The year 2020 marks the bicentenary of a revolution in the way in which books were published in England, and soon enough around
the world, for 1820 was the year in which the first publisher’s binding in cloth probably appeared. The first books published in cloth
are often said to be the series of miniature, diamond-type ‘classics’ issued in London by William Pickering from 1820, and indeed Pickering is often credited with the ‘invention’ of publisher’s cloth, albeit sometimes at a date later in the 1820s. This article examines the evidence for Pickering’s role in the introduction of cloth as a uniform binding material, and attempts to separate the truth from the legend, to understand the nature of early bookcloth and the form and structure of those first publisher’s cloth bindings, and to place the innovation in its historical context.