bindings ☜☞ encuadernaciones


Bindings are not of primary importance when talking of comedias sueltas. By definition, these ephemeral publications, like all other printed works in this period were sold without covers, and they only acquired a binding at the discretion of the purchaser. In the case of sueltas, the decision not to bind them was even more likely than with full-length books. Many personal, as well as library collections house their loose chapbooks in folders and boxes without ever binding them.

Sueltas that were bound, were done singly or in groups called factitious volumes.  Since each commissioned binding was at the discretion of the purchaser, there is an incredible array of bindings: contemporary limp vellum, Spanish tree calf, plain brown leather, elegant morocco with fine tooling, and library buckram. In all cases, bindings on volumes of sueltas were commissioned, or ordered, or self-constructed by the purchaser, not the publisher; sueltas were almost always sold stitched together but otherwise without bindings. A bookdealer may want to have the volume bound to make it more saleable, a library may send a handful of sueltas to a commercial bindery to make then easier to handle, or a collector may commission a bespoke binding to fit in with the overall look of the personal library.

Singly bound sueltas may be covered in anything from cheap parchment that warps and cannot stand on a shelf to marbled-paper wrappers that make it less convenient to handle in research. The most damaging choice of bindings were acidic crumbling boards that caused the deterioration of the pages inside.

MORE EXAMPLES

See also: disbound, desglosada, factitious volume, misbound, wrappers / wrapped
  • Parchment over boards, behaving badly!

    [Private collection SzT]

bindings
bindings
bindings
bindings
bindings
bindings
bindings
bindings
bindings
bindings