Compared with France's ornate bindings, British bindings were plainer and cheaper. Perhaps this was because British literature valued dissemination more than collection; ordinary people simply could not afford overly expensive bindings.
Vellum bindings were relatively common in Britain. They could be considered "ordinary" and "cheap" bindings. During the Renaissance, vellum replaced parchment and became a common material for writing and printing. The great Florence flood of 1966 dealt a devastating blow to more than 300,000 precious old books. At the time, almost all the books were submerged, soaked in mud and oil stains, yet one kind of book floated on the surface and escaped disaster.
These "survivors" were the "cheap bindings" with vellum covers. Although vellum absorbed water as well, these simple covers had no wooden boards or cardboard, making them relatively light overall and easy to float on the water.
Naturally, such bindings could not be found in this rare-book shop. Severus took a book from the shelf. Its cover was actually made of glass. More precisely, it was a botanical specimen. Beneath the thin glass lay a piece of scabious, a very common flower sometimes called pincushion flower or bride of the dawn.
He opened it and found that it was a book about botany, containing exquisite botanical illustrations. Yet when he turned another page, it discussed rose windows. Turning further, he found human skeletons, followed by drawings of the Eiffel Tower.
He had no choice but to stop and read it carefully.
The Crystal Palace, which hosted the first World's Fair, had been modeled after the pattern on the underside of a giant water lily. Its strength came from its densely distributed veins. Viewed from the side, the plant tissue covering those veins was not taut but folded. The designers of the Crystal Palace had made use