primary covers (Q472): Difference between revisions

The first, and often only, cover on a binding, and which could serve as the finished external surface of the binding. The term is used to distinguish the covering first put onto the book before the addition of a secondary cover. It is not possible to have a secondary cover unless there is already a primary cover, and the primary cover will always cover at least the spine and the spine-edges of the boards if not the whole book. On some medieval bindings it is possible to have a full secondary cover over a quarter primary cover, resulting in a binding in which the secondary cover will be in direct contact with the larger part of the boards. This does not make it a primary cover, as the quarter spine covering will always have been there first. Where case covers are concerned, the primary cover may stand alone. A primary covering may take the form of a part cover and therefore be made of one or more different materials. Case covers present a more complex problem of definition, in that the primary cover of laced-case binding, one-piece case binding or longstitch binding through a full cover is the case cover itself. Any decorated paper subsequently wrapped around them is therefore a secondary cover. If an adhesive case cover is made in the German manner as a three-piece case cover, it must, by analogy, constitute the primary cover and the decorated paper often added to them would also be a secondary cover. However, in the type of case developed in the 1820s, in which the boards an