Did it used to be necessary to cut the pages of old books? To be more precise, were every two contiguous pages joined along the top edge, which it was necessary to split with a knife?

Example.

I once bought a brand new "vintage look" edition of East of Eden in which pairs of pages were joined. I assumed it was a manufacturing error, and split them with a box cutter.

But then I read a description of a man reading with a silver knife and cutting all the pages as he went in Laughter in the Dark. Then, when I was browsing photographs of old first editions, I saw that it was sometimes the case that all or many of the pages were joined in pairs as described.

Was this done on purpose? If yes, why? If not, how did it happen? How common was it? When did books start being sold with all their pages "pre-cut" ?

Last edited by Hydra; 02/19/2007 4:47 AM.