some of the reviews are simple to embed in your own posts and share. Help a brother out and spread the word.

PS ... One of the things I enjoy about traveling cross-country is the opportunity to meet Bible Design Blog readers in person. My schedule this summer follows Worldview Academy's Northeast route, and includes weeks in St. Paul, MN; Deerfield, IL; Upland, IN; Grove City, PA; Rochester, NY; Keene, NH; and Lancaster, PA. If you're in or around those locations, send me an e-mail and let me know.