Queens' Binder is the name given to a small group of English bookbinders

Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...

 active during the Restoration period (1660-c.1700), often called the "Golden Age of English Bookbinding".

Etymology

The name derives from the fact that similar bookbindings were found in the libraries of both Catherine of Braganza

Catherine of Braganza

Catherine of Braganza was a Portuguese infanta and queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the wife of King Charles II.She married the king in 1662...

 and Mary of Modena

Mary of Modena

Mary of Modena was Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the second wife of King James II and VII. A devout Catholic, Mary became, in 1673, the second wife of James, Duke of York, who later succeeded his older brother Charles II as King James II...

. The term was first coined by G. D. Hobson in his book Bindings in Cambridge Libraries and was a convenient term to refer to the characteristic drawer-handle tools and volute

Volute

A volute is a spiral scroll-like ornament that forms the basis of the Ionic order, found in the capital of the Ionic column. It was later incorporated into Corinthian order and Composite column capitals...

s with pointillé

Pointillé

Pointillé is a decorative technique in which patterns are formed on a surface by a means of punched dots. The technique is similar to embossing or engraving but is done manually and does not cut into the surface being decorated. Pointillé was commonly used to decorate arms and armor starting in...

 outlines rather than floral volutes much used by the other binders of the period.

Subtypes

H. M. Nixon subdivided the bindings into three groups, Queens' Binder A, B, and C, due to the slight variations between them. Queens' Binder A is the most prolific of the three, but Queens' Binder B is considered the finer artisan

Artisan

An artisan is a skilled manual worker who makes items that may be functional or strictly decorative, including furniture, clothing, jewellery, household items, and tools...

. Although the bookbinders have not all been definitively identified, there is strong grounds for considering Samuel

Samuel Mearne

Samuel Mearne was an English Restoration bookbinder and publisher whose work is considered a high point of pre-industrial bookbinding. He and his sons, Charles and Samuel Jr., were one of the group referred to by historians as the Queens' Binder.Mearne was born in Reading, England and lived all...

 & Charles Mearne, Roger Bartlett, and William Nott

William Nott

Sir William Nott GCB was a British military leader in British India.- Early life :Nott was born in 1782, near Neath in Wales, the second son of Charles Nott, a Herefordshire farmer, who in 1794 became an innkeeper of the Ivy Bush Inn at Carmarthen in Wales...

as being at least partially responsible.