20 A binding by Kate Greenaway for her book, ‘The Language of Flowers’.

Paper binding

Kate Greenaway.

1884

A card binding with a printed image on glazed paper, engraved in colour by Edmund Evans

6 x 4¾ inches

An original design, which elegantly presents the book’s idyllic, Regency imagery in the most charming form: the symbol of a pre-industrial age and a reminder of the fact that the Victorians associated relaxation with the (supposedly) more innocent days of rural England before the coming of coal and steam.

[Click on image to enlarge it.]

Photograph and text by Simon Cooke

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]