You could write a book about how to bind a book, and over the last 500 or so years quite a few people have. It is a process of 36 stages, each requiring a distinct skill. And as the battered board hanging on the wall of Shepherds' Sangorski & Sutcliffe bookbindery in Victoria, London, proclaims: "No machine has yet been invented which is able to do any of these operations as well as can be done by hand."
First, says bindery director Ali Strachan, bravely attempting a beginners' guide, the pages are collated, folded and gathered before being pressed. Then they are marked up for sewing, and sewn using a linen cord on a wooden frame unchanged for centuries. This is the first of many steps where things could go radically wrong: Strachan says the tension has to be absolutely right on each stitch.
The pages are pressed again, in a heavy binding press, and the endpapers made up (involving much glueing, squaring, stacking and pressing) and attached. Next, you brush glue on to the book's spine to stiffen it while it's worked (it will be washed out later).
A forwarder (as craftsmen in the binding, as opposed to finishing, process are known) will have been preparing the boards: lining them with paper to stabilise them against the eventual pull of the leather, and cutting them to size by hand on a board chopper. The leaves of the book are cut, trimmed and sanded as required, again by hand, and the edges may be gilded with gold leaf.
The book is laid on a flat, heavy knocking-down stone, and its spin rounded with a cobbler's hammer. It's clamped in a wooden vice and backed: the edges of the spine are carefully knocked down, creating a groove into which the edge of the board will slip. Now comes lacing-in: punching holes in the boards to pass through the cords used to sew the book.
You stitch a silk beading on to both ends of the spine, in a process known as headbanding, then line the spine with kraft or mull paper, smoothing out any irregularities. At this stage you may also "nip up" decorative horizontal bands on the spine with pliers.
Now you can prepare the vegetable-tanned goat or calfskin for the cover by cutting it to size, and paring the edges so they'll turn neatly over the boards. The dampened leather is carefully pasted and pulled over the book, the joints at the top and bottom of the spine set with twine, and the book left to dry under gentle pressure. Once the endpapers (sometimes with the addition of a silk doublure) are trimmed, pasted in and rubbed down with the bookbinder's most precious tool, the bone folder, the book is ready for finishing, or titling and decorating, often using gold leaf.
Gold finishing is perhaps the most skilful bookbinding process. It can take weeks to complete, using centuries-old decorative tools to make an indentation in the leather and egg white as an adhesive for the 22-carat gold leaf.
Strachan, a former teacher, says there are only maybe three traditional binderies left in Britain capable of producing work of a quality to justify prices ranging from £200 to £2,000 per leather-bound, gold-embossed volume. The company, which trains its own binders because so few recognised training programmes or apprenticeships remain, is currently working on a limited edition complete works of Ian Fleming; the 18-volume set, bound in leather, will cost £14,000. Generally, though, it works for individuals, often collectors, writers or artists, who want special books bound (or rebound).
"It's the hours involved that costs the money," says Strachan. "But anyone who's handled one will appreciate a really well-made book. It's an extraordinary trade: so many different skills, and completely addictive."
Watch staff at Shepherd's bookbindery in London in our online audio slideshow
• This article was amended on Monday 8 June 2009. The original photo caption wrongly identified the bookbinder pictured as Alison Strachan. This has been corrected.