Book cover

Beyond the familiar distinction between hardcovers and paperbacks, there are further alternatives and additions, such as dust jackets, ring-binding, and older forms such as the nineteenth-century "paper-boards" and the traditional types of hand-binding.

Before the early nineteenth century, books were hand-bound, in the case of luxury medieval manuscripts in treasure bindings using materials such as gold, silver and jewels.

For hundreds of years, book bindings had functioned as a protective device for the expensively printed or hand-made pages, and as a decorative tribute to their cultural authority.

Covers now give detailed hints about the style, genre and subject of the book, while many push design to its limit in the hope of attracting sales attention.

Since February 2024, several German libraries started to block public access to their stock of 19th century books to check for the degree of poisoning.

Front cover of the St Cuthbert Gospel , c. 700 ; the original tooled red goatskin binding is the earliest surviving Western binding.
Ivory cover of the Codex Aureus of Lorsch , c. 810 , Carolingian dynasty , Victoria and Albert Museum
One of the goldsmith covers from the so-called silver library of Duke Albrecht Hohenzollern in Königsberg, now in Nicolaus Copernicus University Library , c. 1555
Detail of the cover of a pocket edition of the Book of Common Prayer , vellucent binding by Cedric Chivers with Art Nouveau gold tooling, hand-painted design inlaid with mother of pearl
Early 20th century leather book cover, with gold leaf ornamentation