Inked Edges

Perhaps I’m easily pleased, but it gave a little thrill to see coloured page edges emerging from an Amazon package last week. Imagining untold others had passed me by, I had a one-handed search of the shelves during breakfast. Sure enough, there were a handful of drab hues (burgundy, black and something akin to moth’s wing), but it was these vintage volumes that truly paid off.

A pity there’s been no discernable revival of this detailing; either on editions from bibliophilic publishers like McSweeny’s, the former Black Sparrow Press, Persephone Books, retro-obsessive book-jacket designers like Chip Kidd… or just notebooks even!