Paper cutter vs letter opener

Or something interfered with my reading

Probably unsurprisingly to readers who are aware of my interest in restoring vintage clothing, I have a similar interest in book maintenance. At some point in my peregrinations, I picked up a new-old stock, i.e. old but never used, copy of La Vie intellectuelle: Son esprit, ses conditions, ses méthodes by Fr Antoin-Dalmace (né Antoin-Gilbert) Sertillanges, OP. The book is a bit unusual because it was printed in France in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when paper rationing was still in effect.

One of the issues I’ve had with repairing / maintaining this particular book is that its cover is closer in type to a publisher’s wrapper than to a genuine paperback cover. The wrapper is made of moderately heavier stock than the pages themselves, but not by very much. Normally, I’d dismiss the wrapper’s flimsy state as a consequence of paper rationing, but its attachment to the text block, lightly tacked on with glue to the edges of the spine, is customarily used exclusively for books where the publisher believes the buyer will have a book rebound in a custom binding.

A French 18th century example of a publisher’s wrapper. This example uses thread instead of glue, but the idea is the same: a couple of quick cuts and the text block is free of the temporary binding.

In addition to problems with La Vie intellectuelle’s cover, some of the pages haven’t been cut, proving the book was never read. Uncut pages are a result of ‘signatures', a process whereby a single large sheet of paper has the text for multiple pages printed upon it. The large sheet of paper, the signature, is then folded in a specific order to create the pages that the reader sees.

Serendipitously, my copy of La Vie intellectuelle is a 16pp signature book, and the conjoined signatures are also at the top.

After the folding, the signatures are organized into the correct order and then bound. Uncut signatures are increasingly less of a problem with modern books, though I’m aware from my research that some of the more prestigious publishing houses, such as Gallimard in France, continuing to ship books with uncut signatures, almost as a matter of tradition.

Signatures being stitched together into a text block.

Although artisan bookbinders today are expected to cut any unopened signatures as part of the custom binding process, that was not the case historically. Cutting signatures open used to be such a commonplace matter that individuals owned paper knives, sometimes called paper cutters, as a matter of course.

US Founding Father Patrick Henry’s ivory paper knife which he used as a prop in his ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ speech (he mimed stabbing himself with it). ‘Knife’ is a bit of a misnomer as one can see that it has neither a point nor an edge.

Although paper knives were a commonplace household article, not everyone could be bothered to have one to hand. Thomas de Quincy described the poet William Wordsworth as ‘a bear in a tulip garden’ when it came to the latter’s treatment of books, and by way of proof, Quincy told of one afternoon, following tea, Wordsworth discovered the signatures of a book he was reading were unopened, so he used a table knife covered with butter and bread crumbs to cut the pages.¹ Quincy, a self-confessed opium junkie, thought that was sloppy, undignified, and entirely unnecessary since Wordsworth could easily have sent for a clean knife or a pen knife, in the unlikely event he didn’t own a letter opener or a paper knife.

A bakelite letter opener and a penknife, both with points and distinct edges.

Letter openers and penknives are intended to cut quite aggressively, sealed letters in the first case and quill pen nibs in the second. As a result, they’re not entirely suitable for opening book pages since they can create unwanted tears in the fibers. That said, historically, letter openers and penknives have been used to open signatures. Probably anything is better than a grimy, crumb-covered table knife.

A 19th century agate paper cutter, currently listed on eBay France.

The family paper cutter having been lost in the course of moves, I was on a rather frantic search to find an alternative. US eBay failed abysmally by not knowing the difference between a letter opener and a paper cutter. A former librarian and loyal reader came up with a solution: index cards. They are just sharp enough to be able to pressure paper fibers apart; but they don’t have enough of an edge to cause damage; and they’re thin which is very important for not damaging the interior of the pages.

Happy Monday!

MLD

PS: Belatedly, I found the family paper cutter right where it was supposed to be: in my grandmother’s desk. My grandmother was born in 1913, remembered Armistice Day, and raised two young children while her husband served as a naval officer in World War II. Post-War, she worked as a research librarian for a medical school. Oxford Dawn is named for her and my grandfather.

My grandmother’s (and now my) paper cutter. We’re not sure where it came from, but the insurance company was founded in 1907. We really should have figured out that it was a paper cutter; it never worked as a letter opener.

1. De Quincey, Thomas. Literary Reminiscences; from The Autobiography of an English Opium-Eater. With Harvard University. Boston, Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1851, 20 — 22. http://archive.org/details/literaryreminis06unkngoog.