Colourful, carefully designed and highly produced; dust jackets are now ubiquitous in book publishing and are an important tool for publishers in making books look appealing to readers, communicating at a glance what they might find inside. However, it hasn’t always been so easy to judge a book by its cover.
The use of decorated dust-jackets only became common in the inter-war period, when artists began looking for a more commercial market for their work. Previously, a dust jacket was most usually a disposable, plain paper wrapper, intended only to protect bindings during transportation and display.
In the 1920s and ‘30s, publishers began to take advantage of dust jackets as tools to make their publications more attractive and as a space to include author biographies and adverts.
A selection of distinctive dust jackets from Victor Gollancz.
As many book collectors know, the presence of a dust jacket in good condition can increase the value of a book almost exponentially. Certain jackets, however, are collectable in their own right, and those designed by artist M. McKnight Kauffer between the 1920s and 1950s fall into this category. American by birth, Kauffer settled in Britain in 1914 and was known for producing iconic posters for the London Underground and Shell. His work was Modernist in flavour, and included Vorticist, Cubist and Futurist influences. His designs were popular with publishers who preferred abstract and symbolic, rather than figurative, designs for their covers. Kauffer’s talent for expression lay, said Aldous Huxley in his introduction to Kauffer’s Posters, in his methods of ‘simplification, distortion and transportation’. Kauffer’s style appealed particularly to publisher Victor Gollancz, who commissioned numerous jacket designs from him in a significant departure from their ‘house style’. Researching the most eye-catching colours and designs by observing adverts in railway stations, Gollancz hit upon their signature design of bright yellow jackets with magenta and black text, and this style was continued for many years. Although more decorative, Kauffer’s semi-abstract designs chimed with Gollancz’s bold aesthetic and could be economically produced in two-colour print.
This collection includes almost forty books with jackets designed by Kauffer, designs for Gollancz, the Hogarth Press, as well as work for American publishers.
Edmund Dulac, ‘Night’, illustration for the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
Perhaps one of the best-known, best-loved and most-illustrated poems in the English language, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a unique publishing phenomenon. Translated (or, as Fitzgerald put it, ‘transmogrified’) from the quatrains of 11th century Persian poet, philosopher and mathematician Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald and first published in 1859 in pamphlet form, it has rarely been out of print since and has appeared in over 650 different editions. After an initially disastrous reception (it seems that, initially, not one of the 250 copies Fitzgerald had printed were sold, and ended up in a penny box outside bookseller and sometime-publisher Bernard Quaritch in Leicester Square) a copy was eventually passed by an acquaintance to Romantic artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti. He in turn passed it to his friend Algernon Charles Swinburne and it soon became a staple of Victorian reading matter, culturally ubiquitous and overwhelmingly popular.
The reason for such widespread affection may lie in the universal appeal of the themes which appear in Fitzgerald’s rendering of the verses, which meditate upon death, love, happiness, the transience of life and pleasure of imbibing:
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and–sans End!
…
While the Rose blows along the River Brink,
With old Khayyam the Ruby Vintage drink:
And when the Angel with his darker Draught
Draws up to Thee – take that, and do not shrink.
Such broad yet elegantly expressed sentiments, coupled with its exotic origins, rendered it almost infinitely open to interpretation and a rich inspiration for the aesthetic of fin-de-siècle hedonism, as Daniel Karlin notes in his introduction to the text: ‘nightingales and roses, sultans and sheikhs (there are no sheikhs), caravans and camels (there are no camels)’.
First Edition, Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia, Edward Fitzgerald, London: Bernard Quaritch, 1859.
FITZGERALD, Edward. Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia. 1859 [111542]
One of the original 250 published anonymously by Fitzgerald and Quaritch, and that Quaritch found so hard to sell at first. This copy might well have lain in the penny barrel outside the bookshop, to be thumbed through by the contemporaries of Rossetti, Swinburne, Burne-Jones, who spoke so highly of it.
(DULAC, Edmund.) OMAR KHAYYÁM; Edward Fitzgerald (trans.) Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Rendered into English Verse by Edward Fitzgerald.
One of the most iconic illustrators of folk and fairy tale, Dulac’s interpretation of the Rubaiyat is possibly the most recognisable. Interpreting the verses freely, Dulac created and orientalist fantasy to appeal to turn-of-the-century tastes. His illustrations remain some of the most enchanting of all the illustrated versions.
