Bookbinding terminology

I read in an advertisement for Isaiah Thomas's "Folio pulpit and
family Bible with fifty elegant copperplates" of 1791, which ran in
the newspaper that Thomas published in Worcester, Mass., the
Massachusetts Spy, the following:

   "N.B. Works of this kind are not fit for whole binding under
    several months after they are printed as the plates and the
    letterpress are both liable to injury by the hammer and press of
    the binder. This is the reason of their being published in
    boards, in which state the work may be read and handled without
    injury. Purchasers can have the work bound afterwards, either in
    one volume or two as best suits their coveniency."

Problem: What does the term "whole binding" mean?

Has anyone encountered elsewhere the term "whole binding" or a
distinction made between "whole binding" and "published in boards"?
(I have received the suggestion that "whole binding" means binding
in one volume, which may very well be the case. However, the syntax
of Thomas's paragraph clearly establishes an opposition between
"whole binding" and "published in boards".)

N.B. Divagations about the inadvisability of immediately binding up
a freshly printed book containing fifty copperplates and the
alternative of issuing the book in boards, however interesting and
worthy that topic, are irrelevant to my question, which focus
narrowly on the meaning of the term "whole binding".

Donald Farren
4009 Bradley Lane
Chevy Chase MD 20815-5238
301-951-9479
Fax: 301-951-3898


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 19:29
                 Distributed: Tuesday, December 6, 2005
                       Message Id: cdl-19-29-024
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