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old book binding

From Edgar, Oscar and Elizabeth Little

How many men have dated a new era in their life from reading a book. ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden

For me it was not reading, but receiving a book that marked a new stage in my life. In the summer of 2000, a guy I had just met while studying in Paris returned from a weekend excursion to London with a gift for me. No special occasion required the gift; it was only intended as a reflective display. What I took out of the crumpled paper gift bag was an old edition of Edgar Allan Poe’s work.

The look on my face must have been one of genuine bewilderment, because despite only having known me for ten days, he had chosen the perfect gift. old books? Check. Favorite author? Check. French connection? Check. (The book’s foreword was written by Chateaubriand.) In one of our few conversations up to that point, I must have mentioned my fledgling collection of old books, perhaps while strolling through the bookstores in the Latin Quarter in Paris. Armed with that tidbit, he had taken the time over a wild and crazy London weekend to find a book for me, and in those first few seconds as I held the book in my hands, I knew a new era had begun. in my life. I better hold on to this boy.

Fast forward a few years. The guy from Paris and I had been married for a couple of years when I got back to our house and immediately noticed that our dog hadn’t run to the door to welcome me. We had recently adopted Oscar from the local animal shelter, or “juvie” as my husband calls him, and although he was an adult at the time, he was still at the end of his puppyhood. In other words, he was chewing everything he could get his teeth into. Do you see where I’m going with this? I knew right away that Oscar was up to no good, and I could hear his fingernails squeaking on the hardwood floors in the guest room.

Here’s the part where I tell you my old book collection lived in the guest bedroom. When I finally worked up the courage to look, what I saw can be more accurately described as a parade of tickers. It was as if the Tasmanian Devil and Cookie Monster had circled the room, shredding, tearing, tearing, and salivating along the way. Oscar had been ruthless. Eight-dollar pillows from Target lay unscathed on the bed, while specks of old books washed up across the ocean from Paris floated like snowflakes. Voltaire, Proust, Racine… gone, gone, gone. Despite having equal access to the newer books of less sentimental value to me, he chose to subject my most prized books to his razor-sharp canines. By goodness, luck, or time constraints, Oscar hadn’t shredded my prized Poe book, though the spine had ripped loose as he bit into it. Dog discipline was the last thing on his mind as he crumpled me to the confetti-covered floor and sobbed. Oscar left the room with minor visions in his head, with his tail between his legs.

Now fast forward a few more years. The fragile books that escaped total annihilation in Oscar’s paws are in the backseat of my car, and we’re on our way to meet Elizabeth Little in New Iberia. Elizabeth owns the Bayou Bindery, a business I learned about during the Louisiana Book Festival in October. With my mouth hanging open I looked at the before and after photos that were exhibited at the festival, because I honestly didn’t know that my tattered books could be restored. Those dramatic photos, like Extreme Book Makeover, made me believe, and a few weeks later I was on LA 31, damaged books in tow.

The Bayou Bindery resides in an adorable cabin in the downtown district of New Iberia, and when I arrived, the front door was wide open to let in even more natural light. Elizabeth brings her book miracles to life in a charming and uncluttered workspace featuring photos and memorabilia from friends and family, a beautiful chandelier, and bird-themed decorative touches. And even though the cabin isn’t where Elizabeth lives, you feel like you’re in her house. When she’s done taking in those cozy items, the book press in the corner, the sewing rack on the floor, and the scalpels and other hand tools on the wall will remind her of the business at hand.

After a quick look at my damaged goods, Elizabeth asks, “Do you have a dog?” She must have seen these cruel bite marks before. She tells him the story of Oscar, including Poe’s book and what it means to me and my husband. We decide he’s the one to go under the knife first, especially when she tells me that her mentor (more on her later) had just restored the Poe family Bible for an exhibit at the Library of Virginia.

Although I feel at this point that my Poe book was meant to be restored in the Bayou Bindery, she feels my underlying misgivings. Elizabeth asks me nicely what she asks all of her nervous customers who are attached to the “original” condition of damaged books: “Does she just want to look at the book? Or does she want to be able to read it and approve it?” . your kids?” She was absolutely right, plus the restored book would make the perfect Christmas present for my husband. (Not a surprise though.)

And the magic of Elizabeth’s work is that the restored book is not some shiny, soulless, unrecognizable edition. She’s your old fascinating character from a book, only stronger. She can reverse the damage caused by the aging of the book’s innards, or she can do more cosmetic work as in the case of a dog attack. “I love working with my hands,” she tells me, and it’s completely hands-on as she deftly dismantles a damaged book to assess and repair underlying problems.

