Fore Edge Books

[TopekaLibrary]

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Check out bookbinder Martin Frost’s website. He currently does fore-edge painting, and also teaches and lectures. Thank you for watching!

-Brea Black

Special Collections Librarian

[TopekaLibrary]

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It’s hard to date fore-edge paintings because they were often added after the book was printed to help sell unpopular titles. The subject matter of the book and the painting don’t necessarily match either. Floral designs, landscapes, seascapes, hunting scenes, city scenes and religious imagery were popular and painted on a variety of books...

[TopekaLibrary]

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Fore-edge painting was very popular in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 19th century a lot of fore-edge painted books were written by English poets. Six of the 8 books in our collection are poetry books.

[TopekaLibrary]

We're answering this in segments due to character limit.

Fore-edge painted books can be found in bookstores that sell rare books. They can also be found in special collections libraries at colleges, universities, and some public libraries. If you’re lucky, you might even find one at a yard sale or antique store...

[TopekaLibrary]

We just saw these comments. So sorry to have taken so long to say thanks for watching. EZserenity, I will check with our collections manager and get you an answer ASAP!

[EZserenity]

where would you find these types of books? are they from a certain century? a specific genre of book? ....quite interesting!

[Tindumola]

Amazing work. Looks allmost impossible.

[PatrickArgentina]

That is awesome, I've never seen this before in my life!