When Did Publishers Start Using Cover Art on Their Books

1890-1910

Most significant in the final decade of the century, particularly in America, is the rise of the creative person-designer. From the late 1880s until virtually the start of Globe State of war I, book covers reached new levels of sophistication through highly professional layouts and stylized pictorial representations. The social and economic range of people buying books had possibly never been greater, and publishers had long known that decorated book covers were very cost-constructive advertising.

Architects, landscape painters, illustrators and graphic artists alike were drawn to book blueprint. While some of these designers would be responsible for only a handful of covers, others were extremely prolific, producing hundreds and hundreds of covers. Consequently, busy cases of this period brandish an astonishing diversity of blueprint styles and reflect a wide range of influences, including the Craft movement, Art Nouveau, Japanese prints and the so-called poster style of blueprint. (The work of Thomas Watson Ball exhibits many of these styles: a portfolio of his work may be seen here)

Many of these designers believed that a book's concrete appearance should reverberate its literary content and made an effort to relate decorations to the text, sometimes in collaboration with the author. The colour and texture of fabric was considered in relation to the design it supported, and the cloth weave and texture often became an integral role of the overall pattern. Decoration began to extend from the front embrace beyond the spine to the back board.

In the 1890s American inventors produced machines that would facilitate, even supplant, the making of cases by hand. George H. Sanborn & Sons of New York introduced a case-smoothing machine in 1891, closely followed by competitors' models in 1893 and 1896. The Smyth Company produced a cloth-cutting auto in 1901 as well equally the first successful casing-in automobile in 1903. Between 1900 and 1903, the Sheridan Company adapted earlier patents to brand an automated gathering machine. All of the major binding operations--folding, gathering, sewing, rounding and backing and casing--could at present be completed by an assortment of machines.

Subsequently 1900, encompass designs gradually became simpler. By 1910, the widespread apply of decorated cloth on books was largely at an finish. The illustrated newspaper book jacket, which had been in limited use for years, caught the public'due south fancy and proved to be an even cheaper advertising tool than decorated fabric cases. The aureate age of publishers' bookbindings was over.

Lafcadio Hearn. Youma. New York: Harper & Bros., 1890. Sara Jeannette Duncan. Vernon's Aunt. London: Chatto & Windus, 1894. Edmund D. Morel. Affairs of Westward Africa. London: William Heinemann, 1902. Youma, the story of a slave is bound in a elementary untreated dress fabric. From the 1890s on, information technology was common for the material itself to be a featured attribute of cover pattern, even imitated in the design.

Mae St. John Bramhall. The Wee Ones of Japan. New York: Harper & Bros., 1894. George MacDonald. The Flight of the Shadow. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1891. A. Eastward. W. Mason & Andrew Lang. Parson Kelly. New York: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1899. Elegant designs making striking use of silvery ink.

Alice Dark-brown. Meadow Grass. Boston: Copeland & Day, 1895. Book encompass and poster design are by Louis Rhead, an Englishman who was invited to New York in 1883 by the publisher Appleton & Co. Rhead grew very well known for his affiche designs, although he was an acclaimed illustrator as well. Like in aim to Stone & Kimball, Copeland & Day published lxxx beautifully designed and printed books in the six years of their existence.

Bliss Carman & Richard Hovey. Songs From Vagabondia. Boston: Copeland & 24-hour interval, 1894. Bliss Carman & Richard Hovey. More Songs From Vagabondia. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. 1896. The poster, book cover and endpaper design for Songs From Vagabondia are by Thomas Buford Meteyard who also illustrated the texts of the other books seen hither. Meteyard was an Impressionist landscape painter who had studied with Monet. He was probably drawn to book pattern by his friendship with the poets Carman and Hovey, whom he met in 1889. His encompass for the Vagabondia series, as well seen on the poster, is a portrait of himself with Carman and Hovey. Meteyard signed his piece of work either with his monogram or a tortoise, the sign of his sobriquet.

