Decorative, Promotional, and Pictorial
In the 18th century, there was a rise in the use of decorative and printed paper. Dominotiers (professional paper decorators), used block prints or printers’ ornaments to print patterned papers that looked like wallpaper. These papers were used for various decorative purposes, including boxes, games, and books. The 18th century also saw a rise in Dutch gilt paper: decorative paper embossed with gold. Dutch gilt paper was manufactured in Germany and Italy, and then imported to France and England by Dutch traders.
In the 19th century, publishers began to use endpapers to advertise recent publications or products. These publishers’ endpapers provide us with insights into the cultural and textual history of the time. At the very end of the century, prominent illustrators such as Arthur Rackham and Rockwell Kent, developed pictorial endpapers; unlike early endpapers, these endpapers reflected the contents of the books they adorned.
Dominotier Endpapers
Fracastoro, Girolamo, Andrea Navagero, and Girolamo Fracastoro. Hieronymi Fracastorii Veronensis Opera omnia, in unum proxime post illius mortem collecta, quorum nomina sequens pagina plenius indicat. Venetiis: Apud Iuntas, 1555.
Dominotier endpapers, with a pattern of small, printed dots and flowers.
Decorative Endpapers
Officia propria sanctorum Romanorum Pontificum ad usum Sacrosanctae Romanae Cathedralis Ecclesiae Lateranensis, ad perinsignes Basilicas, et collegiatas de Urbe, a sacra rituum congregatione extensa. Romae: Typographia Vaticana, 1766.
Decorative endpapers with printed and hand painted flowers.
Dutch Gilt Paper
Scotin, Jean-Baptiste. Office de la semaine sainte en Latin & en Francois à l’usage de Rome & de Paris …. A Paris: Chez la veuve Mazieres et Garnier libraires imprimeurs de la Reine et de Mme. la Dauphine, rue St. Jacq, a la Providence, 1746.
An example of Dutch gilt paper, embossed with a floral pattern. The paper would have been coloured with stencils, covered in a thin sheet of gold, and passed through a roller press with a heated engraved copper plate. An inscription on the verso of the flyleaf indicates it is from the collection of Marie Adélaïde de France (1732 – 1800), daughter of King Louis XV.
Publisher’s Endpapers
Hakluyt, Richard. The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation, Made by Sea or Overland to the Remote & Farthest Distant Quarters of the Earth at Any Time within the Compasse of These 1600 Yeares. London: Dent, 1907.
Publishers’ endpapers for Everyman’s Library, with an illustration of the figure of Knowledge holding a cartouche with the words “Every man, I will go with thee and be thy guide, in thy most need go by thy side.”
Promotional Endpapers – Church Missionary Society
Proceedings of the Church Missionary Society for the year 1907 – 1908. London: Church Missionary House, Salisbury Square, 1908.
Promotional endpapers advertising a boys’ home, missionary attire, and church furniture – a lens into culture at the time.
Promotional Endpapers – London Quarterly Review
The London Quarterly Review. Leonard Scott & Co.: New York, April 1860.
Advertisements for recent publications and for cathartic pills, promising to heal many ailments from foul stomach to impurity of the blood.
Pictorial Endpapers for A Christmas Carol
Dickens, Charles, and Arthur Rackham. A Christmas Carol. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1915.
These pictorial endpapers celebrate the transformation in A Christmas Carol, depicting a miserly Scrooge on the pastedown and a grateful, generous Scrooge on the flyleaf.
Pictorial Endpapers for Canterbury Tales
Chaucer, Geoffrey, J. U. (John Urban) Nicolson, and Rockwell Kent. Canterbury Tales. Deluxe ed. Garden City, N.Y: Garden City Pub. Co., 1934.
Illustrated by Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), these endpapers draw us into the story as our eyes follow the figure’s gaze to the distant pilgrims on their way to Canterbury.