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BOOK-JACKETS: THEIR HISTORY, FORMS, AND USE
Tanselle, G. Thomas
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Book-jackets (or "dust-jackets," as they are often called), along with other detachable book coverings such as slip-cases, have been regularly used by publishers in the English-speaking world and some countries of the European continent since the early part of the nineteenth century. Historians of publishing practices, however, have not accorded them the scrutiny that one might have expected such a ubiquitous and noticeable phenomenon to receive. This illustrated book is intended as a compact introduction to the historical study of these objects, which -- though removable from the books they cover -- are essential parts of those books as published.
The present work offers a concise history both of publishers' detachable book coverings (primarily British and American) and of the attention they have received from scholars, dealers, collectors, and librarians. It also surveys their use by publishers (as protective devices and advertising media) and their usefulness to scholars of literature, art, and book history (as sources for biography, bibliography, cultural analysis, and the development of graphic design). In effect, the book constitutes a plea for the preservation and cataloguing of this significant class of material, so that it will be available for future examination.
Following the text is a list of some of the surviving pre-1901 examples of British and American publishers' printed book-jackets and other detachable coverings. This list, with 1,888 entries, is the outgrowth of a process the author began in 1969: he has kept a record of every pre-1901 jacket that he came across or learned about. Because surviving jackets from the nineteenth century are scarce (most having been thrown away by the original booksellers or purchasers of the books), and because the large majority of those that do survive are known in only a single copy, it is important to have a listing that indicates their whereabouts, or at least the basis for knowing that they exist or once existed. The list thus provides a guide to the body of evidence on which generalizations about the history of nineteenth-century jackets must be based, until more examples are reported. The book also contains two image sections: the first containing eight black-and-white plates, and the second containing sixteen color plates.
G. Thomas Tanselle, former vice president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and adjunct professor of English at Columbia University, is president of the Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia and co-editor of the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of the writings of Herman Melville. He has previously served as president of the Bibliographical Society of America, the Grolier Club, and the Society for Textual Scholarship. His books include Royall Tyler (1967), Guide to the Study of United States Imprints (1971), A Rationale of Textual Criticism (1989), Textual Criticism and Scholarly Editing (1990), The Life and Work of Fredson Bowers (1993), Literature and Artifacts (1998), Textual Criticism since Greg (2005), and Bibliographical Analysis (2009). His collection of American imprints is in the Beinecke Library at Yale, where his assemblage of nineteenth-century book-jackets will soon be placed as well.
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LE CINQUECENTINE PIEMONTESI.
by Bersano Begey, Marina
First edition, printed in an edition limited to 990 numbered copies. Includes bibliographies, with copious facsimile reproductions of 16th century book illustrations, woodcuts and engravings. One volume of a three volume set, this volume being dedicated to books printed in the city of Torino, Italy. With the small private book label of H.P.K. (Kraus) affixed to the front pastedown. Loosely inserted is a commemorative book label which indicates that this set came from the reference library of H.P. Kraus purchased by Oak Knoll Books at the auction sale.
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