Exhibits

Disbound and Dispersed: The Leaf Book Considered
April 16–July 16, 2005

 
 

William Caxton, by E. Gordon Duff [With an original leaf from the first edition of the Canterbury Tales printed by Caxton in 1478]. Chicago: R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company at Lakeside Press, 1905. Photo credit: Bob McCamant. Photo courtesy of the Collection of Michael Thompson.

   
Disbound and Dispersed: The Leaf Book Considered was the first exhibition to examine the history of the leaf book. A late nineteenth-century development, a leaf book contains an original leaf from a significant printed book or manuscript that has been complemented with an essay or other explanatory material and rebound in a fine press publication. While this practice more widely distributes portions of the original, coveted book, it comes at the price of either destroying or dispersing an intact or partially fragmented publication.

This landmark exhibition included approximately 60 leaf books with manuscript and printed leaves ranging from the twelfth through twentieth centuries. The exhibit items were drawn from three private collections and the collections of Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, Brigham Young University, Harvard University, Indiana University, and R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company. At the Newberry Library, the exhibit was supplemented by related materials from the Newberry’s collections.

The exhibit was organized by the Caxton Club of Chicago, a society of book collectors founded in 1895 and named after the first English printer, William Caxton. The exhibit marked the one hundredth anniversary of the club’s own leaf book, William Caxton by E. Gordon Duff.

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