Uncut pages

As i have been collecting LEC books i come across books with uncut pages. Opening them with a knife to read the book. When searching the internet, books with uncut pages always seemed a plus as the book would be in unread condition.

However now that the books with uncut pages in my library have accumulated i begin to wonder if all those uncut pages are not a curse.

I have opened now about 80 pages, all succesfully thankfully. But as i was opening a few more recently my brain began exploring the option of something going horribly wrong with that sharp knife inside my book. I was struck by the idea that there was actually a chance that something could go wrong. And as i geusstamate the amount of pages still to cut to approximately 400-500 i realised that there was a significant chance that atleast once my knife would slip.

How have the rest of you coped with this problem? Do you find cutting the pages not a prospect with possible dire consequences?

Interesting; I haven't run into any copies with uncut pages yet, but it certainly seems like a hassle to hand-cut a 500 page book. I can see why you would worry about the potential for mistakes. Just out of curiosity, which titles do you own that contain this feature?

Virion:

The problem of uncut pages is uncommon with LEC books but is something I often encounter with private press books from 1890 to 1920 from the best of the British private presses. Opening the pages requires patience and care but there are a few tricks of the trade:

1. Use a surgical scalpel and stainless steel surgical blade. This can be found and ordered from numerous medical supply companies on the internet or in a medical supply company in your local city. The extreme sharpness of the blade and the precision of the scalpel --- there IS a reason surgeons use this instrument ---- make slips much less of a problem. Much better than your kitchen knife !!

2. Place a book under your cutting hand so that your hand and scalpel blade are at the same level as the page you are slicing through. This keeps the blade parallel to the edge of the page and prevents you from cutting up or down and subsequently "into" the page itself.

3. As you are cutting, VERY slightly angle the blade "upward" so that there is slight tension (i.e., you will feel as if you are "lifting" the edge of the page with the scalpel blade as you are cutting it) and you can better see the blade as it cuts the edge of the unopened page.

4. Have patience and go slowly. Also, stop after about an hour. At this point, fatigue sets in and one becomes hasty and careless.

As a frame of reference, I have done this with several Kelmsott Press books where slips are costly and have rarely had a mishap.

DlphcOracl

hmm dont have the complete list in my head, but for sure:

- 37 volume shakespeare set
- Brothers karamazov 1933
- Tristram shandy
- Droll stories
- Iliad
- odyssey
- robinson crusoe
- Jonts and jollities

It seems that this was mostly done during the 30ties

> 1

Use a proper knife, designed for cutting paper!

Talas has some:
http://apps.webcreate.com/ecom/catalog/product_specific.cfm?ClientID=15&Prod...
http://apps.webcreate.com/ecom/catalog/product_specific.cfm?ClientID=15&Prod...

>5 lilithcat:

The two instruments from Talas are bookbinders tools for cutting paper for use in making slipcases or binding covers, NOT for gently prying open unopened pages of rare books. The Talas instruments are far too clumsy and coarse and the blades are much too large.

In my experience, it is essential to be able to fully see the edge of the blade and the edge of the unopened page for precision. A stainless surgical blade is ultra-sharp, very thin and easy to use. In a scalpel one has complete control and it is MUCH easier to use.

> 6

No, those are the knives we always use in bookbinding to cut single sheets of text paper. They would definitely not be used to cut board for slipcases or covers.

>7 lilithcat:

My bad. I stand corrected. There is obviously more than one way to skin a cat or, in this case, "skin" a book with unopened pages.

Thank you for the input.
Will try out some different knives and see wich one works best for me to skin the cat.

Wilson in his "Modern Book Collecting" recommends using a regular playing card for cutting pages, precisely for the reason that a knife might accidentally do damage to the pages you are separating.
I have done this already with some uncut fine press books, and it works very well - clean and safe. Currently, I am reading a “used” Gracian's Manual that was apparently not used by its previous owner, as I have to cut all of the pages as I read the book. I use a playing card for this purpose, too, and I can carry it with me anywhere (safer than a paper knife).

I recommend trying a playing card.

I've got a book with double uncut pages (i.e. one has to cut through two seams at a time) and I'm have a lot of difficulty.

I have used a Global cook's knife for about a decade, and it has worked fine.

When cutting the top edges, it is important to make sure that you cut all the way to the spine. I have seen too many books where the previous owner didn't do that, and later when reading made vertical tears.

