wholesale trade binding
1. A term synonymous with TRADE BINDING (1) in
the 18th and 19th centuries. 2. A term sometimes
associated in England in the first half of the
19th century with bindings of wholesale
booksellers, especially those who catered to the
provincial and foreign book trade. The booksellers
brought new books in sheets and had them bound
independently of the publishers. This type of
binding was prevalent before the introduction of
modern EDITION
BINDING (1825-30), It was most prevalent in
the field of fiction, and because it continued to
satisfy the demand of distributors of the novel,
such publications were the last type of book, at
least those published in large editions, to be
bound in publisher's cloth. This was essentially
the reason why equal numbers of boarded and
half-cloth books of fiction were issued in
wholesalers' as well as in publishers' bindings
between 1820 and at least 1845. Similar (printed)
labels were applied to each and it was usually
very difficult to distinguish between them. (69 )
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