Favourite Book Jacket

[Dust Jacket Collector]

11 hours ago, seaJane said:

Viewless winds : being the recollections and digressions of an Australian surgeon / by Herbert M. Moran. London : Peter Davies, 1939.

 

Lt RAMC with GW service in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and the Western Front. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Moran

 

Edit: (I hadn't heard of it either; I just looked it up).

 

 

Thanks seaJane. He had a fascinating career - I may have to get his book.

[Black Maria]

3 hours ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Thanks seaJane. He had a fascinating career - I may have to get his book.

At least you don't need to find one in it's jacket 

[b3rn]

A question for the collectors and cognescenti. Did Samson's Fights and Flights come in a dust jacket?

 

More broadly, were dust jackets always produced? I am guessing not. Was cost the factor?

[Guest]

DJC will be along soon with the definitive answer.

 

 

     The publishers, Ernest Benn, were not strong on nowadays collectable dustjackets, with good illustration and use of colour. Most Benn books I have seen are a standard bottle-cum-lime green and those that come with a dustjacket,-well, the DJ is usually standard brown paper and text printing, without illustration. DJC will correct me in due course!!

 

     Dustwrappers came in for a variety of reasons The chief being:

 

1)  Multicoloured illustrations on book cloth was just too expensive- It might suit the great late Victorian travel books but was too expensive for "ordinary" trade books of the Great War and After

 

2) A garish DJ was a good selling point-  jackdaw effect,etc.

 

3)  A  colourful and artistic DJ could hide cheaper bindings underneath- a common feature of books about the Great War. Government restrictions on the use of gilt meant that board covers, instead of bookcloth became the norm during the war-with black or silver-gilt titling instead. 

Edited 15 November , 2020 by Guest

[Dust Jacket Collector]

11 hours ago, b3rn said:

A question for the collectors and cognescenti. Did Samson's Fights and Flights come in a dust jacket?

 

More broadly, were dust jackets always produced? I am guessing not. Was cost the factor?

I believe it did.

In my limited experience it seems most books from the late C19 onwards had jackets. I often see the description ‘no jacket as issued’ which turns out almost invariably to be untrue. The only exceptions are usually ones from a private press. I’m sure I have some Ernest Benn in colourful jackets but I’m still in bed so will check later.

(a quick look online shows that most of their jackets were fairly plain although they did burst into colour occasionally for some H.G.Wells & Edward Thompson titles).

Edited 16 November , 2020 by Dust Jacket Collector
Missing information

[Black Maria]

9 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

 

 

 I’m sure I have some Ernest Benn in colourful jackets but I’m still in bed so will check later.

Here is one , Benn 1930 .

[b3rn]

Thank you all!

[Dust Jacket Collector]

A couple more from Benn :-

[Dust Jacket Collector]

1 hour ago, Black Maria said:

Here is one , Benn 1930 .

 

Why oh why did I never buy that. There used to be the odd copy around but it’s years now since I last saw one. Let me know if your shelves are getting too cluttered..............".

[Black Maria]

58 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Why oh why did I never buy that. There used to be the odd copy around but it’s years now since I last saw one. Let me know if your shelves are getting too cluttered..............".

 Will do .... My copy was a lucky find ( and only about £30 ) , but I've not seen one since . If i see another for sale i will let you know . 

[Dust Jacket Collector]

11 minutes ago, Black Maria said:

 Will do .... My copy was a lucky find ( and only about £30 ) , but I've not seen one since . If i see another for sale i will let you know . 

Thanks. It’s a shame the publisher chose to put that square of text on the cover. Would have been an even more powerful image without it.

(have you seen a dealer in Ramsgate called ‘The Plantagenet King’ must have acquired a collection of jacketed War books that are appearing on ABE? Rather optimistically priced however).

[Black Maria]

36 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Thanks. It’s a shame the publisher chose to put that square of text on the cover. Would have been an even more powerful image without it.

(have you seen a dealer in Ramsgate called ‘The Plantagenet King’ must have acquired a collection of jacketed War books that are appearing on ABE? Rather optimistically priced however).

