I was contacted by a private collector about two years ago asking if I’d be willing to rebind their first edition set of the Harry Potter series. At first, I was a bit nervous, as rebinding a first edition is considered taboo in the bookbinding/book collecting world. The thought behind this is many collectors desire to have the first edition as it was originally published and sent out into the world, providing a window through time of the experience one has when first encountering a particular literary work. I provided some options that we could do to honor this practice, such as a clamshell box or even a slip case. But they were not deterred and insisted that I rebind it. They’d seen my work in the past and desired to have their collection rebound by Boston Harbor Bookbindery. I was of course flattered and thankful for their kind words. Thus, I began the process of designing the binding we’d go with.

The original book was very attractive and I found it difficult to redesign. I ultimately decided to take the original layout and inlay all the necessary pieces to the leather covers. It worked perfectly and the collector loved the idea. We’d essentially created a leather version of the first edition, with traditional methods proven to last much longer than modern publishing practices. 

The front illustration and title were in excellent condition and were not at all difficult to remove and replace, which was the same case for the signature on the back cover. 

The spine was decorated with a fine Morocco and treated with 18k gold tooling to accent the panels and raised bands. The title and author panels were onlayed with a lovely, rich “orchid” purple leather (one of my favorites to use).