>10 booksforreading:

A playing card ?? That is a fascinating suggestion and one that intuitively sound "right". I will have to try this on a few pages of the next book I encounter with uncut pages.

I'm a bit late to this party, but I just use one of these letter openers for all books where the fold is vertical. The design seems to make it pretty difficult to wander off track and cut into the page.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003HNRSLQ/ref=s9_simh_gw_p229_d0_i5?pf_rd_m=AT...

>14 aaronpepperdine: As you mentioned, that device won't work for top and bottom folds and I can tell you from experience it doesn't work well with double folds.

Well despite all the advice on here, my experience in trying to separate the uncut pages in my LEC Utopia was a disaster. I tried the sharp kitchen knife method (very long blade, non-serrated) and didn't like the result. It left a lot of dangling "shards" of paper (not sure paper can have shards but hopefully you know what I mean). So I tried the playing card method using a brand new unopened pack. The first attempt seemed to work but it left very unattractive page edges. After doing some more research, I gave it another go, following the advice on an ABE forum to close the book to ensure a clean and even cut (insert playing card, close book, move card down the uncut page). DO NOT TRY IS METHOD. Since with the book closed I could not see what was happening when I opened it up I saw that the playing card had put an unattractive accordion rip in the middle of the page. It was so unsightly I had no choice but to complete the tear and remove it (luckily there are generous margins in the book so I did not lose any text). But now I have a 1" long missing section to the middle of two pages of the book. I find it hard to believe this is the recommended method on reputable book sites.

Back to the knife method, despite it being aesthetically displeasing. Most pages cut somewhat cleanly, but toward the end of the book, I am not sure what happened but the knife failed to slice through the uncut portion and ripped the top 1/2 inch of the page off rather than cutting it.

I've basically ruined this book which does not bode well for my other many LECs where some or all of the pages are uncut. This is why I was skeptical of doing it myself, I am basically useless at anything requiring physical skill.

>16 UK_History_Fan:

I'm sorry you had this problem. All I can think is that your knife wasn't sharp enough and required you to use too much force. My Wüsthof 10" narrow slicer is as sharp as a razor and makes a very clean cut. Some rag papers have a bit of fuzziness on the edge but nothing dangling.

I have never used the playing card method as I have always been dubious about it. Likewise, traditional letter-opening tools don't seem to me to be sharp enough to cut rag paper cleanly.

> 17
Robert, I think it may have been the thickness of the rag paper that did me in. The paper has a wonderful tactile feel and takes to the letterpress imprint quite distinctly, but it is difficult to cut cleanly. It is unlike any papers used in book production today (excluding other fine press publishers). Fortunately the prior owner(s) had cut the first half (Book I), and not always neatly either, so I only had the opportunity of ruining the second half. Its a shame because it was quite a nice copy previously, holding up especially well for its age, with even an intact and undamaged slipcase.

Do you have a link you can PM me of this knife? I found a Wusthof 10" Chef's knife on line but the blade seems really too big for the task at hand. It was also $100, which seems excessive for a paper cutting tool. I notice you refer to yours as a narrow slicer so perhaps I'm looking at the wrong one.

>18 UK_History_Fan:

Well, Wüsthof cutlery is very expensive, and since I only use mine to open pages in books, is probably a wretched excess for most. In all honesty, I don't know, especially in my present financial circumstances, I would buy such a knife for this task. My late father-in-law was a butcher (actually charcutier and used Wüsthof knives in his trade and he gave it to me as part of a set of knives. He thought I would use it for its intended purpose, but as I was at the time doing a lousy job opening the pages of my Harrap Tristram Shandy with a letter opener, I decided to try the narrow slicer and--voilà!

Here is a link to the knife--still being made 40 years later and probably for the next 40 years:

http://www.wuesthof.com/usa/products/product-details/narrow-slicer-4520-26

Robert, do you cut from the bottom up or the top down? It seems to be easiest to insert the knife and then angle it to slice up the page.

>20 UK_History_Fan: "It seems to be easiest to insert the knife and then angle it to slice up the page."

Exactly! (Not to mention my father-in-law, seeing me once cutting towards rather than away from myself, said "boy--ain't you got a lick of sense?" Needless to say, I learned a lot about knives from Bill.)

I've successfully used a sharp knife, bone folder, and playing card for cutting pages. I found the playing card (cutting up) was the easiest. I had one book were one had to cut four pages at once (two front edges and one top edge) - nothing worked easily in this case and it was only possible working fairly slowly using a very sharp knife.

