Dominic Riley was a teenager at an English boarding school when he refused to sign up to play rugby. As a form of punishment, he was sent to learn bookbinding.
He spent many hours in the company of a bookbinding monk named Brother Bede, and he discovered he had an aptitude for bookbinding.
Very quickly, Dominic began his career as a professional bookbinder.
Bookbinding began on the banks of the Nile some 2000 years ago, and some elements of the trade haven't changed since the Middle Ages.
Dominic's bindings can now be found in British Library, at the Bodleian in Oxford, in the San Francisco Public Library, in the personal libraries of Booker-Prize winning authors, and on the yachts and in the homes of the mega-rich.
Further information
See some examples of Dominic's bookbinding
Read about the last great work of William Morris, The Kelmscott Chaucer. It was first published in 1896 and re-bound by Dominic in 2016.
Originally broadcast July 2023.