Material Features: An Overview

The Vast Army has a striking artistic materiality and visual appearance that is evocative of the intricate craftsmanship of medieval manuscript work.

The book's foremost characteristic is the textless front cover. The cover is adorned with a bold marbling design consisting of rippling shades of blue, yellow, red, and black. The cover is most likely made from cloth. Cloth would be absorbent enough to make the marbling technique possible, as opposed to other, less absorbent materials such as vellum. 

It is relatively compact and pocket-sized, approximately seven inches in length. Its small size is likely for increased portability between home and Sunday school. Additionally, the book's small size would likely cut down on printing costs as well. The illuminations would have contributed to an increased usage of ink, and the reduction of the book's size would help mitigate those costs. 

The book itself is quite well-preserved, with relatively intact, unmarred pages, with most of the damage being relegated to the partially missing spine of the book. Despite the book featuring multiple chapters, it appears that no table of contents was ever printed for it. 

The visible reader interaction with the book is fairly low, with the most notable feature being the consistent fingerprint stains on the edges of most pages. There is no discernible marginalia.