> 22
Well clearly I'm just incompetent at this. But I never pretended otherwise which is why separating pages filled me with terror. But I really wanted to read Utopia having just finished several other books set in the period and so it was time to try. Rephrase: I really wanted to read my LEC copy of Utopia.

>16 UK_History_Fan: Im sorry to hear about your page cutting experience with Utopia. This was my fear aswell.

Reading the lec iliad, which has an uncut page about every 5-10 pages. Totalling to about 100 uncut pages in this 700 page book. Im half way through and getting quite proficient at using the sharp kitchen knife.

So with me practise made perfect.

Well clearly I do not have sharp-enough kitchen knives. Which is really not at all surprising since I do not cook.

>26 EclecticIndulgence:, great blog!

> 26
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I was a bit lost in Book I. The LEC uses the 1551 Ralph Robynson English translation of More's original Latin and despite my absolute immersion in books about the historical period, I have still not become sufficiently accustomed to the contemporary language to follow complicated discussions/theories adequately. So I consulted the Wikipedia entry for a summary of Book I after reading it in my LEC. In this I was also fortunate that the uncut pages were all in Book II. While one must always take Wikipedia with a grain of salt, what this did for me was link me to Open Utopia and the absolute best essay discussion by Stephen Duncombe about the work I've ever read (also very convincing in his conclusions). His intro is very long but very worthwhile. His edition of Utopia includes all the ephemera (marginal notes, endorsement letters from other prominent humanists, etc.). Primarily reliant on the 1684 Gilbert Burnet translation, it served as a nice additional resource while I tried to digest it. I must say I appreciate More's genius so much better after reading Duncombe's essay and I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone interested in Utopia, Thomas More, 16th Century English History, or the Renaissance more generally.

It is absolutely free and I downloaded the PDF to my iPad, uploaded it to iBooks and read it there. Link below.

http://theopenutopia.org/home/

The only thing More did wrong was get his head chopped off. If you don't believe in something or want to oppose someone, you can't win against the executioners axe. Or was it a sword? Supposedly a sword was used on Ann Boleyn which was cleaner and swifter. I believe the executioner was imported from France where there was a long line of professional executioners.

Now that I think of it, the executioner of Lily in the Musketeers book used a sword on Milady. What was used on Charles I? As a nobleman, a sword would have been the custom. Charles I was about as stubborn as More.

Charles II got even! He dug up Cromwell's corpse and had his putrefying corpse hung on London Bridge or there abouts. Who says the English are strange?

>29 leccol:

Correct. A professional swordsman was brought in from France because, up to that time, it was very rare for executions to be carried out with the sword in England; the headsman's axe was far more common. And for the lower classes, the rope was deemed quite sufficient. In France, the aristocratic classes were subjected to the sword; the petty nobility got the block, and everyone else got the rope. This idea was starting to percolate in England during Henry's time, but it has also been argued, convincingly, that part of why Henry had a French executioner brought in was because he wanted to ensure that the execution went off without a hitch, given how controversially novel his recent actions had been.

More was subjected to the axe; he famously asked to see the axe after mounting the scaffold and after running his thumb along the axe's blade, mused that it was "sharp medicine indeed."

Charles I was given the axe as well. In fact, he was subjected to a further indignity on the scaffold: he was forced to place his neck on a very low block so as to almost be lying down on the scaffold itself. The executioner, Young Gregory (to differentiate from his father, Old Gregory), when told that he was to execute Charles, refused to do it. The authorities then convinced him by sending troops to escort him to Banqueting House, where it was very firmly impressed upon him that he had to carry out his duty. In the end, Young Gregory took off Charles' head with one stroke of the axe.

Mary Stuart required three strokes of the axe to be dispatched, so the idea of a stratified hierarchy past just the axe and rope didn't hold very long in England.

And that Charles II certainly did. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Henry VIII was somewhat of an ass. With his ulcerated seeping leg, it is a wonder that any woman could get close enough to him to get pregnant. If medical history had been advanced in those days, Henry could have been told that the sex of a child was the concern of the father and, the lives of his executed wives might have been saved.

It would have been interesting if Twain had delved a little deeper into Henry in his novel The Prince and the Pauper. As a red-blooded American, Twain didn't care much for European traditions or royalty, as he showed in A Connecticut Yankee, the first LEC I bought way back into the 60s and still one of my favorites.

