An Apology for Brotherly Love

1798

Shoults Eb 1798 H

London: Printed for, and sold by Mess. [sic] Cadell & Davies and J. Matthews ... and also J. Hazard

Inlaying is a decorative process where the binder cuts out a portion of leather and lays down another piece, usually of the same size and thickness, and usually of contrasting colour, to make one continuous patterned cover. While the cover of Hill’s An Apology for Brotherly Love (1798) certainly looks like it has an inlay, it does not. The binder has coloured the outer calf leather green and then used intersecting double fillets to produce the effect of an inlay binding. The inscription within – ‘T. C. Fell, June 1804 The gift of a very worthy man and his courteous parishioner of Berkswich, Staffordshire’ – gives an indication of when this simple, but attractive binding was produced.