trial binding
A term descriptive of a tentative cover design for
a book submitted to the publisher by the
publisher's (edition) binder. Such bindings have
been produced regularly since the early days of
edition cloth bindings. Today, the bindings are
generally dummies made up of blank leaves. See:DUMMY (1) . In the
19th century, however, finished copies were often
used, as there are examples of books with
identical contents but different bindings from
that of the version offered for sale. Some
publishers used trial bindings to fulfill
copyright obligations or gave them as free copies
to the author. (69 )
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