Ratcliff, John
A bookbinder of Colonial America who came to this
country from England between 1661 and 1663 to bind
copies of the Indian Bible of John Eliot. A number
of other books exist that documentary evidence
indicates were bound by Ratcliff, including a
blind-tooled binding executed in 1677, as well as
a binding produced two years later, which was
tooled in gold with the same tools. Ratcliff sewed
his books on both raised and sawn-in cords
(thongs), gilded the edges of some of his
bindings, used marble endpapers, and covered the
books in leather. Nothing is known of John
Ratcliff after 1632, and it is surmised that he
returned to England in that year. (171 , 200 , 301 )
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