The name didn't ring a bell but looking at their listings i recognise some from e-bay . Way too expensive for me , even if i wanted any ( the signed reprint of 

'Infant in arms' £125 ! That's expensive especially as there's another signed copy for £30 on the site already and £350 for 'I Escape ! ' ) . Did you catch the Sky Arts 

documentary 'The Booksellers' ? No WW1 content but a very interesting programme about book dealers .

 

PS You're right about that square !

Edited 16 November , 2020 by Black Maria

[Guest]

Happy to be updated of my ignorance about Benn- I have had a lifetime of fending off copies of the "Letters of Colonel House" (usually just 1 and 2,not all 4)-so the trauma must still be deep inside.  A nice DW- reminiscent of a Wyndham Lewis vorticist pic.  Good to see it well preserved in the right protective covering

 

[Dust Jacket Collector]

14 minutes ago, Black Maria said:

The name didn't ring a bell but looking at their listings i recognise some from e-bay . Way too expensive for me , even if i wanted any ( the signed reprint of 

'Infant in arms' £125 ! That's expensive especially as there's another signed copy for £30 on the site already and £350 for 'I Escape ! ' ) . Did you catch the Sky Arts 

documentary 'The Booksellers' ? No WW1 content but a very interesting programme about book dealers .

 

PS You're right about that square !

I only noticed the Booksellers was on afterwards. Hopefully they’ll show it again.

The same dealer has Koppen’s Higher Command at £275. They’ve since offered it to me at £210 but that still seems far too much.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

Happy to be updated of my ignorance about Benn- I have had a lifetime of fending off copies of the "Letters of Colonel House" (usually just 1 and 2,not all 4)-so the trauma must still be deep inside.  A nice DW- reminiscent of a Wyndham Lewis vorticist pic.  Good to see it well preserved in the right protective covering
 

If you’re feeling particularly flush, Harrington’s have Frank Becke’s (of Order of Battle etc. fame) copy in said jacket for a trifling £2750!

[Black Maria]

6 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

I only noticed the Booksellers was on afterwards. Hopefully they’ll show it again.

The same dealer has Koppen’s Higher Command at £275. They’ve since offered it to me at £210 but that still seems far too much.

Yes , i expect it will be on again . The 'High Command' is a tad expensive and a plain jacket , although judging by their other books you could also say it's 

a bargain at £210 !

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

If you’re feeling particularly flush, Harrington’s have Frank Becke’s (of Order of Battle etc. fame) copy in said jacket for a trifling £2750!

 

     Pom Harrington and Mr. Mitchell can keep it.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

Here’s one of my all time favourite jackets which arrived today. Published in 1919, it was a trifle! dearer than such things usually are but I suppose he attracts those wealthy collectors of detective fiction as well. Hornung worked for the YMCA in France during the War running a canteen and library. He also spent some time searching for the grave of his son who’d been killed earlier in the War. The book has been described as one of the best accounts of life behind the lines although that was said by Hornung’s biographer. ( if the names unfamiliar, he wrote short stories about the ‘Amateur Cracksman’, A. J. Raffles).

[Guest]

Is this one of the copies that you were pining for about 3 years ago-originally priced at £900?  Oscar Wilde is hoving into my memory-"I can resist everything except..............."  

[Dust Jacket Collector]

Is this one of the copies that you were pining for about 3 years ago-originally priced at £900?  Oscar Wilde is hoving into my memory-"I can resist everything except..............."  

I believe it was. Fortunately a couple of large price cuts brought it within reach.

[Guest]

I believe it was. Fortunately a couple of large price cuts brought it within reach.

