Joseph W. Zaehnsdorf (1853–1930)

Joseph William Zaehnsdorf ran the high-quality bookbinding firm established by his father, who moved from Hungary to London in the 1830s. His book is clearly aimed at apprentices in commercial bookbinding firms (given the tone of some of his disparaging comments, one can't help suspecting that throwing books at incompetent apprentices was something he did quite a lot of...). The emphasis is on keeping costs down whilst giving the customers decent quality: if there's a machine that does a better job than a workman he doesn't hesitate to recommend it. In fact, there is a lot of (presumably paid) product-placement going on, for materials as well as machinery and tools: Zaehnsdorf would have had no trouble adapting to the world of YouTube.

The pace is brisk, and in some places it would be hard to follow unless you already had a rough idea of how everything works. But it's fun for all the barbed comments about various ways to do things wrong, and for the airy way he talks about the "workmen" and "females" who make these mistakes...… (more)