badly-bound

Updated: June 4, 2025

When J. and I now allowed ourselves an afternoon out, it was to wander from Holywell Street to Mile End Road, from Piccadilly to Holborn, searching the booksellers' barrows and shops for the unsightly, gaudy, badly-bound volumes that contained the illustrations of the Sixties illustrations ranked amongst the finest ever made.

Elizabeth Robins Pennell - Nights: Rome, Venice, in the Aesthetic Eighties; London, Paris, in the Fighting Nineties

It was a badly-bound book, printed in small, eye-tormenting type, and it was difficult to hold; but she made no complaint of these things, and for an hour or so, she read to Uncle Matthew. She put the book down when his breathing denoted that he was asleep, but she did not immediately go from the room.

St. John G. (St. John Greer) Ervine - The Foolish Lovers