An exhibition at the Biblioteca San Giorgio in Pistoia is showcasing Dean’s Rag Books, a series of British children's books from the early 20th century. These books were printed on fabric, making them more durable and suitable for young children who often handled them roughly. The exhibition, titled Libri da abbracciare. Dean’s Rag Books, i primi libri di pezza della storia (Books to Cuddle. Dean’s Rag Books, the First Fabric Books in History), runs from September 1st to October 3rd, 2026, and features historical copies from the collection of Fabrizio Mugnaini. The display includes alphabets, stories, lullabies, and illustrated narratives, with visible wear on the folds and corners showing how they were used by children. The exhibition is part of Pistoia's designation as the Italian capital of the book for 2026, a title awarded by the Italian Ministry of Culture. It focuses on a unique moment in the material history of children's books, highlighting the innovation of creating books that could withstand the rough handling by their young readers. Dean & Son, the British publisher behind Dean’s Rag Books, had been experimenting with more durable materials for decades. A 2023 study in Children’s Literature in Education notes that the company had already been producing books on "unbreakable paper" as early as the 1850s, later using paper reinforced with flax fibers. In 1902, Henry Dean shifted to textiles, commissioning author T. A. Polson and artist Will Kidd to design The Life of a Bold A.B. on His Ship in the Rolling C, a rhyming alphabet printed on fabric. The book featured a red and black printed cover on fabric and hand-bleached calico interiors, sewn, rolled, and held together by a green ribbon. A third printing was available before Christmas 1902, and the following year, the Dean’s Rag Book Company was established. Henry Samuel Dean filed a patent application in the United States on December 18, 1903, for a "book with fabric pages." The patent, issued on March 7, 1905, described pages made of cotton, calico, linen, or other flexible textiles, printed or dyed and assembled by sewing. The objective was to allow children to handle the book without destroying it as a paper book. The patent also noted that the colors must be sufficiently resistant to allow a child to put the book to their mouth "without getting hurt." This statement was a technical claim from 1903 and not a safety certification by modern standards. Research by Jacqueline Reid-Walsh and Rebecca Rouse describes the manufacturing process as industrial, involving long rolls of bleached cotton passing under large copper cylinders engraved by hand, with washable dyes capable of producing up to eight colors. This constraint required designs with clear lines, incompatible with half-tones. Dean & Son quickly turned the durability of the books into a selling point. The brand's motif, two dogs pulling on either end of a book that refuses to tear, was designed by Stanley Tyreman Berkeley. The motif accompanied the range, with academic studies documenting its use on a cover as early as 1905 and a slogan presenting the Dean’s Rag Books as "indestructible" from 1908. However, American brand archives trace the use of the two-dog motif back to 1903, suggesting it is better to avoid attributing it a single birth date. While the title of Pistoia's exhibition claims the Dean’s Rag Books as "the first fabric books in history," the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature holds that children's books with linen pages date back to the 1860s and reports on textile experiments in the 19th century. The library of Homerton College in Cambridge places Dean among the first publishers to produce entirely fabric books for young children but does not grant him absolute global primacy. Academic research positions these books closer to contemporary baby books designed around resistance, cleaning, and sensory manipulation. Pistoia, on the other hand, presents them as precursors of the game book and the tactile book, emphasizing a material lineage more secure than the claim of an absolute invention. The exhibition is displayed in the external showcases of the Biblioteca San Giorgio in Pistoia until October 3, 2026, with free access. A meeting with Fabrizio Mugnaini and a presentation of the catalog are scheduled for September 17 at 4:30 pm.