"If medical history had been advanced in those days, Henry could have been told that the sex of a child was the concern of the father and, the lives of his executed wives might have been saved."
I doubt it! Facing a tyrant with an unpalatable truth is likely to be the precursor to your own death or exile, particularly if the tyrant is a hereditary monarch and the truth casts doubt upon his or her ability to generate or bring forth a viable successor who can maintain the integrity of the realm, an ability which when you come down to it is the basic qualification for the job. Of course we know, as Henry didn't and couldn't know, that in 1533 he and Anne Boleyn had produced just such an heir. Dramatic irony. It's no surprise the Tudors still ride as high in audience appeal as the likes of the Kennedys, Kardashians, Sopranos and Simpsons.
I live just across the street from the bishop's palace to which Henry exiled his first wife (also in 1533). But her piety and misery so aroused the sympathy and indignation of the locals he had to remove her to a nearby castle. It seems appropriate that after centuries of being the seat of Church of England bishops and later a private house, the palace is now back in Catholic occupation as the headquarters of a missionary order - barely four miles from the birthplace of Oliver Cromwell.
From the best tools to slice open uncut pages to the best tools to slice off human heads, with a diversion to Utopia en route: how enjoyably unpredictable is human curiosity! If I have to separate pages I use a thin, laminated British Museum bookmark; in effect it's the same as using a playing-card, but being longer and narrower is easier to handle. If ever I have to face execution in a country that still practises capital punishment I would hope it is at the hands of a student of those twentieth century English hangmen whose mastery of the rapid dispatch went some way towards making up for the deficiencies of their predecessors.

> 32
Im hearing some disturbing things about the current execution by lethal injection experiences in america.
you may be still better off with the good old axe or sword.

Of course, no one doubts the expediency of the guillotine, which was the most efficient method of decapitation ever invented--but that didn't keep it from becoming an icon of cruelty.

There is something else to consider particularly with reference to >3 dlphcoracl:. Once upon a time it was quite the thing to collect books with uncut pages. Indeed there were print runs where this was done deliberately. I recall one novel from my far and distant youth (I believe it was a murder mystery) where the father or the grandfather was "done in" because of the value of his collection of uncut books.

>35 alco261:
Was the murderer afraid the old man intended to spend his twilight years actually reading the books, either for pleasure or out of malice (to disappoint an obtrusively greedy heir)?
Perhaps the novel should be reissued in a self-referential limited luxury edition the pages of which are themselves uncut, so that the act of separating them in order to read the story and solve the mystery progressively devalues the book itself...
(Didn't someone a few years ago construct a self-destroying book in which the print started to fade rapidly when exposed to light? I think there was an accompanying audio disc of the text, which you could play only once before it encrypted itself.)

Ah the marvels of the internet. I thought about the book a bit during lunch and the book title came floating back across the decades - Thunderbolt House - I'm pretty sure the paperback was titled The Mystery of Thunderbolt House. I thought I remembered the setting as San Francisco pre 1906 and I was sure the house and contents were destroyed during the quake and fire. As it turns out that memory was correct, however, the book collector wasn't killed for the books - the mystery concerns pages missing from one of the books in the collection.

I purchased the book courtesy of Teen Age Book Club which sent monthly circulars to our school. The teacher would collect the money and the orders and a few weeks later our books would arrive. I still possess most of the paperbacks from that first book buying spree but The Mystery of Thunderbolt House is one of the few that went missing in action at some point in time.

I don't have a problem with uncut pages in 30s LECs. In fact I am happy to get an older LEC with uncut pages since this means the book has never been read. I have just had the 1936 Walden rebound in 1/2 dark blue goatskin. The boards and endpages are Crepaldi marbled paper which is a beautiful marbled paper from Brazil. Because the Steichen photographs were untouched all these years, they, along with the text pages, look as new. the uncut pages problem is solved by triming the pages at the bindery. The top edges are regilded.

Although it is fairly expensive to rebind, it is cheaper than buying new letterpress books. The original book cost a shade over $300. Rebinding ran about $300 so total cost was about $600 which is cheaper than an equivalent Arion book.

If you have the affordability, rebinding a classic LEC may be for you. Several have responded to be willing to pay $1500 for the new Pride and Prejudice book. If you are willing to pay $1500 for P&P, rebinding an available LEC may be for you.

>37 alco261:
Howard Pease - there's a coincidence. I'd never heard the name until last Thursday or Friday when Don (leccol) mentioned his sea stories as some of his favourite boyhood reading (on the Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn thread).