Remove the covers and spine to reveal faulty lining or adhesive, or damaged threads holding the pages together. Elizabeth explains that deteriorated books are often the result of overly acidic lining, and she occasionally comes across old sheet music or newspapers as book covers. She makes a wheat paste that not only removes the old coating, but also serves as an acid-free adhesive for the new Japanese fabric coating. If the pages need to be re-stitched, Elizabeth manipulates the linen thread and needle with ease. Years of sewing clothes for her children paid off for her.

I was like a three year old, asking “What is this?” for almost everything my eyes fell on the binding. Elizabeth spent the day patiently explaining how she repairs torn pages (using different weights and shades of oriental fabrics), leather covers with missing dog-mouth pieces (a process that involves shaving and sharpening a new piece leather to fit the width of the antique), or worn hinges (wax pastels or watercolor pencils are used to match the color of the original). Her extensive knowledge and collection of tools led me to assume that she had studied the trade at the college level and had been a practicing crafter ever since, so I was surprised to find that she had only started bookbinding about ten years earlier.

On a trip to visit her sister in Virginia, a bookbinder’s poster piqued her curiosity, and soon after, Elizabeth was working one-on-one with the bookbinder who would become her mentor. She calls Jill Deiss of Cat Tail Run Hand Bookbinding in Winchester, Virginia, a master bookbinder, and speaks of her with obvious respect and admiration. “I feel like I’m learning the right way.” Although the formal apprenticeship is over, she continues to consult and learn from Deiss. This year alone, she has attended two Master Series courses at the Cat Tail Run. Last spring, she learned more about paper repair and in October she was there to learn about gold leaf tools. (I don’t want to spoil a surprise, but someone close to Elizabeth will be unwrapping a book with exquisite gold leaf details this Christmas. She’s quick to put her new skills to use!)

So she never intended to be a skilled craftsman; she just found a new interest and followed it. A friend of Elizabeth’s once told her, “Some people come across new projects and just stand on the edge, looking down into the hole. But you just walk in.” And while she never expected to be a bookbinder, she’s not surprised either. “I’m very task oriented. I’m a project person.” Her other “projects” include a nursing career (after many years as a nurse, she now volunteers one day a week at a clinic in Lafayette) and an educational garden at the local elementary school. She beamingly recounts a recent visit to the school where, because of the booming basil, she made pesto with the students, “and they loved it! It just goes to show that if they grow it, they’ll eat it. Or at least give it a chance.” . “

We laughed at his job in high school, where he worked in the bound book repair department based at the city library. His instructions were, “Just tape some duct tape and put it back in traffic.” Even then, he never thought that he would continue to repair books. And though she’s an avid reader, she doesn’t have a collection of old books of her own. She told me, “Books speak to you at different times in your life. I enjoy the books that come my way and then pass them on.”

With a constant stream of interesting books in the bindery, I guess you don’t really need to collect them. He recently worked at Roosevelt the rough riders, in the McIlhenny family collection. (John Avery McIlhenny left the Tabasco company to join Roosevelt’s cavalry regiment in 1898.) A Thoreau society in California sent it A week on the Concord and Merrimack rivers for restoration. He especially enjoys restoring family bibles, the 19th-century French prayer books sent to him by locals, or the World War II battalion yearbooks that seem to arrive in waves at the bindery.

He came up with a new project while we were walking around town after lunch. We had wandered into the soon-to-be-opening Bayou Teche museum for a preview, when the director said to Elizabeth, “I was hoping you’d come by. I’ve got something I want you to see.” When he left the museum with a huge dusty guest book from the Hotel Frederic to restore it, I thought: “Every town should have a binding.” Excited as a child on Christmas morning, Elizabeth opened the ledger as soon as we returned to the binding to read the names of past guests at the historic hotel.

People always ask him, “What is the value of this book? How much is it worth?” But Elizabeth is less impressed by the monetary value, the rarity, or the first edition of the books. “For me, it’s more interesting to know why people are so attached to them.” Many of her clients are seniors who want to leave a beloved book in good condition. “I can feel the legacy when I work on those projects.”

Elizabeth Little and her Bayou Bindery will now be among the main characters in the story told when we pass our Poe book on to the next generation. Garrison Keillor once said: “A book is a gift that you can open again and again.” And while that wasn’t entirely true for the wonderfully fragile book I received in Paris, it’s certainly the case with this restored Christmas gift.