John Kendrick Bangs. A Firm-Boat on the Styx. New York: Harper & Bros., 1896. The poster pattern for this best-seller is probably by Peter Newell, one of the book'due south illustrators. The cover pattern is by an unidentified artist. In the late 1890s Bangs also wrote for Harper's Magazine and edited the American edition of Literature, a weekly newspaper of literary criticism published in association with the London Times. From 1899-1901 he was managing editor of Harper's Weekly.

Elia W. Peattie. A Mount Adult female. Chicago: Manner & Williams, 1896. This "wraparound" comprehend design incorporates both boards and the spine but is also successful when those parts are viewed individually.  Like Rock & Kimball, Mode and Williams was known for the innovative design of both the text and cases of their books. Between 1895-98, they issued more fifty volumes just, like many other young publishers of the decade, they were forced to close later on a relatively short period.

Joel Chandler Harris. The Story of Aaron. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1896. Evelyn Abrupt. Wymps. New York & London: John Lane, 1897. Paul Leicester Ford. The Great K. & A. Railroad train-Robbery. New York: Dodd Mead & Co., 1897. These covers past unknown designers clearly show the influence of the "poster craze" that swept America in the 1890s. The poster motion, driven by miniature periodicals with artist-designed covers and publishers' advertising posters, was at its meridian from 1894-1896.

Henry Seton Merriman. In Kedar's Tents. New York: Dodd Mead & Co., 1897. This cover was designed by George Wharton Edwards, an illustrator, writer, and most famously, Impressionist mode painter. From 1898-1903 he was Art Manager for Collier's.

Robert Steele, tr. Renaud of Montauban. London: George Allen, 1898. Defended to Walter Crane, this cover may have been designed by Fred Mason, who did the text illustrations and decorations. Heavily starched canvas-similar cloth like this, a type of buckram, is still used today.

Francis Thompson. New Poems. London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1897. This Art Nouveau inspired cover is by an unknown designer. Its heavily glazed buckram is oft associated with Irish manufacture. The English poet Thompson, built-in in 1859, struggled with depression and addiction to laudanum after failing in attempts at a medical career. Well-nigh all of his poems were written during a iv year period of withdrawal, fostered by his then publisher.

Paul Leicester Ford. Tattle Tales of Cupid. New York: Dodd Mead & Co., 1898. Cover design by Alice Cordelia Morse, a prolific illustrator and designer whose work was well regarded past critics of her fourth dimension. Morse worked for many of the prominent publishers of the fourth dimension, including Harper's, Scribner's and Putnam's. Although this cover is signed, many are not and her varying mode makes attribution hard. This title sold very well, going into a third printing in its beginning twelvemonth.

R. Bowdler Sharpe. Sketch-Book of British Birds. London: Lodge for Promoting Christian Noesis, 1898. The back board is undecorated. The use of beveled boards is somewhat unusual at this time. The encompass is signed "A L" only the artist is unidentified.

Robert Herrick. Beloved's Dilemmas. Chicago: H.S. Stone & Co., 1898. Binding, typographical blueprint, decorative initial letters and printer's flowers by Will Bradley. By this time in his career, Bradley and his Wayside Press had become a role of University Press, Cambridge, where this book was printed. As evidenced by this case, he was intimately involved in all the details of book designs at the Press until he left in 1901.

Eden Phillpotts. Folly and Fresh Air. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1899. The spine is stamped in gold and the dorsum board is undecorated.

The Lonely Summertime. New York: Macmillan Co., 1899. The designer of this encompass is unknown. A best seller by the author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden, The Solitary Summertime was reprinted iii times in its kickoff year.

Lafcadio Hearn. In Ghostly Japan. Boston: Footling, Brown, & Co., 1899. This embrace design incorporates both boards and the spine of the book and is repeated on the book'southward dust jacket. Sold for $2.00, the book was described past Literary World: "It has the deep azure coloring of Fuji-San, the sacred mountain; information technology utters the chirping notation of Suzumushi, the caged insect; information technology is as melodious equally Kajika, the singing frog, and is altogether lovely."

Frank R. Stockton. Afield and Afloat. New York: Charles Scribner'south Sons, 1900. The designer of this cover is unknown. Stockton was a best-selling author and Scribner'due south issued an xviii book ready of his piece of work in this aforementioned year.