@featherwate

The book you are looking for is 'Agrippa' by William Gibson, an early cyberspace and cyberpunk writer. Intriguing concept spoiled by file sharers on the Internet.

>40 slacker1:
Thanks slacker1. I had a vague feeling it was Neal Stephenson. Reading Gibson's wikipedia entry I see the project was over 20 years ago not "a few". How time flies in cyberspace!

I see I am not the only one who had difficulty making a clean "cut" in the LEC Utopia. See the 5th picture in this listing. Unfortunately I have many more pages that look like that and some even worse. Perhaps the thickness of the paper in this particular edition made it harder to do neatly?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Sir-Thomas-More-UTOPIA-Robynson-Transl-LIMITED-EDITIONS-...

>42 UK_History_Fan:

Oh, that's terrible. Now I really should take a closer look at my LEC Utopia! I'll do that this evening.

> 19
Robert, I bought the knife you recommended. Luckily I have a friend who works at Sur La Table and he was able to get me 40% off. But it was still $90. Sure hope it works. I needed it as I'm about ready to read my Fine edition of the LEC Essays of Francis Bacon. I suppose part of the reason its in Fine condition is because it has clearly never been read with all the pages still uncut. Makes me VERY nervous. Not sure if I have the stomach to try it tonight or not. Will let you know how it goes.

Thanks for the suggestion.

>44 UK_History_Fan:

I hope it does too--it has done a great job for me. As another member here suggested, start from the bottom of the page and work to the top, and close the book or use a ruler or something flat to hold the page down as you cut so the effort doesn't lift up the page. Again, the trick is to use the sharpness of the knife to cut by using as little force as possible--you're cutting, not tearing.

> 45
Robert, I finally worked up the courage to try the new Wuesthof knife on my LEC Essays of Francis Bacon. It worked wonderfully with no damage. The ruler suggestion was a great one. If you own this book you realize its size (which is why the 10" narrow slicer is a good tool for it). The ruler definitely helped keep the cutting straight especially toward the end of the books where the pages were more "curved" when laying the book open on a flat surface.

I still do not enjoy the process and it still incites fear and trepidation with each "slice" but this should work just fine as a solution without ruining my precious books.

Thanks again for the suggestion. Now, of course, I feel it was worth every penny.

P.S. I also bought a blade guard so I can keep it in my drawer without losing fingers retrieving it or dulling the blade from banging around inside the drawer.

>47 UK_History_Fan:

Excellent! I'm really glad it worked for you! (And the blade guard is a great idea--saves the edges and the fingers!)

When you mentioned the LEC Essays of Francis Bacon, had to go look at my copy which I had just had a solander box made for. Some one had already cut apart the pages, and they had done a good job so I'm ok. I'm still not sure why there are uncut pages. Is it because the outside page ends are deckled and trimming the edges would trim back the deckle edge, or because binding at that time, in the 30s and 40s, couldn't handle the required trimming. In any event, it seems that in an eight-page signature, only two pages must be trimmed.

Since I am rebinding most of the 30s LECs, the pages are cut by the binder when he trims all of the uncut pages. I just rebound the 30s Walden and all of the uncut pages were trimmed out in the rebinding. By the 1950s, the LECs were mostly printed, then trimmed so hand-cutting was no longer necessary.

I have a set of the LEC 1930s Iliad and Odyssey with unopened pages. As is typical, the bindings are in poor condition, and I'm planning to have them re-bound. However, I enjoy having the deckle edge of handmade/mould-made papers, as well as the slightly furred edge of hand-opened pages -- so I won't be asking the bookbinder to trim my pages for me!
I'll probably use a letter opener like this: http://www.amazon.com/Presto-Letter-Opener-Package-5/dp/B002BG4Y44/ which should make it a bit easier to work through these 2 large volumes.

>50 kermaier: I wouldn't use that letter opener. For uncut pages you want a slightly torn edge. I've used the letter opener you've referenced for opening envelopes. It works fine for this endeavor but it doesn't always cut exactly on the fold/edge. I've had great results with both a bone folder or even a good stiff playing card.

I always use a playing card with excellent results.

>51 kdweber: and >52 booksforreading: What technique do you use? Do you simply apply pressure to the fold/edge of the uncut pages with the edge of the playing card?

