Beauty and the Book

Whether you curl up and read it, shelve it for reference, or place on the coffee table, this is one book you don’t want to miss

Feel free to judge this book by its cover—a sumptuous red cloth with a dazzling gold-stamped design; or by its illustrations—more than 100 full color plates exquisitely reproduced; or by its text—an introductory essay and meticulous captions written by the much-admired book artist Richard Minsky. The Art of American Book Covers (AABC) is a prize every collector deserves, particularly those whose interests include book design, decorative bookbindings, women book artists, American Gilded Age literature, or the Arts and Crafts movement.

Minsky writes about a Golden Age of book cover art that lasted from the 1870s until the Great Depression, during which publishers commissioned artists and designers to create exciting, eye-catching covers. The art was neither Victorian nor modern, and it had many influences, including Arts and Crafts, Orientalism, and Art Nouveau. Die work, gold stamping, patterns, and artists’ monograms or devices on the cover are some of the key elements of this Golden Age that Minsky deftly describes in his introduction. He also provides some background information on the major artists.

Sarah Wyman Whitman, for example, was likely the first professional female book designer. She created hundreds of covers for Houghton Mifflin and had her own stained glass studio (all while playing Boston hostess for her wealthy husband). Her work is closely associated with novelist Sarah Orne Jewett, whose The Country of the Pointed Firs is considered a minor American classic. Minsky offers a color illustration of that gold-stamped green cloth cover, as well as two of Whitman’s other commercial bindings.

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