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, With an introduction by A. C. Benson. Reproduced from a manuscript written and illuminated by F. Sangorski & G. Sutcliffe, [1910]
OMAR KHAYYAM; FITZGERALD, Edward. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. With an introduction by A. C. Benson. Reproduced from a manuscript written and illuminated by F. Sangorski & G. Sutcliffe. [1910] [111195]
This history of the Sangorski & Sutcliffe Rubaiyat is a curious one. Famous for the magnificence of their jewelled and gilded bindings, the bookbinders were commissioned in 1909 to produce the most lavish edition of the Rubaiyat yet. Its cover was decorated with gilded peacocks and inlaid with jewels and it was known as the Great Omar. The book was to be sent to New York but, after missing two successive ships due to customs issues, it was booked on the next available crossing, the Titanic, and went down with the ship in 1912. It has never been recovered from the wreckage. Six weeks later, the creator of the Grand Omar, Francis Sangorski, drowned in a bathing accident off Selsey Bill.
The firm continues and was able to recreate a second copy of the Great Omar six years later. Wishing to take no chances this time, the book was stored in a bank vault. The bank, vault and book were destroyed in the London Blitz during World War II.
This copy is one of a limited of 25 copies printed on Japanese vellum, reproduced from the original illuminated manuscript by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, and remains one of the most opulent copies of the Rubaiyat.
Ella Hallward’s copy of Ruba’iyat of Hakim Omar-i-Khayyam. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1897. A photographic reproduction of the MS. written at Shiraz in the year A.H. 865 (A.D. 1460) and now in the Bodleian Library, from a transcript of which Edward Fitzgerald began the first edition of his ‘Rubáiyát of Omar Kháyyám’ (London) 1859.
(HALLWARD, Ella.) Ruba’iyat of Hakim Omar-i-Khayyam. 1897 [111395]
These two beautiful little volumes were created especially for Ella Hallward. Fitzgerald’s translation of the work of Khayyam was not the only one, and Hallward was notable for having illustrated Edward Heron-Allen’s 1898 version, published by H. S. Nichols.
Accompanying the manuscript reproduction is a second volume; Hallward’s copy of the Fitzgerald translation. Towards the back, a sprig of rose leaves have been pressed between the pages. An inscription – ‘Boulge, 9th October 1897’ – tells us that this was probably clipped from the rose bush which grows above Fitzgerald’a grave at St Michael’s Church in Boulge, Suffolk. This rose bush was planted in 1893 by the Omar Khayyam Club and was grown from a seed taken from the rose bush over the grave of Omar Khayyam at Nishapur.
Numerous other magnificent copies of the Rubaiyat exist and attest to its continued popularity and collectability. View our entire stock of items here.
Items from the Summer Catalogue are on display at 100 Fuham Road
“Let us go, then, exploring, this summer morning, when all are adoring the plum blossom and the bee.”
― Virginia Woolf, Orlando (Summer Catalogue, item 256) (SOLD)
Spanning almost three centuries, our Summer Catalogue brings together our most interesting recent acquisitions. From a collection of poems addressed to a prima ballerina to a record produced by the first African American record label, this selection of rare items is as charming as it is surprising.
Members of Peter Harrington staff have chosen their favourite items from the catalogue to share. To view the entire catalogue, please click here.
Perhaps the best-known translation of the collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian folk tales most often known as the One Thousand and One Nights or the Arabian Nights, Burton’s The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night was originally published in ten volumes, with six further volumes entitled The Supplemental Nights to the Thousand Nights and a Night. Owing to the nature of their content and the strict Victorian laws on obscene material, these sixteen volumes were printed as private editions for subscribers only.
Burton’s translation has not lacked for both admirers and critics over the years, but his idiosyncratic style of translation is perhaps best summed up by Jorge Luis Borges in his essay on ‘The Translators of The Thousand and One Nights’: ‘In some way, the almost inexhaustible process of English is adumbrated in Burton – John Donne’s hard obscenity, the gigantic vocabularies of Shakespeare and Cyril Tourneur, Swinburne’s affinity for the archaic, the crass erudition of the authors of 17th century chapbooks, the energy and imprecision, the love of tempests and magic.’
