A binding by John Winstanley of Manchester on a presentation copy of the Reverend William Parr Greswell’s privately published The monastery of Saint Werburgh: a poem (1823) 1 English & Foreign Bookbindings 136
david knott
It is over sixty years since Tim Munby wrote that ‘A bookbinding signed with the name of the craftsman who executed it is a document in the history of one of the minor arts’. 2 The example discussed here was formerly part of a small collection of ticketed British provincial bindings belonging to Michael Papantonio (1907–1978) of New York. 3 More recently Laurence Worms has published some essen- tial information about the career of John Winstanley (1784–1856) and the subsequent history of the firm under his son, also John, and other members of the family. 4 The life of the Reverend William Parr Greswell ( bap. 1765, d. 1854), Church of England clergyman and bibliographer, is fairly summarised in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 5 This account notes that the reception of his two substantial works on the early Parisian press was less than wholehearted. They were said to be inexact by none other than Charles Brunet, although others continue 2 . A.N.L. Munby, ‘Collecting English signed bindings’, The book collector, 2, no. 3 (Autumn 1953), 177–193, p.177. See also Ticketed bookbindings from nineteenth-century Britain / Willman Spawn & Thomas E. Kinsella …(Bryn Mawr, Pa : Bryn Mawr College Library ; New Castle, DE : Oak Knoll Press, 1999). 3 . Probably better known for his early American bindings; information kindly pro- vided by Steve Weissman of Ximenes Rare Books Inc. in 2007. 4 . ‘John Winstanley of Manchester – Bookbinder’ - accessible at https://ashrarebooks. wordpress.com/2013/10/31, accessed 10 December 2017. 5 . C. W. Sutton, ‘Greswell, William Parr ( bap. 1765, d. 1854)’, rev. Zoë Lawson, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www. oxforddnb.com.idpproxy.reading.ac.uk/view/article/11512, accessed 25 May 2017]
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