hidden in plain view
June 30
To wood & making 81 sham books for the doors of the library /6 To binding 20 large royal folio backs coverd with Calf & Gilt & lettrd /3 To 29 Folio crown size 2/3 To 32 Royal quarto 2/
2 – 6
9 9 3
July 4
Carriage of shambooks by fly 37
4 10
Sept 21
157 sham book neatly Gilt & letterd for the upper part of the library door
12 -
From these references it is clear that Chippendale supplied 238 sham book backs; 226 of these were used on the door and its surround, and 18 loose, unused spines survive at Nostell. There is no reason to suspect that most of these loose spines do not share a common origin with those a Y xed to the door. Equally, there is little evidence to prove that they do. 38 The first set of sham books was delivered to Nostell on July 4, 1767, the second set came later, on September 21 of the same year. Both were shipped from London. 39 A number of non-book leather- 37 . The fly was that run by Robert Cave – see the trade card in the Nostell archive: WYW1352/1/1/5/18. 38 . Five of the eighteen spines are decorated in a very di V erent style from the rest, and from those which appear on the jib door. Two were demonstrably a Y xed to the door at some point and have been replaced, the remaining eleven were probably amongst those supplied by Chippendale. Occasionally a di V erent approach to creating false spines was adopted. A number of ‘sample’ spines survive at Basildon Park, Berkshire, which were constructed using real spines, guillotined from volumes of Bayleys’ Magazine of Sports and Pastimes from the 1880s and pasted to wooden backs. I am grate- ful to Caroline Bendix for supplying information on these examples. 39 . See: a letter from Henry Allen to Rowland Winn, June 30, 1767: ‘Saturday nights post brought [sic]me a letter from Mr. Chippendale dated the 2d Instant advising me
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