A Fine Selection of Cosway & Cosway-Style Bindings

Cosway bindings were invented in 1903 by John Stonehouse of the London bookselling firm Henry Sotheran and are usually elaborately bound by Riviere & Son and have, set into the front cover (sometimes the rear cover or the inside paste-downs) one or more miniatures hand-painted on ivory by Miss C.B. Currie.

Cosway-Style bindings are very similar - but the hand-painted miniatures are by other various artists. These can also be bound by Riviere and Son, and then from 1927 onward Bayntun-Riviere, Bayntun of Bath and Sangorski & Sutcliffe. Richard Smart of Vancouver BC is now producing some fine examples (see Winston Churchill's The Story of the Malakand Field Force).