Morocco Leather in Early Modern Britain: Towards a Transcultural History of Fine Leather Bookbindings

Abstract

Morocco leather, a variety of high-quality leather used extensively in fine British bookbindings across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, may be the most widespread extant material result of early Maghrebi-British cultural encounter. Integrating historical sources on trade and diplomacy with bindings from the John Emmerson Collection, State Library Victoria, this article presents material towards a new economic and cultural history of morocco leather in English society. It charts imported morocco’s rise, incorporation, and decline in favour of locally produced imitations; argues that the muddy terms ‘morocco’ and ‘turkey’ used for fine goatskins may be harmonised; and explores how th..