Montgomery, James. The World before the Flood, a poem. 5th ed. London, 1819. The fore edge painting (fanned to the right) on this volume is somewhat unusual and exceptionally interesting. It depicts a scene in the days when men lived in caves, showing the male members of a family, with stone clubs, preparing to defend themselves against a mammoth and several other animals while the women and children hide in the entrance to their cave home

Featured on PDR in the collection Fore-Edge Book Paintings from the Boston Public Library

A "fore-edge painting" is an illustration or design which appears on the "fore-edge" of a book (i.e. on the edge which is opened up, opposite to the spine). The history of such embellishments is thought to go back to the tenth century but it wasn't until the eighteenth century that the unusual practice really began to take off. The simplest form involved painting onto the fore-edge when the book was closed normally — hence the image appears by default — but a more advanced form involved a rather ingenious technique whereby the painting was applied to the page edges when the stack was fanned at a slight angle. This way the image is hidden from view when the book is closed normally. To hide any…