We're having a slight change of pace today as well. Reviewing a new reference/art book that highlights book covers from the heyday of cloth binding: 1875-1930. To follow that I'm listing six modern book covers that rank among my favorites.
It's the old rare book dealer in me. It comes out from time to time.
From The Front List
The Art Of American Book Covers: 1875-1930 by Richard Minsky. Art / Graphic Design. Hardcover. George Braziller, Inc. ISBN: 9780807616024. 134 pps. $34.95.
"In the following pages you will see works by early precursors to Malevich, Marinetti, Kandinsky, Kline, Escher, and other artists. One wonders if the artists had these books in their childhood homes.
-from Richard Minsky's Introduction to The Art Of American Book Covers
I kind of had to stop what I was doing and rush over to Wolfgang Books to pick this one up when my former business partner posted something about this book on facebook. Everyone who follows book design through the years has varied preferences but nearly everyone will be able to name a favorite era.
For me it has always been the late Victorian Era and the Arts & Crafts movement as it changed in the early 20th century. This period, specified in Minsky's book as ranging from 1875 to 1930, is without a doubt the height of cloth-bound book production.
I have always been somewhat of a populist when it comes to books. I love series. Whether the Little Leather Library series of the early teens and twenties or the pillars of modern American publishing like J.M. Dent's Everyman's Library or Boni and Liveright's Modern Library, much of the publishing during the early 20th was concerned with producing nice-looking, high quality books of merit for a large audience.
Cloth, not leather or expensive specially produced paper products, was the vehicle for this change. Gilt stamped impressions, colorful designs and wrap-around illustrations were the hallmarks of the era that preceded these later mass-appeal publications. The effect, as evidenced in Minsky's quote above, is one of prescience concerning the future turns art would take.
One look at Dodd, Mead and Co.'s 1880 wraparound cover for Richard Markham's Aboard The Mavis will instantly explain why someone (you) will want to procure Minsky's book.
Book covers-art is often now designed as a signifier to key readers in on what kind of book they are looking at, and really, there is nothing wrong with that. It is however because of this modern marketing concern that the books chosen by Minsky for his book are much more artistic. In some cases the cover art does not lend itself as paratextual reference at all. Sometimes the gilt peacock feather design is there simply as embellishment and this is what makes the late Victorian-era so stunning.
The cover art was often autonomous to the book itself.
From The Back List
I'm offering up six of my all-time favorite dust jackets today. The jacket began its career in the humble light of utility. It literally was meant to protect the clothnound book beneath. Often these jacket's were plain or merely contained the title and the names of the author and publisher. In time they began to receive increased design and eventually replaced the book itself as the centerpiece of book art.
So here's my top six. I'm thinking that on Thursday I'll post my top six worst covers. You know, for levity.
The Magus by John Fowles. Cover design by Tom Adams. Originally published on the Jonathan Cape edition.
Comment: I have always considered this cover the ultimate in paratextual communication. One finds themselves closing the book at various parts to behold the cover. There is something of the tension and fantastical horror of the book that matches perfectly with Adams cover art.
Incidentally on his website(where you can purchase a poster of the original artwork), Adams remarks that it was on this project that he worked the closest with the author.
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Cover design by Arnold Skolnick. Originally published by Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich.
Comment: Again, it has to do with paratext. The monochromatic cover design bears the image of a nautilus shell inhabited by people and before it is a sea of small spheres. The chambered nautilus, perfect in its natural design, seems to me the quintessential image for Calvino's masterpiece on the subject of man in society. Plus it's shiny.
The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Jacket art by A. Originally published by Charles Scribner's Sons.
Comment: I know. It's an iconic cover and no revelation. It is however my favorite design from the greatest era in American fiction and a cover that somehow captures the mystique of the book within, which of course is impressive. One look at this jacket and you're instantly aware that death and triumph are out at sea.
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Illustration by the author. Originally published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company.
Comment: Hearkening back to William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement that deeply influenced the father of modern fantasy writing, the original cover art of The Hobbit is perhaps the most perfect union of the book's implication and eye-catching aesthetic ever. It is a masterpiece of book art.
The Trial by Franz Kafka. Jacket art by George Salter. Published by Alfred A. Knopf.
Comment: I have always admired George Salter's jacket art. From iconic books like Atlas Shrugged to lesser known productions like his Kafka illustrations, Salter was prolific and talented.
To me, there is a nearly perfect look of desperation on the simply drawn man on trial in salter's jacket art. The world around him is vague, with only enough detail to remind him and us that he is in fact on trial. Wonderful cover.
The Alcoholics by Jim Thompson. Lion Books. Unknown artist (to me).
Comment: Do I really need to explain this?
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