Women of the Bible. New York: Harper & Bros., 1900. The central gilt console is from an elaborately chased dice. Overall the design evokes medieval illuminations. The dorsum board is undecorated.

Mary Johnston. To Accept and To Hold. Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1900. The poster design is by Howard Pyle, who is one of the book's illustrators. The book encompass pattern is by an unidentified creative person. Within a few weeks of publication, sales of this volume, Johnston's second, passed 135,000.

George H. Boker. Francesca da Rimini. Chicago: The Dramatic Publishing Co., 1901. The designer of this Fine art Nouveau inspired cover is unknown, although the cover is signed "HC".

Mary Catherine Crowley. A Daughter of New France. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1901. Comprehend blueprint by Amy M. Sacker, a prolific illustrator, affiche and book designer, specially of children's books. Her piece of work is unremarkably found on books published by Little, Brown, Lothrop, and L.C. Folio. Sacker studied with Henry Hunt Clark at Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts and founded a schoolhouse of her ain in the late 1890s.

Alice Caldwell Hegan. Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch. New York: The Century Co., 1901. The affiche and book cover for this best-seller were designed by Clarence F. Underwood.

Alice Brown. King'south End. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1901. Encompass design past Florence Pearl Nosworthy. Commencement in the early 1880s with the designs of Sarah Wyman Whitman, Houghton, Mifflin tended toward simpler covers than many other publishers. Past the late 1890s, however, Whitman was in poor health and designing few covers, forcing Houghton, Mifflin to wait to other designers.

Richard Harding Davis. In the Fog. New York: R.H. Russell, 1901. The book embrace is designed by Frederic Dorr Steele, one of the book'southward illustrators. The poster design is signed "AW", probably for Alice Forest.

F. Berkeley Smith. The Real Latin Quarter. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1901. F. Hopkinson Smith. The Wood Burn down in No. 3. New York: Charles Scribner'south Sons, 1905. Ernest Crosby. Captain Jinks, Hero. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1902. Three cover designs past Frank Berkeley Smith, writer of The Existent Latin Quarter and son of the author of The Wood Fire in No. 3. Smith was also an illustrator and civil engineer who produced a big number of comprehend designs in the poster style from 1897-1916. The back boards of all three books are undecorated.

Richard Harding Davis. Ranson'due south Folly. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1902. Cover design past Edward Penfield. This volume is listed for $ane.50 in the publisher'due south insert. The back board is plain. In the early 1890s Penfield worked as an illustrator and art director at Harper's. He would design some of the most popular advertizement posters for their periodicals.

Kenneth Grahame. Dream Days. London: John Lane, 1902. Opie Read. Bolanyo. Chicago: Way & Williams, 1897. Maxfield Parrish did the embrace design for both of these titles, likewise as the endpapers and text illustration for Dream Days. At present best known for his paintings and their distinctive colors, Parrish found early on success with his drawings in blackness and white. Throughout the 1890s and early years of the twentieth century, Parrish did a considerable amount of volume and mag illustration and poster design.

Mabel Nelson Thurston. On the Road to Arcady. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1903. Comprehend blueprint, endpapers and text decoration by Samuel Chiliad. Palmer. In the concluding quarter of the nineteenth century, Fleming Revell was the largest publisher of religious books in North America, although they published some general involvement books besides.

Jack London. The Telephone call of the Wild. New York: The Macmillan Visitor, 1903. The unidentified designer of this cover signed it "Cx". The volume has text illustrations past Charles Edward Hooper.

Hamlin Garland. Master Travelled Roads. Chicago: Stone & Kimball, 1903. Rock & Kimball were extremely influential in the changing world of encompass pattern. Founded in 1893 past Melville Stone and Ingalls Kimball, the firm fix out to "astound most American volume-buyers by the mere beauty of industry." The post-obit year, the 2 started The Chap-Book, a widely praised and collected literary magazine. In 1894, Frank Hazenplug joined the staff equally business firm designer and was responsible for many of the series' designs they used. In addition to Hazenplug, Stone & Kimball used artists like Horace T. Carpenter, who designed Main Travelled Roads, George H. Hallowell, Claude Bragdon and Volition Bradley.