First collected edition of Wilde’s works, limited to 1,000 sets on handmade paper. The texts were mostly taken from the last editions to be supervised by the author. Copyright in The Picture of Dorian Gray was held by Charles Carrington, so that volume alone appears with his Paris imprint. In 1922 Methuen announced the discovery of a new play by Wilde, For Love of the King: a Burmese Masque, and published it as a pendant volume to the original 14-volume set. The play was denounced by Wilde’s bibliographer Christopher Millard, and, although Methuen won a court case against him, the work is generally accepted to be a forgery by Mabel Wodehouse Pearse, née Cosgrove.
BOETHIUS., David Hume, Published: Antwerp Ex officina Plantiniana, Apud Ioannem Moretumm, 1607 – SOLD
A remarkable association copy, from the library of the Scottish philosopher David Hume, of one of the most notable works of western philosophy, this being the first Bernartius edition, with Hume’s bookplate (State A) to the front pastedown.
Hume was an enthusiastic reader of classical literature and a self-proclaimed Ciceronian too. In his autobiographical essay, published posthumously in 1777, Hume reported that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one he read “most of the celebrated Books in Latin, French, & English”, admitting that he was “secretly devouring” Virgil and Cicero when he should have been reading law. The influence of Cicero in particular pervades Hume’s work – his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion are modelled on Cicero’s De Natura Deorum, and the Essays on Happiness draw strongly on De Finibus – a fact which numerous commentators such as Peter S. Fosl, John Valdimir Price, and Humean editors Norman Kemp Smith and Martin Bell
An article by David Edmonds and John Eidinow outlining this extraordinary clash in more depth can be found here.
The History of England,Catharine Macaulay, 1769 – SOLD
Often referred to as the first Englishwoman to become an historian, Macaulay wrote her History of England from the accession of James I to the elevation of the House of Hanover between 1763 and 1783. From being relatively unknown, the popularity of her History brought her almost overnight celebrity. The work was praised by William Pitt in the House of Commons, and Lord Lyttelton wrote that Macaulay was ‘a very prodigy’. Her republican ideals also brought her approval in America and she became acquainted with Benjamin Franklin, Josiah Quincy, Benjamin Rush, Richard Henry Lee, John Adams, Ezra Styles, and Jonathan Mayhew through her work.
The Making of the English Working Class, E. P. Thompson, 1963 – SOLD
A highly influential publication in English Social History from New Left historian E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class appeared in 1963. Thompson’s aim was to ‘rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the ‘obsolete’ hand-loom weaver, the ‘utopian’ artisan, and even the deluded follower of Joanna Southcott, from the enormous condescension of posterity.’ (p. 12). This copy is a first edition, and a rare find in its original dust jacket.
First edition. The Brussels edition of Les Misérables takes precedence as the first published edition, as the first two volumes were issued in Brussels on 30 or 31 March 1862, preceding the Paris edition by four or five days. The remaining volumes appeared on 15 May 1862.
Copies in the original wrappers are rare in commerce. ABPC locates two copies only in the last 40 years, omitting the latest, that sold in Brussels at Henri Godts Auction, 11 December 2012, wrappers chipped in places, for 36,000.
The Heroycall Epistles of the learned poet Publius Ovidius Naso, Ovid, c. 1584 – BOOK SOLD
Ovid’s Epistulae Heroidum (Letters of Heroines) is a collection of fifteen poems written from the perspective of the heroines of Greek and Roman Tragedy, addressing their various lovers who have abandoned, betrayed and mistreated them.
The Heroides is thought to have had a significant influence on the work of Shakespeare, and this first English translation was likely the version he would have known. The rhetorical virtuosity of Ovid’s heroines can be traced in characters such as Katherina (The Taming of the Shrew) and Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing) and direct and indirect references to Ovid are to be found throughout his plays.
Holly Segar
What’ll You Have?, Julien Proskauer, 1933 – SOLD
Published in New York in 1933, this copy is inscribed by the author just thirteen days after prohibition officially came to an end in America: ‘To Jacquline-or Jo, as we know her, this book is given for she is of that younger generation to whom this book is dedicated x. With the author;s best wishes Julien J. Prosakauer. Dec 18, 1933.’ Also inscribed are several uncommon cocktail recipe variations, including a ‘Queen Jocelyn’.
