The Mythical Page Turner

April 8, 2017 9:26 AM

It didn’t take long for Spellerberg to figure out that what he had really purchased that day on Portobello Road was a paper-knife, whose thin, wide blade and dull edges were designed to follow the creases of a book’s uncut pages and expertly, gently, tear them apart.
posted by bq (29 comments total)

I knew about uncut pages from reading historical fiction, but I guess it never occurred to me that of course there was a specialized tool for cutting them. Because of course there was.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:38 AM on April 8, 2017 [4 favorites]

Somehow just ivory alone isn't murdery enough to ensure a satisfying reading experience, let's chop off an otter's foot as well.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:42 AM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

Now I'm somewhat embarrassed to ask,

...does no one else use an ivory thimblette for selecting their favorites?
posted by leotrotsky at 9:45 AM on April 8, 2017 [7 favorites]

Excellent. Takes me back to my bookselling days, all used and rare-ish books and ephemera. Quite often books would have uncut pages, especially those with deckle edges and books of poetry by unknown poets. We used playing cards and stiffer business cards. They're flat and blunt. Don't go fast; you're basically teasing the fibers apart. Before the early 20th century, paper was mostly cotton ("rag"); later, they started using cellulose. We did have bones but they're for creasing, not separating, as they are too fat. Actually, though I haven't been a bookseller since I retired in 2008, I still have my bone and several other pieces of gear. Some of Spellerberg's paper knives are gorgeous and I wish I had them.
posted by MovableBookLady at 9:46 AM on April 8, 2017 [16 favorites]

I had been wondering about the rough paper edges of older books. Does this explain that?

Also, neat:

Dying out, sure, but not dead yet, as I learned from Matthew Haley of Bonhams, who has spoken to Collectors Weekly before about rare books. “I was once told, but have never confirmed, that people still occasionally request books that have never been opened at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford,” Haley says. “They are lent a paper-knife for the purposes of cutting the pages.” In fact, as Rosie Burke of the Bodelian told me via email, “I’m pleased to confirm that it is true that after all these years we still have many books with uncut pages—either completely uncut or only partially cut. Staff will issue paper-knives to readers for certain books, but anything that is particularly old or fragile will only be cut by either reading-room staff or a member of our conservation team.”

posted by aniola at 9:52 AM on April 8, 2017 [7 favorites]

I inherited some theology books from my grandfather, and a couple of those were partially uncut. I'm ashamed to say I used a large kitchen knife to do the deed, not knowing until now that there was the correct tool for the job, but the results seemed identical to whatever my grandfather (or the oriignal owner) had used. And yes, the edges are rougher than normal.

For longer Metafilter threads, I use a relativistic ion beam from my homebrew light atomic species accelerator, usually with lithium or sodium, but I've found that anti-oxygen works best on the political stuff. I generate the positrons from my beta-decay plant, but the anti-protons are hand-crafted by an artisinal workshop down by the harbour.
posted by Devonian at 10:04 AM on April 8, 2017 [20 favorites]

Thanks for this! I received an old uncut book for Christmas this year and used a pocket-knife to cut the pages. It worked fine for the most part but would indeed often "veer off the crease." It was also annoying to be folding and unfolding a knife all the time (I have kids around). To have had something I could just lay in my lap or on the sidetable when not in use would have been nice.
posted by otio at 10:20 AM on April 8, 2017

Nest Magazine once had an issue with uncut pages. They affixed a tongue-depressor to the cover.
posted by rhizome at 10:38 AM on April 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Hmm...odd. The ones we had to buy for bookbinding class (#backintheday) were indeed metal, and didn't come to a point...the blade was completely rectangular, no tapering. Looking at it from the end, it was more wedge-shaped than most knives (the non-cutting edge was much thicker than the cutting edge) which seemed to do the trick of not crease-veering.
posted by sexyrobot at 11:06 AM on April 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

The paper folders/creasers are even more beautiful than the bone folders we use at work--and we've got some lovely old wood ones, not the cheap plastic kind. We pretty much only use them for smoothing out the laminate covers for paperbacks.
posted by carrioncomfort at 11:07 AM on April 8, 2017

Neat, thanks for posting. It's amazing how much decoration the Victorians would apply to the simplest of objects.

I have my own semi-mysterious letter opener. It's bronze, with a teak handle, and I bought it in Thailand where it was sold as a fruit knife, part of a set of bronze cutlery. However, it's quite useless for cutting fruit - the blade is a thin graceful scimitar shape with the cutting edge on the inner curve, except it's not sharpened, and it mangles anything tougher than a banana. But the slender point is perfect for sliding into an envelope, and the blade tears the paper without veering off the crease. It's a lousy fruit knife but a perfect letter opener, and the mystery to me is how that type of blade ever got re-purposed as tableware.
posted by Quietgal at 11:20 AM on April 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

There's that famous scene in The Great Gatsby where Nick initially impressed with the huge library pulls out a book and it has not been cut yet.

Badly need some equivalent app for my kindle...
posted by sammyo at 11:25 AM on April 8, 2017 [5 favorites]

Wait, no, what I really really need is the software equivalent of an ivory page slicer with an otters foot handle.
posted by sammyo at 11:27 AM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

:(
posted by The otter lady at 11:32 AM on April 8, 2017 [25 favorites]

Which raises the question, is there anyone out there publishing books that still require purchaser cutting? (Other than the above noted.) There is a peculiar pleasure to reading a book that requires the periodic use of a paper knife, a tactile connection to the author, printer, and time of writing that a modern reprint cannot replicate. On the (too few) occasions I've had to do so, I had the slightly melancholy fact in the back of my mind that with my reading, there was one less example of the species.