Aubrey Beardsley. Under the Hill. London: John Lane, 1904. Beardsley made this design for the comprehend of Oscar Wilde'due south Salome. In 1891, at nineteen, Beardsley embarked on a career every bit an illustrator, and with the help of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes in French republic and Joseph Pennell in England he chop-chop made a name for himself. In 1894, after illustrating Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur, Beardsley became the art editor of the curt-lived The Yellow Book and constitute widespread public notice. Other major book pattern work includes The Savoy and The Rape of the Lock. He died in 1898.

Josephine Caroline Sawyer. All's Off-white in Dear. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1904. Wallace Irwin. Nautical Lays of a Landsman. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1904. Cover design, endpapers and text illustration by Charles Buckles Falls. An illustrator and mural painter in New York, Falls worked for Decorative Designers for many years merely also freelanced for Dodd, Mead & Co.

Hermann Sudermann. Fires of St. John. Boston: John W. Luce & Co., 1904. The designer of this cover, who must take been a professional, is unknown. The volume is notable hither too for its cloth-the weave of which is very visible.

Frances Trego Montgomery. On a Distraction to the Planets. Akron, OH: The Saalfield Publishing Co., 1904. This cover is very much in keeping with the ascendant style of the 1880s. Some publishing houses retained a way from decade to decade, while others used an "old-fashioned" way equally a marketing device.

Sadakicki Hartmann. Japanese Art. Boston: Fifty. C. Folio & Co., 1904. Cover pattern by Amy Richards, signed with her conjoined initials.

William Butler Yeats. Poems. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1904. William Butler Yeats. The Secret Rose. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1897. William Butler Yeats. The Wind Among the Reeds. London: Eastward. Mathews, 1899. Cover designs by Althea Gyles, built-in in 1868 in County Waterford, Ireland. In 1889, Gyles went to Dublin to study art where she formed an association with West.B. Yeats. She moved to London in 1892, began to write verse, moved in the literary circles of the period, and became a member of the occultist grouping the Gold Dawn. She died in 1949.

Eastward. J. Harvey Darton. Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims. London: Wells Gardner, Darton & Co., 1906. Hugh Thomson designed this embrace and illustrated the text. Born in Ireland, he began working in England in the early 1880s. His pen and ink drawings were very popular and his work is well known via Macmillan'south so-called "Cranford Serial". The publisher's advertisement lists this edition for six shillings.

Richard Harding Davis. Vera the Medium. New York: Charles Scribner'south Sons, 1908. This fashion of this cover design is a swell dissimilarity to the text's illustrations by Frederic Dorr Steele.

Francis N. Thorpe. The Divining Rod. Boston: Piddling, Brown, & Co., 1905. Jack London. When God Laughs. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1911. Andre Castaigne. Fata Morgana. New York: The Century Co., 1904. Ruth McEnery Stuart. Napoleon Jackson. New York: The Century Co., 1902. Randall Parrish. Beth Norvell. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co., 1907. [Embrace design, signed, by Decorative Designers.] Cover designs by the prolific Decorative Designers, a New York based house whose principal figures were Henry Thayer and his wife, Emma Redington Lee, who used the name Lee Thayer. Active from 1895-1932, the house was responsible for thousands of book covers and jackets. The business firm employed other designers for various periods, principally Jay Chambers, Adam Empie, Charles Buckles Falls, and Rome Richardson, but Lee Thayer was responsible for most of the firm'southward designs. Henry, a trained architect, concentrated on the lettering and details of the business organization itself.

Winifred Babcock. A Japanese Nightingale. New York & London: Harper & Brothers, 1902. Margaret Deland. The Voice. New York & London: Harper & Brothers, 1912. The fonts used for these two titles are similar though their differences are accentuated by the unlike inks used to print them, their size and placement.

1880-1889 / Sarah Wyman Whitman

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Source: https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/3348

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