Covers of a 1914 Edith Wharton set

I have eight volumes from a 1914 set of Edith Wharton's works published by Scribners. The covers seem to be a red dyed cloth - or possibly buckram, not sure. However, at this point the red dye is fairly easy to rub off. Just handling the books will leave a bit of red color on your fingers. My question, is there a way to stop the color loss? Does one seal the cover boards with something, or is the best bet to make dust covers for the books? Pictures below.

On the principle primum non nocere, I'd go for a dust jacket. I would have thought that any applied coating would carry the risk of causing distortion of the boards.

These look like pretty standard linen of the era, not buckram. Making dust jackets would help. I'd also avoid putting a coating on them (YIKES). Making a cover -- there should be a youtube tutorial or something. I remember doing that with textbooks in school every year. We had to bring paper grocery bags and made them out of that. You could probably do something a little nicer. Check https://www.dustjackets.com/ to see if he has them? Maybe he can help find something that would look really nice.