And then, off with the smoking jacket, turn down the gas lamp, and so to bed.
posted by BWA at 12:09 PM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

I inherited some theology books from my grandfather, and a couple of those were partially uncut. I'm ashamed to say I used a large kitchen knife to do the deed, not knowing until now that there was the correct tool for the job, but the results seemed identical to whatever my grandfather (or the oriignal owner) had used. And yes, the edges are rougher than normal.

For longer Metafilter threads, I use a relativistic ion beam from my homebrew light atomic species accelerator, usually with lithium or sodium, but I've found that anti-oxygen works best on the political stuff. I generate the positrons from my beta-decay plant, but the anti-protons are hand-crafted by an artisinal workshop down by the harbour.

Damn physics hipsters. Back in my day, we got particles by banging raw isotopes together... With our bare hands! Yeah, we liked it that way. We knew who the hepcats were by their missing fingers and the glow through their trousers when they put their hands in their pockets.

Seriously, neat article.
posted by Samizdata at 12:10 PM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

This is the Gatsby scene, from Chapter 3:

A stout, middle-aged man, with enormous owl-eyed spectacles, was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a great table, staring with unsteady concentration at the shelves of books. As we entered he wheeled excitedly around and examined Jordan from head to foot.
“What do you think?” he demanded impetuously.
“About what?” He waved his hand toward the book-shelves.
“About that. As a matter of fact you needn’t bother to ascertain. I ascertained. They’re real.”
“The books?”
He nodded.
“Absolutely real — have pages and everything. I thought they’d be a nice durable cardboard. Matter of fact, they’re absolutely real. Pages and — Here! Lemme show you.”
Taking our scepticism for granted, he rushed to the bookcases and returned with Volume One of the “Stoddard Lectures.”
“See!” he cried triumphantly. “It’s a bona-fide piece of printed matter. It fooled me. This fella’s a regular Belasco. It’s a triumph. What thoroughness! What realism! Knew when to stop, too — didn’t cut the pages. But what do you want? What do you expect?”

I think that the "cardboard" he's talking about was some sort of false-front, stage-dressing sort of thing where you could buy fake books that were really just cardboard boxes with the outward-facing side printed to look like a book spine.

I'm kind of regretting that Spellerberg's book runs $60 (and for a paperback, at that). One of my favorite implements from back in the day was a folding bone, which I used while our library still sent out our newsletters by hand; sadly, it wasn't made of bone (as I'm sure they were way back in the day), but it sped up folding letter-sized sheets into thirds, and I always admired its perfect simplicity.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:16 PM on April 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

I once requested a paper-knife in my college library's rare book room, and got it. I did have to harrumph a bit about how the book was meant to be read, not just collected, and add a bit of "c'mon, please, I'm halfway through!" But I got it.
posted by doubtfulpalace at 12:52 PM on April 8, 2017 [3 favorites]

Nest Magazine

I have a complete run, minus the very first issue, which I got as a subscriber. I miss that magazine so much. Has it been 20 years now?
posted by maxwelton at 12:54 PM on April 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Which raises the question, is there anyone out there publishing books that still require purchaser cutting?

I give it about...two weeks before someone starts a business printing books like this, selling them for twice the regular price, with slick marketing deriding everything else as a less authentic reading experience.
posted by Jimbob at 1:54 PM on April 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

In the 1940 film Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet (as played by Greer Garson) uses a paper knife to separate book pages. I screamed like the bookish groupie that I am.

Some serious wanna re: that tartan knife in the link.
posted by datawrangler at 1:57 PM on April 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

An ivory paper-knife with an otter’s foot for the handle.

Gross!
posted by Beholder at 3:04 PM on April 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh, okay. I was probably thinking of deckle edges, which are a different heritage from pages that have been cut.
posted by aniola at 10:28 PM on April 8, 2017

I use a paper knife all the time! My favorite is a snub nosed one from Shepherds in London. While I don't use them to open uncut leaves, they're still super useful for trimming down large sheets of paper or bookcloth that are too big to trim on my industrial paper cutter. I suppose I could make my own from that bone I have lying around...
posted by clockbound at 7:22 AM on April 9, 2017

If on a winter's night a traveler... by Italo Calvino is a postmodernist novel whose very plot depends on books bound incorrectly, with parts of different novels bound together.

One section (Chapter II?) deals with the tactile pleasure of using a paper knife on a book. And it is pleasurable indeed! I used to spend time in my grandparents' library looking for uncut pages and using their paper knife to open them.
posted by kozad at 11:00 AM on April 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh, okay. I was probably thinking of deckle edges, which are a different heritage from pages that have been cut.

while cut edges (cutting the folds of the signature) and deckle edges (the natural edge of the paper, like fabric selvage) are totally different things, if you've got one you (99.9% of the time) have the other, as both are signs that the book hasn't been through a nipping press. (The exception being oversized books where the paper has only been folded once, rather than multiple times, to make a signature, leaving you with a deckle, but no cuts/folds)
posted by sexyrobot at 11:37 AM on April 9, 2017

Paper knives being considered some kind of arcane tool is the one thing that has made me feel oldest so far. I thought people in their 30s or older would be familiar with them.
posted by ersatz at 3:06 AM on April 10, 2017

For wonderers like me, a signature is one of a group of pages that are combined to bind a complete book.
posted by rhizome at 9:48 AM on April 10, 2017

I give it about...two weeks before someone starts a business printing books like this, selling them for twice the regular price, with slick marketing deriding everything else as a less authentic reading experience.

Ah, now you're just making fun of me.
posted by BWA at 11:08 AM on April 19, 2017