hidden in plain view
guised with false spines from the outset is debatable - the present decoration dates from c.1820 – but it seems likely. The National Trust has jib doors and false books in many of its libraries, historic and otherwise, with some notable eighteenth- century examples. The Book Room at Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk is entered through a concealed jib-door in one of the presses. The original plans for the Library, drawn up by James Paine for William Windham II (1717–61) c. 1752 and executed in the mid-1750s, show the proposed door, and the set of shelving designed to disguise it. 15 Unsurprisingly, Robert Adam was a particular fan of the library jib door. There is a fine set of doors executed at Nostell Priory near Wakefield, c.1767, the spines, ‘neatly Gilt and letterd’ and supplied by Thomas Chippendale, no less, 16 and an Adam jib door of the same year but to a di V erent design at Osterley Park, executed for Robert Child (1739–82). 17 The popularity of the jib door is evident from trade books. As early as 1776 The Builders Price-book quoted joinery prices for the construction of ‘Gib doors’, whilst The Carpenter and Joiner’s Assistant contains a detailed description of their construction and hanging. By 1791 the phenomenon of false books was so widespread as to motivate William Creech to warn of the dangers of ‘wooden libraries’ and the ensuing ridicule to their owners should someone attempt to remove a volume from the shelf, ‘the gilded volume torn from its glue, and lacerating his brother’s sides’. False books also begin to appear in contemporary fiction. Samuel Jackson Pratt’s Description ([s.l.]: Roxburghe Club, [2006]), p. 5. The annotation, presumably in the hand of Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (1697–1759), is now almost invisible and I am grateful to Dr Suzanne Reynolds and Christine Hiskey, Archivist at Holkham for drawing it to my attention. 15 . The Felbrigg jib door is of a slightly di V erent type – the door is lined with shelves which are populated with real books rather than false ones. 16 . C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale (New York: Macmillan, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 181–85. 17 . Osterley’s jib door is like that at Felbrigg – shelves with real books. In addition, there are library jib doors in Adam interiors at Croome Court, Syon House, Lansdowne House and Newby Hall (see E. Harris, The Genius of Robert Adam: His Interiors (New Haven: Yale University Press for The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2001), pp. 45, 80, 128–29, 131, 231). Others will no doubt surface as more research is undertaken.
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