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Mudie bookbinder

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Thierry Vourdon

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Jul 2, 1996, 3:00:00 AM7/2/96
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Hello,

I think I should first introduce myself: I am a French postgraduate student
in English literature. I have just subscribed to the Victoria list.

I have a question about the binding of a book and I do not know where I
could ask. Perhaps some of you could help me? A little clue or an address
where I could enquire about it would greatly help me.

I have been offered 'Marius the Epicurean' in 2 volumes printed in 1903. The
quality of the binding is very impressive. So I suppose it is a reprint of
the deLuxe edition published by Macmillan (in 1900). But there is an ink
stamp ( a winged horse) on the last page stating 'bound by Mudie': do you
know if is it linked with Mudie's circulating library? Or is it a bookbinder
affiliated to Macmillan, or a perfectly unknown one?

Thank you.
A direct response to my email address is perhaps more appropriate.

Thierry Vourdon
< Thierry...@wanadoo.fr >

R. Lee Kress

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Jul 2, 1996, 3:00:00 AM7/2/96
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On Tue, 2 Jul 1996, Thierry Vourdon wrote:

> I have been offered 'Marius the Epicurean' in 2 volumes printed in 1903. The
> quality of the binding is very impressive. So I suppose it is a reprint of
> the deLuxe edition published by Macmillan (in 1900). But there is an ink
> stamp ( a winged horse) on the last page stating 'bound by Mudie': do you
> know if is it linked with Mudie's circulating library? Or is it a bookbinder
> affiliated to Macmillan, or a perfectly unknown one?
>

According to _Mudie's Circulating Library and The Victorian Novel_ by
Guinevere Griest, in the early days of the triple decker novel, publishers
didn't bind books themselves; rather they sold the sheets to distributors
who bound them and then raced against each other to sell the novels to the
circulating libraries. Mudie sometimes bought the sheets from the
publisher and had them bound the way he wanted them. Griest says that
this practice faded out during the second half of the century, but perhaps
it didn't stop as completely as she suggests, considering the publication
date you mention above.

Lee Kress
UC Irvine
kr...@ea.oac.uci.edu

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