First edition. This catalogue of fine and important bindings produced in the British Isles between the beginning of the sixteenth century and the latter decades of the twentieth comprises some 347 items (including portraits of binders such as Roger Payne and Douglas Cockerell), and has become widely recognised as a reference work on the subject. Among the bookbinders represented are Katharine Adams, James R. Brockman, T.J. Cobden-Sanderson, George Fisher, Elizabeth Greenhill, Charles Hering, C.S. Kalthoeber, Charles Lewis, Edgar Mansfield, Samuel Mearne, Edwin Moore, George Mullen, Sarah Prideaux, and Richard Weir, while the binderies whose work is listed include the Doves Bindery, Edwards of Halifax, the Guild of Women-Binders, the Hoxton Male Refuge Bindery, J. & J. Leighton, Riviere & Son, and Zaehnsdorf. Many of the bindings illustrated and described in the catalogue came from distinguished collections, including those of Mary, Countess of Carnarvon, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, King Charles I, King Charles II, Sir Kenelm Digby, John Evelyn, King James VI of Scotland, Sir Mark Masterman Sykes Bt, Horace Walpole, William Wordsworth, and Thomas Wotton. The catalogue concludes with indices of binders and authors.

Although not marked as such, this example is from the collection of the distinguished Lawrence scholar Jeremy Wilson, who had a long-standing interest in private press books and fine printing. Wilson and his wife Nicole founded the Castle Hill Press, which published finely-printed and scholarly editions of works by Lawrence; these included Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1997), some sets of which were issued in a designer binding by Glenn Bartley and the Fine Bindery.