A spine that had been repaired three times already

The book came in a plastic bag, which is how the difficult ones usually arrive. An 1897 family bible, full leather, with a spine that had been reattached at least three times: once with animal glue, once with what was almost certainly parcel tape, and once with a strip of red bookcloth that did not match anything.

The owner wanted it to close properly and to survive being opened at the family register page, where four generations of names are written in three different inks. Nothing more ambitious than that.

Most of the two weeks went into removal. Tape adhesive that has aged into the leather does not lift; it has to be softened in small areas and eased away with a bone folder, and every pass risks taking the grain surface with it. The red cloth came off easily, which was the only kind thing the previous repair did for us.

You are not repairing the book. You are repairing four people’s attempts to repair the book.

The original spine survived in three pieces. We lined the back of the text block with airplane linen, rebacked in toned goatskin, and laid the original spine pieces back down in their correct positions, gaps and all. It does not look new. It looks like a book that has been mended, which is what it is.