CHARLES PARKHURST RARE BOOKS

CHARLES PARKHURST RARE BOOKS, Inc.
RARE AND COLLECTIBLE BOOKS

4242 N. Scottsdale Road
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(480) 947-3558
fax: (480) 947-4563
Hours: 10:00-5:30 M-F
Sat. 10-5
info@parkhurstrarebooks.com

Dear Friends and Fellow Binders,

The Harcourt Bindery of Boston, Massachusetts (USA) is the last large hand-bookbindery in America still working in a 19^th century tradition, an equivalent and competitor to companies such as Bayntun’s of Bath. Our building in Boston and many adjacent buildings were sold recently to be turned into condominiums. Over a year ago The Harcourt Bindery was told that its lease would not be renewed, and that a move this summer was inevitable. The company was founded in 1900, and had only moved twice before: during World War I the shop moved to 9-11 Harcourt Street in Copley Square, Boston after a fire at 13-15 Harcourt Street; in 1986 the bindery moved to a similar sized space in a turn-of-the-century building in the old leather and wool district in downtown Boston, an area noted for printers, artists and other creative, manufacturing industries.

To stay in Boston after our move this summer means that Harcourt has to downsize. We’ve been the largest for-profit hand-bindery in the U.S. for decades and will remain so; yet at one time we were simply one among many such binderies which existed throughout the country. You may also know of us as a major supplier of materials and instruction. As the last in a long tradition, I believed that the company should be documented, and that several of the techniques which we employed over our century should be preserved.

2 DVDs have now been fully edited. Each runs well over an hour. The first is called “Bookbinding at The Harcourt Bindery, 2006.” It traces how we bind and decorate a basic cloth and leather book, giving a sense of what the bindery looks like, its array of equipment and machinery, and the techniques we use for the production of our books. The second DVD, “Nineteenth Century Bookbinding Techniques at The Harcourt Bindery,” shows how production speed goes hand in hand with producing a quality product. How could 100 or more multi-volume sets, bound in full leather with doublures and silk flys, along with rich spine tooling be done so quickly and so competently as to be profitable and admirable? There is no reason why binders today cannot cover 15-20 full leather bindings in a morning as once was done. This DVD shows some of the production efficiencies used, all of which are still valid today.

Each of the DVDs is priced at $15.00 each + $3.00 dollars for shipping and postage. To order one or both, please send the relevant amount made payable to:

Sam Ellenport
205 School St.,
Belmont, MA 02478

I will ship on receipt. If you prefer, I can arrange billing by credit card through Paypal, in which case contact me at sam@harcourtbindery.com. I can also accept Sterling cheques: 8.50 pounds for 1 DVD, 17 pounds for both.

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