Binder

Pulled from their shelves in steel-lined vaults, 150 manuscript treasures of the semi-public Pierpont Morgan Library in Manhattan went on view last week. Books displayed ranged from Caxton's History of Troy, first book printed in the English language, to J. P. Morgan's privately printed prayer book. The exhibition was not to honor the books themselves, but the slender blonde woman who had rebound all of them with her own hands: Marguerite Duprez Lahey.

Bookbinder Lahey, a good friend of Morgan Librarian Belle da Costa Greene, did her first work for the elder Morgan in 1911. Employing no assistants, she works seven hours a day at her task, scrapes her own skins, sews pages, pastes, mounts, presses, tools and letters all the bindings. For decoration she uses the purest gold leaf, occasionally platinum. For leather she prefers Cape Levant from the backs of goats that have run wild on the Cape of Good Hope for seven years. A surprise among the priceless rarities in Miss Lahey's exhibition was the original typescript of Calvin Coolidge's autobiography, presented free and unsolicited to Mr. Morgan a few months before the author died. For this Miss Lahey found suitable a binding of baby blue French Morocco, decorated with a border of small c's in pure gold, and embossed dots.

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