Book tails

 

 

Did you know … books were never designed to stand on their tails.  According to the very unique, Douglas Firth from Biblio Folio; “As more and more books were produced in the 13th and 14th centuries, storage problems caused a change from laying books on their back covers to standing them on their tails.  This is now normal but little consideration has ever been given to the engineering modifications needed.  A medieval binding will stand up for some time before the text block collapses due to its over engineered structure, but a modern dictionary, atlas etc with all its ‘binding refinements’ certainly will not.  Ironically medieval bindings were stored lying down and modern bindings are stored standing!”