The fore edge

One of the books I bought in Grasmere yesterday was a copy of Barbara Kingsolver’s new book - ‘Demon Copperhead’. I think it’s a kind of take on ‘David Copperfield’ set in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. I do like the author’s work, have read and enjoyed many of her books and this got some good reviews. So it was a book I was going to buy and, when I came across this beautiful copy in the bookshop, how could I not buy it there and then.

It is a special independent bookshop edition and, as well as the beautiful cover, it has these exquisitely decorated page edges which take the cover design right round the book. A work of art I think.

I looked into this page edge decoration and found that it has the proper name of fore edge painting or printing. Of course I remembered that many old books have coloured edges, especially religious texts which might have been painted in gold leaf. The idea of colouring the edges is used more than I thought, but the decorating with patterns and even images has a long history. It used to be done by hand and was seen as a fine art, sometimes images were incorporated which became secret as they could only be seen by fanning the pages. All quite fascinating.

Of course the fore edge painting on this book would have been printed commercially, I’m not sure how. But I love it.