 

   So,hopefully, a few pence left over to pursue the big beast in the jungle............ even without a dustwrapper!!  (I presume the Spielmanns mentioned are those associated with "Punch")

 

 

269 ROSENBERG, Isaac (1890-1918). Night and Day. [London: Privately printed for the author by Narodiczky, 1912]. The exceptionally rare first edition of Rosenberg’s first book; one of 50 copies printed, and the first to appear at auction since 1981 (RBH/ABPC). Killed in battle on 1 April 1918, Rosenberg ranks alongside Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Rupert Brooke as one of the great poets of the war period. ‘Just as Owen is one of the few poets worthy to be compared with Keats, Rosenberg is one of the few worthy to be compared with Shakespeare’ (W. W. Robson). Appearing at a time when Rosenberg was studying art at the Slade School, this slim volume was intended to raise attention and further financial support in order to continue his studies. Printed at his own expense on a local press, it includes a number of minor errors which in the present copy have been corrected in pencil by the author. Accompanying the volume is a letter by the artist John Amschewitz (described by Rosenberg as his 'only friend' at this period) to the art critic Harry Alexander Spielmann, to whom he presents the work and describes the unfortunate circumstances of the author: ‘He seems to have a soul far above the ordinary both as an artist & poet ... these poems were written under the most grinding poverty – under which he still lives ... He will need all the friends he can get in the literary world, for his is a sad personality.’ R.E. Martin, ‘Collecting Isaac Rosenberg,’ The Caxtonian, Volume XVII, No. 12, December 2009; W.W. Robson, Modern English Literature, 1970. Octavo (203 x 131mm). Original printed card wrappers (faint vertical creasing); housed in red cloth case. Provenance: John Amschewitz (1882-1942, autograph letter signed, 17 June [1912], accompanying the volume, presenting it to) – Marion Harry Alexander Spielmann (1858–1948, Victorian art critic and scholar; bookplate) – Simon Nowell-Smith (1909-1996) and Judith Adams Nowell-Smith (their respective booklabels). £17,000-20,000 US$22,000-26,000 €19,000-22,000

[Dust Jacket Collector]

I believe it was. Fortunately a couple of large price cuts brought it within reach.

 

   So,hopefully, a few pence left over to pursue the big beast in the jungle............ even without a dustwrapper!!  (I presume the Spielmanns mentioned are those associated with "Punch")

 

Sadly still a long way short. I’d always hoped that when a copy did turn up it would be in the high hundreds rather than this. I do have a facsimile which was produced in the late 70s in an edition of 15 so that’ll have to do.

I wonder why it’s so scarce? There were apparently 50 copies printed. His other two privately printed collections, Youth & Moses, were printed in editions of 100 & 50 respectively and yet turn up quite regularly (even I have them).

Maybe I should try crowd funding - there are supposed to be some 50,000 or more members of this forum so if you all send me 40p............?

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Maybe I should try crowd funding - there are supposed to be some 50,000 or more members of this forum so if you all send me 40p............?

 

     A nice thought... though I fear you may still be a few pence short.  One of the endearing features of very high prices at auction is that it does tend to flush out other copies of supposedly ultra-rare items- the chap reading about it in his morning newspaper and thinking "Hell's Bells ,I've got one of those in the attic", etc,etc. 

    The survivability of books is a mystery-I have just bought one from 1764 with only one known copy listed on the usually reliable ESTC (Bodley)  Yet the printers ledgers have survived and clearly show that a thousand copies were printed- thus, your Rosenberg is comparatively common as muck. And the recent census done by Motty Feingold into the number of copies kicking around of the first Newton's Principia shows that, in terms of antiquarian bookselling, it is a very common item- comfortably into the hundreds.

    Alas, the enduring popularity of Arthurian literature since the Middle Ages shows that the quest for the Grail is a recurrent theme of the human condition. Compared to the quest for the Grail, the quest for Rosenberg has only just begun. In Holmesian terms, the game's afoot- I will look out in the "Evening Standard" for references to police stopping a man rifling the dustbins at the back of the Slade....

[Dust Jacket Collector]

 

    I will look out in the "Evening Standard" for references to police stopping a man rifling the dustbins at the back of the Slade....

Even allowing for the tardiness of London’s bin men I fear young Isaac’s castoffs will have been carted away!

(off to see Mr. Donovan this morning, socially distanced of course, so likely to be relieved of any pennies put aside for the Rosenberg).

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

(off to see Mr. Donovan this morning, socially distanced of course, so likely to be relieved of any pennies put aside for the Rosenberg).

 

      Good luck-  it may answer what is likely to be the front page of the Financial Times tomorrow  -"Mystery surrounds Post-Lockdown boom in the economy of Brighton"