Fore-Edge Play - Is Turning Your Books Around Backwards Art?
- by Michael Stillman
A better way to display your books?
Backward facing books? Apparently, it has become the rage, or outrage. It all depends upon your point of view. The trend, at least among the trendy, is to place your books backwards on a bookshelf. Fore edges are finally getting their due. The spine goes to the back, where it cannot be seen, while the fore edge is exposed.
Why? Evidently, it has something to do with art. Exactly what is hard for some of us to understand. However, "why" is a question that should never be asked when it comes to art. It implies there is a rational answer. Art is not accountable to reason. This is fortunate, because if reason were applied here, it would clearly say this is a dumb idea. Seriously, how are you supposed to find a book this way?
The explanation for the beauty in viewing books backwards is that it provides a more consistent, neutral appearance. The spines can be all sorts of different, clashing colors, and have such unattractive features as words on them. Unless the fore edge has been colored, or worse yet, features a fore-edge painting, putting books on a shelf backwards will present a consistent, neutral, off-white look. It will match your neutral, off-white walls that real estate agents say buyers desire in a house. Of course, this begs the question why have these books in the first place? Why not just have more neutral wall instead of a neutral bookshelf? Perhaps the answer is this enables you to store old books you will never read again without taking up closet space. Or maybe this is another reminder that we shouldn't be asking "why" questions when it comes to art.
This trend is somewhat reminiscent of another trend that appears still to be going strong - buying books by the foot. This is where you buy a bunch of old books that no one wants to read to fill your bookshelf. Usually, they will be based on a theme. Often, that theme will be color. You buy only red books or blue books, which is a bit more daring than the typical colorless fore edge. Alternatively, you might buy them based on subject matter. You can fill your bookshelf with physics books, which implies you are erudite, someone with a passion for the same type of learning as Einstein. Others will buy books based on size, providing a uniformity of appearance similar to a row of off-white edges.
While artistic expression is a matter of taste, and there is no right or wrong when it comes to taste, it does say something about the person. For example, what if you start a new trend with paintings, where you turn the paintings on your walls around? Perhaps that will show you are on the cutting edge of artistic appreciation, but I'm more likely to interpret that as an expression of what you think of your paintings. They suck. Or, how about if you turn those family photographs we all have on our walls around? Does that say something about your artistic taste, or about what you think of your family? Try it and see what your spouse or children say. So, doesn't turning your books around say something similar about your feelings toward your books? Just wondering.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 26th March 2026
Forum, Mar. 26: Book of Hours.- Heures a lusaige de Romme, printed on vellum, with 14 full-page illuminated miniatures, Paris, N. Higman for J. de Brie, [c.1521]. £20,000-30,000
Forum, Mar. 26: France.- Book of Hours, perhaps Use of the Abbey of Saint-Gildas de Rhuys, with thirteen miniatures surviving from an original cycle of at least twenty, [c. 1430]. £15,000-20,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Milton (John). Paradise lost. A Poem in Ten Books, first edition, Pforzheimer's sixth state, S. Simmons, 1669. £8,000-12,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Blake (William). Illustrations of the Book of Job, one of 215 first issue "Proof" copies, this one of 65 copies on "French" paper, Published by the Author, March 8, 1825 [but March, 1826]. £15,000-20,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 26th March 2026
Forum, Mar. 26: Christie (Agatha). The ABC Murders, first edition, The Crime Club, 1936. £15,000-20,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Halley (Edmund). Astronomiae Cometicae Synopsis, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, no. 297, pp.1882-99, March 1705. £10,000-15,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Haytham (Ibn al) [known as Alhazen]. Opticae Thesaurus...Item Vitellonis Thuringopoloni libri X..., first edition, Basel, August, 1572. £20,000-30,000
Forum, Mar. 26: Kepler (Johannes). Dioptrice seu demonstratio eorum quae visui & visibilibus propter conspicilla non ita pridem inventa accidunt, first edition, Augsburg, David Frank, 1611. £12,000-18,000
Forum Auctions Natural History: The remaining stock of Antiquariaat Junk, 1899-2026 25 March 2026
Forum, Mar. 25: Botany.- Andrews (H.C.) Coloured Engravings of Heaths, 4 vol. in 2, first edition, [1710,--94]-1802-1809-[1830]. £10,000 - £15,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Butterflies.- Cramer (Pierre) and Caspar Stoll. De Uitlandsche Kapellen voorkomende in de drie Waereld-Deelen…,, 5 vol., Amsterdam & Utrecht, 1779-91. £8,000 - £12,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Voyages.- Darwin (Charles) and others. Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle, 3 vol. in 4, including Appendix to vol.2, first edition, 1839. £8,000 - £12,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Butterflies.- de Graaf (Willem Diederik Vincent). [Inlandsche Kapellen in beeld], 170 fine original watercolours, [Enkhuizen], [1800-40]. £8,000 - £12,000.
Forum Auctions Natural History: The remaining stock of Antiquariaat Junk, 1899-2026 25 March 2026
Forum, Mar. 25: Birds.- Dresser (Henry Eeles). A History of the Birds of Europe, 9 vol., including supplement, first edition, by the author, 1871-96. £6,000 - £8,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Zoology.- Felines.- Elliot (Daniel Giraud). A Monograph of the Felidæ or Family of the Cats, first edition, for the Subscribers, by the Author, [1878]-1883. £25,000 - £30,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Birds.- Frisch (Johann Leonard). Vorstellung der Vögel Deutschlandes, 2 vol., first edition, Berlin, Friedr. Wilhelm Birnsteil, [1736]-1763. £40,000 - £60,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Birds.- Gould (John). The Birds of Great Britain, 5 vol., first edition, by the author, 1862-1873. £30,000 - £40,000.
Forum Auctions Natural History: The remaining stock of Antiquariaat Junk, 1899-2026 25 March 2026
Forum, Mar. 25: Pomology.- France.- Poiteau (A.) Pomologie Française. Recueil des Plus Beaux Fruits cultivés en France, 4 vol., Paris, 1846. £30,000 - £40,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Botany.- [Robin (Jean)]. Histoire des Plantes, nouvellement trouvées en l'Isle Virgine…,, 1620; with Geoffrey Linocier L'Histoire des plantes, second edition, 1619-20. £3,000 - £4,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Asia.- Japan.- Siebold (P.F. von). Nippon. Archiv zur Beschreibung von Japan, 7 parts in 6 vol., first edition, Leyden, [1832]-1852. £35,000 - £45,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Asia.- Valentijn (Francois). Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën..., 5 vol. in 8, first edition, Dordrecht [&] Amsterdam, 1724-26. £8,000 - £12,000.
Forum, Mar. 25: Botany.- Australia.- Redouté (P.J.).- Ventenat (Étienne Pierre). Jardin de la Malmaison, 2 vol.,, Paris, 1803-04[-05]. £30,000 - £40,000.