>50 kermaier: kermaier: Cutting apart pages of books you are going to rebind doesn't make a lot of sense. I can see saving true deckle edges, but pages cut apart with a card or knife seems to me trying to manufacture a deckle edge where one isn't.

I am in the process of rebinding both the LEC Iliad and Odyssey, and will save myself a lot of work by having my binder trim the pages. The pages in each signature secured together are the result of 1930 binding technique, and cutting them apart by hand doesn't enhance the book in any way I can see. Or makle it more valuable. but they are your books so do as you like.

> 53
I place the card underneath the edge that I am cutting (between the pages that I need to separate) and, holding the card at about 45 degrees angle and gently applying the force in a somewhat upward direction, carefully move it across the edge. I also make sure that the pages I am separating are even and very close together.

>55 booksforreading: Thanks. Someone who works in the rare & antiquarian department of a prominent west coast bookstore told me that he uses credit cards to open uncut pages.

>56 ultrarightist:
I can understand how a credit card can work very well, too.

>57 booksforreading: Couldn't agree more. I wouldn't try that.

>58 kdweber: It appears that you are disagreeing with >57 booksforreading:

I most definitely would NOT advocate using either a playing card or a credit card to cut uncut pages. You are unlikely to get a welcome result. I definitely did not ever try a credit card (they seem too thick to accomplish the job with any finesse) but I did once try a brand new playing card from a previously unopened pack. Disaster! It ripped rather than cut the pages and left a very messy result that I would not recommend you attempt unless on a book you care little about.

>60 UK_History_Fan: So what do you recommend?

Django recommended a rather pricey knife. I can't remember the name/model offhand (Wusthof?...Robert please chime in!) but I figured for what I've spent on LECs I shouldn't cheap out on the proper tool to open them. It works beautifully with a nice clean cut and is very easy to use because it is very long and usually larger than the page I'm cutting. I recently had to cut most pages in my copy of the Sir Roger de Coverley Papers to read it and what could have been a major chore was somewhat effortless. Though I'm clumsy enough to admit great trepidation with each page I attempt to separate!

I first read about using a playing card in "Modern Book Collecting" by Robert A. Wilson. Wilson, a very experienced book dealer and collector, recommends using a playing card for page separations and warns against using a sharp knife, as knife is much more likely to do unintentional damage to the pages precisely because of its sharpness.

I personally had quite a few chances to try using a card for separating/cutting pages in fine books that are very important to me, and, though I was very nervous about it (but I was very careful and gentle), I am very happy with the results.
I am not saying that this is the only method, and by any means I am not going to argue that this is the best method. All I am saying is that it worked for me amazingly well, and it is cheap.

Do I recommend using a playing card instead of a knife? No, because I do not have any experience with cutting pages by sharp tools, so I have no basis for comparison. All I can say is that in my experience a playing card works very well for my purposes.

>62 UK_History_Fan:

Yes, it is the Wusthof 10" Narrow Slicer, which I have used quite successfully to cut many unopened pages with never an instance of unintentional damage. As I said once before, the secret is more in the technique than the instrument. If you lift the page while you are cutting it, you are very likely going to cut or tear off the fold. It requires patience and I use a remnant from a desk blotter to apply pressure to keep the page from lifting.

Incidentally, the knife was a gift from my late father-in-law who would be aghast that I use it principally for bibliophile rather that culinary purposes. Being a butcher, he was given many such items from his purveyors, and he thoughtfully passed it on to me.

FWIW, here is my solution:

I have had numerous books --- including some Kelmscotts --- that had unopened pages and I clearly wanted to do this with great care. The best "knife" I have found for this task is from Talas - their Bookbinders Knife (item TTB008001) for $11.45. The blade is made in Germany by Solingen steel. As several others have mentioned, one should proceed slowly and with great patience. The following works well for me:

1. Place the book on a firm surface, typically a desk top or table top of any sort.
2. Keep the blade of the paper cutting knife at about 45 degrees to the paper edge you are opening.
3. Make a gentle sawing motion (to-and-fro) with the knife, using the entire length of the metal blade, to open the edge.
4. Most importantly, keep the blade perfectly horizontal, i.e., parallel to the flat surface the book is resting on.

Fortunately, I have yet to have a mishap with this knife and this method.

I wish that the sound advice that has been given by so many of you had been available to whoever owned one of the books I bought this week.

>66 Constantinopolitan: Nigel, if the upper edge was the same, it would pass as mould-made, but alas...

