"Early chairs were made to be covered with Russia leather," he said.

Russia leather was a luxury item then and is much prized now.

But I didn't happen to notice that it was our Russia leather case.

Time went on, the old book was not rebound, but kept piously in a case of Russia leather.

When the first cover was removed a layer of tissue paper revealed itself, and after that a large Russia leather case came into view.

And when I looked in the door, sure enough he had a Russia leather case in his hand.

Has he a Russia leather case?"

As the divers continued to investigate, they found and brought to the surface bundles that proved to contain hides of Russia leather.

Scientific scrutiny showed the hides were almost certainly reindeer and that they had been treated in the classic methods typical of Russia leather.

The Dore costs a hundred dollars a copy, Russia leather, beveled."

Period inventories document that Americans used Russia leather to upholster seating furniture as early as 1650.

From boots to books to chairs to daybeds, Russia leather had become a preferred product just 30 years after the arrival of the Mayflower.

The birch oil gives these hides - even today - a characteristic aroma, while the cross-hatching is the accepted visual trademark of Russia leather.

In its time Russia leather was a top-of-the-line luxury, whose manufacturing secrets Western Europeans and Americans couldn't crack.

"It will be lost, and then I shall feel badly, for it cost ever so much, and is real steel and Russia leather.

That whiff of russia leather, too, and all those rows on rows of volumes neatly ranged within--what happiness did they suggest!

Daniel Putnam Brown's involvement with Russia leather began in the mid-1990's when he was searching for old leather to upholster an early chair in his collection.

These close-grained woods are less easily penetrated by insects, and it is fancied that book-worms dislike the aromatic scents of cedar, sandal wood, and Russia leather.

The bibliophile, if he could give the rein to his passions, would bind every book he cares to possess in a full coat of morocco, or (if it did not age so fast) of Russia leather.

He welcomed wet days because on them he could stay at home without pangs of conscience and spend the afternoon with white of egg and a glue-pot, patching up the Russia leather of some battered quarto.

William Paddy of Suffolk County in Massachusetts owned "eleven Rushia Leather Chaires" when he died in 1652, while William Clark of Salem had three chairs in Russia leather when his estate was inventoried in 1647.

He knew all the shops, and in the gas-laden air he recognized their different scents, such, for instance, as the strong savor of Russia leather, the perfume of vanilla emanating from a chocolate dealer's basement, the savor of musk blown in whiffs from the open doors of the perfumers.

Let a binding, a la fanfare, in the style of Thouvenin, denote a novelist of the last century, let panelled Russia leather array a folio of Shakespeare, and let English works of a hundred years ago be clothed in the sturdy fashion of Roger Payne.

On April 22, 1707, another Boston merchant, Thomas Fitch, sent "two dozen Russia leather chairs at 16 shillings apiece" to a New York City customer, advising him that the price was 28 shillings apiece for "Russia leather elbow chairs," the term for armchairs.