Pippi Långstrump, Astrid Lindgren, 1945-48 – SOLD
The first editions of the first three Pipi Longstocking novels, Pippi Långstrump; Pippi Långstrump går ombord; Pippi Långstrump i Söderhavet (1945-4), in the original Swedish. Originally told as stories to her daughter Karin, Lindgren later wrote the first manuscript during a convalescent period in 1944. After being rejected by the publisher she originally submitted it to, Lindgren revised the story and entered it into a children’s book competition run by relatively new publisher Rabén & Sjögren, which she won. It was then published with illustrations by Ingrid Vang Nyman in 1945.
What end can be more noble than the pursuit of virtue? what motive more alluring, than the practice of justice? or what instruction more beneficial, than an accurate elucidation of symbols which tend to improve and embellish the mind? Every thing that strikes the eye, more immediately engages the attention, and imprints on the memory serious and solemn truths. Masons have therefore universally adopted the plan of inculcating the tenets of their order by typical figures and allegorical emblems, to prevent their mysteries from descending within the familiar reach of inattentive and unprepared novices, from whom they might not receive due veneration. – Illustrations of Masonry by William Preston (12th edition, 1812).
A very attractive recent acquisition is this Masonic binding on a copy of the twelfth edition of Illustrations of Masonry by William Preston, a philosophical statement and handbook of the secret society. The binding was executed in 1812, most likely by John Lovejoy who was himself a Mason and one of seven English binders regularly producing this style during the late eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. He can be identified by the tools he used; a similar binding in red morocco can be seen on the Bodleian Library’s website, and one also appears in the Maggs Brothers catalogue Bookbinding in the British Isles (though it was not unusual for binders to share tools, so we can’t be absolutely sure that Lovejoy produced this binding).
Click to enlarge:
Masonic binding by John Lovejoy.
The design on the upper board matches an engraving used in the book, on which Lovejoy must have based his tools:
What’s nice about these bindings is their lack of sophistication. There’s a charming naivety about the tools, as they reflect the styles of a previous era that had by this time filtered down to the middle classes (who were, of course, the primary followers of masonry). I’m particularly fond of the cherub that appears on the lower board:
First edition of Lodges in the Wilderness by W. C. Scully (1915).
The beautiful design on the cover of this book, a first edition of Lodges in the Wilderness by W. C. Scully, is not printed on a dust jacket, but applied directly to the cloth binding. While it’s normal for publishers to use colour paints to apply the titles to cloth-bound books, it’s less common to see large multi-colour designs produced in this way, particularly with such delicate tones. It’s even less common for them to remain in pristine condition; normally the pigments are rubbed and chipped off, or show the effects of soiling and sun exposure. This copy, however, is in stunning condition.
The author, William Charles Scully (1855–1943), was a prolific South African writer known for his sympathy with the native people of the region. His first volume of short stories, Kafir Stories (1895) is “probably the earliest collection of short stories written by any white man in which all of the heroes are black men”*. The volume pictured above is the story of a journey across a “great waterless desert” undertaken by the author during the 1890s when he was Special Magistrate for the Northern Border of the Cape Colony. In an attempt to connect the book with current events of the Boer War, the publisher has tipped-in a small ticket at the title page reading, “General Botha’s army is operating in the neighbourhood of the Great Waterless Desert dealt with in this book. It forms the great problem of the campaign”.
To see more of our books on travel and exploration, click here.
*Marquard, Jean. “W. C. Scully: South African Pioneer”. Institute for the Study of English in Africa. January, 1979.
![FITZGERALD, Edward. Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia. 1859 [111542]](https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/1.jpg)
![OMAR KHAYYAM; FITZGERALD, Edward. Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. With an introduction by A. C. Benson. Reproduced from a manuscript written and illuminated by F. Sangorski & G. Sutcliffe. [1910] [111195]](https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/111195.jpg)
![(HALLWARD, Ella.) Ruba'iyat of Hakim Omar-i-Khayyam. 1897 [111395]](https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/51-e1471441023889.jpg)
The Arabian Nights, Richard F. Burton, 1885–8
BOETHIUS., David Hume, Published: Antwerp Ex officina Plantiniana, Apud Ioannem Moretumm, 1607 – SOLD
The Making of the English Working Class, E. P. Thompson, 1963 – SOLD
The Heroycall Epistles of the learned poet Publius Ovidius Naso , Ovid, c. 1584 – BOOK SOLD
Pippi Långstrump, Astrid Lindgren, 1945-48 – SOLD
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