William Nott

Summary

A bookbinder.

2 Annotations

Third Reading

San Diego Sarah  •  Link

In the Middle Ages, reading was not a popular pastime: usually the only books read were those of a religious nature.
Given the lack of interest in reading, some bookbinders began to bind two books together, in such a way as to "save" volume and weight to the hypothetical readers.
It became quite common to bind two texts together such as the New Testament and the Book of Psalms in England in the first half of the 17th century.
The books were bound so that the leading edge of one was adjacent to the spine of the other.
The back cover was shared by being sandwiched between the two. By placing this book on a shelf, its spine was facing outward while that of the 'twin' was facing the inside of the shelf itself.
This odd binding style is known as dos-à-dos, a French word meaning "back-to-back."
Over time, this style was extended to more books, until we found real chains of 7 volumes linked together.

Until the mid-20th century this way of binding books survived, then both the technique and the skills of the bookbinders, true artists of yesteryear, were lost.

For a picture, see
https://www.amusingplanet.com/201…

I don't think Pepys did this during the Diary years. Has anyone seen his library and can tell us what it looks like? Dos-à-dos would mean you can't see half of your titles.

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References

Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.

1669