After seeing your post, I visited the Celtic Cross website and found some lovely books there: the fine edition of Angels looks beautiful, and I'd certainly like to obtain a copy of the Wordsworth Poems, so perhaps your misfortune has at least a little of a bright side for this gloomy Sunday morning.

ETA - Nigel, I was just looking at my copy of Agnes Miller Parker : Wood Engravings, in relation to your other recent post, and the test pages in that are Zerkall Mould Made paper, and the top edge is cut straight across with bottom and side retaining the original edging. I noticed that Celtic Cross does use Zerkall paper.

Fiona, the paper for Psalms is Langley Hand-Made. I also bought another Celtic Cross book at the same Oxfam shop in Skipton, Yorkshire: Butterflies. The paper here is Hahnemuhle book wove. They are both rather charming and, I think, worth looking out for.

>68 Constantinopolitan: I just checked another of my books with hand/mould made paper - the Letterpress MacBeth - which is exactly the same, so I'd say that your Psalms is just a very nicely produced book rather than is suffering fro a duff page-opening job :)

Just picked up an unread copy of Imaginary Conversations with lots of uncut pages. So far, a playing card is working well for me. When I get books with uncut pages, I'm always undecided on whether to cut all of the pages at once or a chapter at a time as I'm reading the book.

>70 kdweber:
With short works like one of the Shakespeare plays, i uncut the entire book before i start reading.
With langer works like the Homer books, i cut the pages as i read through the book.

>70 kdweber:
I usually cut one page at a time as I read.

I finally received an LEC book with several uncut pages. This is a copy of Tyl Ulenspiegel. After reading what to do here and elsewhere I've decided to try using an index card. As one expert has written on Abebooks:

"Personally, I prefer to use a standard credit card, working slowly and evenly, while gently holding the textblock closed with one hand. If the paper stock is thin or fragile, I use an index card. Whatever tool you use should be placed exactly in the center of the fold and slowly razored upward. Otherwise, you’ll end up tearing the page margins. Don’t use a letter opener. They can do a lot of damage. A book with crudely opened gatherings is an unsightly thing."

https://www.abebooks.com/books/rarebooks/Avid-Collector/Dec06/ask-the-experts.sh...

Now my next question is: do I use a regular index card or a heavy weight (heavy duty) index card. Would something like this work:

https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Ruled-Assorted-Colors-35810/dp/B000EFNKLC/

or do i need something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Blank-Heavy-Ruled-Lined-Postcards/dp/B01MSWAOXT/

If anyone here has used index cards to cut pages of an LEC book (and especially if they've cut the pages of this particular book) I would request them to share their experience.

---
if anyone wants to see how this works, this is a nice demonstration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU7lqM6NfQo

>73 blue.eyes: I've never used an index card before but I have used a coated playing card successfully.

>73 blue.eyes:

I would recommend getting a dull-ish letter opener. For example:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003M2UPIK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?i...

An index card will work but it's unnecessarily risky.

I’m thinking it makes sense to buy some good quality paper at a stationer’s or art supply shop, fold the sheets, and test several different tools and techniques — before experimenting on my books.

And now for something different:

I use an artist's palette knife. The blade is thin, but not sharp; the tip is rounded. It slices through the paper easily leaving a slightly furred edge as opposed to a sharp, clean edge that a regular sharp knife would leave. I've tried other things in the past, but this has worked the best for me. Haven't ruined a page since I started using it.

thanks for the suggestions. i am going to follow kermaier's advice to first use a few different techniques on some good quality folded paper and then use the one that seems to work best on my LEC books.

Just remember that almost all Limited editions Club paper, and a large proportion of the older HP books were rag paper, which has very different tearing characteristics, so test with all-rag paper (if you can find it).

Coated playing card, in my experience, is the least prone to slipping and cuts straightest of all methods.

>80 EclecticIndulgence:
I completely agree. I have written about this before, but many people like other methods.

Out of interest, does anyone have a card set aside for the purpose, or are you just using random cards from a, presumably crisp and fresh, pack? I'm wondering how quickly a card might deteriorate when used for opening pages, and indeed how well it would stand up at all to opening the top of a gathering.

I have an old ornamented bone-handled EPNS knife that's been on page-opening duty here for about 20 years: not at all sharp, I would guess its profile to be somewhere between that of credit card and playing card, but of course it's entirely durable. There haven't been any mishaps and I can't readily think how a more yielding material might be an advantage in itself.