Percaline

Percaline takes its name from percale, a fine cotton cloth of Indian origin; dressed with starch or gum, calendered, and sometimes embossed by cylinder, it became, around 1825 in England, the first industrial binding cloth, the 'bookcloth' of London publishers. France adopted it in the 1830s for publisher's cloth bindings: plain percaline for ordinary series, red-and-gold percaline for prize books, percaline decorated with blocked plates for the great Romantic-era cloth bindings, and later the polychrome bindings of Hetzel, Hachette and Mame, which turned percaline into a medium for decoration. Lustre, grain (moiré, pebbled, ribbed) and colour vary with manufacturer and fashion, which allows a binding to be dated.

For the bookseller, percaline is encountered in three forms: the publisher's cloth binding, an original object contemporary with the book, whose value lies chiefly in the freshness of its decoration and gilding; the half-percaline or Bradel-style percaline binding, a modest and common binding of the 19th and early 20th centuries, which should be described as such; and the cloth publisher's covers of modern books. The condition of a percaline binding is judged by fading of the spine, rubbing to the head- and tailbands and corners, staining, and dulled gilding. A fine Hetzel binding 'au globe' or 'aux initiales' owes as much of its value to its percaline as to its text.

Percaline is often confused with the heavier linen cloth, and library bindings in percaline are sometimes mistaken for publisher's cloth bindings; the latter are industrial, decorated, and contemporary with the print run. Re-dyed 'percalines', replaced spines, and restored or re-made blocked plates occur on the most expensive Romantic-era cloth bindings: the consistency of grain and gilding should be checked.