Paper

This week's blog will attempt to focus on the types of paper found in The Anatomy of the Brain and Nerves, by Thomas Willis, published in 1978. This book was published by The Meriden Gravure Company for the The Classics of Medicine Library. Unfortunately, this information was not helpful and letting me find what type of paper the book was printed on, but this does not mean that the book lacks special paper qualities.

To start, one of the most notable qualities of its paper can be located at the endpapers; these pages are made of marbled paper. Marbled paper is paper with an added aqueous surface design that gives the paper a texture similar to that of marble.

     

Examples of Marbled Paper

There are many different patterns of marbled paper, each one with its own unique colors and designs. One of the best things about marbled paper is that you can actually make it on your own:

As you can see, this is a very simple way to make marbled paper and it allows for one to be very creative in coming up with his or her own design and style. However, making marbled paper is not for everyone, so if you are one of those people who wants to select from a large variety of marbled paper, there are now websites that dedicated to the selling of all types of paper, including marbled.

The paper in this book also contains gilt-edging. Gilt-edged paper is paper that is gilded, or covered with something gold, along its edges. This is a little tougher to do on your own, unlike paper marbling, but like marbled paper, it adds to the importance of the book beautiful. Marbling paper, when done right and by a professional, will have some of the most appealing colors and designs. It can be difficult to make very amazing marbled paper, so when a book contains this type of paper, it adds to its value. Gilt-edging give the pages of the book a special shine; the human eye is attracted to what shines. So although gilt-edging may not be made of real gold, it still appeals to us, and thus results in increasing the value of the book. 

Gilt-Edged Paper