Nineteenth Century Dust Jackets

1839. German jacket with ads and decoration.
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Funfzig Rathsel und Bilder fur Kinder von 8-12 Jahren (Fifty Riddles and Pictures for Children 8 - 12), by Friedrich Hoffmann. Essen: Verlag von G. D. Baedeker (n.d. but 1839). First edition. Original paper covered boards. 12mo. Illustrated. [Private collection]

This is the fourth earliest known publishers’ jacket, following two sealed wrappings issued on British annuals in 1829 and 1832, and a flap style jacket on another German children’s book in paper boards from 1836.

This book has no printed date, but the 1839 printing was apparently the only one. Another copy has been located with an 1846 inscription. The jacket is rose colored paper, faded to brown externally, printed on the front with “Rathsel-Buch” (Riddle Book) and a decorative line, on the spine with a long row of decorative devices and “Hoffman’ s Rathselbuch,” and on the back with an extensive list of ads for other books. The jacket flaps are narrow, plain and bevel cut at all four corners.

The binding is cream colored paper over boards, with printing on front, spine and back.

Of the six titles now recorded in verified publishers’ jackets before 1850, one jacket is plain, four carry advertising, and five have some form of decoration. The use of jackets as marketing tools, not just protective devices, clearly occurred early and may even have been common before mid century.

The front panels of the 1836 and 1839 German jackets are strikingly similar—one with the single word “Fabelbuch” and a line under it (see below in right column), the other with just “Rathsel-buch” and a line under it.

1882. Walter Crane illustration on jacket.
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Household Stories, From the Collection of the Bros. Grimm. Translated from the German by Lucy Crane and Done Into Pictures by Walter Crane. London: Macmillan & Co., 1882. Decorated cloth. 8vo. 269 pp. [Reproduced with permission of The Osborne Collection of Early Children’s Books, Toronto Public Library, Canada]

Jacket reproduces title page including the Walter Crane illustration, with more illustration on spine and extensive advertisements on back, flaps plain. The jacket is entirely different from and perhaps even more attractive than the binding, which was rarely the case in the 19th century. The book’s price of six shillings is on the front panel of the jacket, as was common on other known Macmillan jackets of the period.

Macmillan & Co. was founded in 1842 and may well have used dust jackets before mid century, as did some of its competitors, although few Macmillan jackets are known to survive before the 1880s. The earliest recorded Macmillan jacket dates from 1869 on a Thomas Hughes book, with three other Macmillan titles known in jacket from the 1870s on books by Christina Rossetti, Lewis Carroll and Henry James. Correspondence between Carroll and Macmillan in 1876 regarding the jacket for the first edition of The Hunting of the Snark also reveals that copies of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass then in the Macmillan warehouse had plain jackets. These were likely reprint editions from the early and mid 1870s. (Carroll wanted the plain jackets replaced with printed ones so that bookstall vendors would be more likely to leave them on the books and keep the bindings cleaner and more saleable. Macmillan complied.) Whether the first printings of Alice (1865/6) or Looking-Glass (1872) had jackets is not known, but they probably did.

In any event, the 1882 Macmillan jacket is sophisticated and attractive. It clearly was intended to help sell the book (and other titles), not merely to protect it prior to sale. Booksellers surely would have left jackets of this artistic merit and cross-selling value on the books as they put them out for sale, and some customers must have kept jackets of this caliber on their books after purchase, at least for a while.

1883. Jacket in color.

Morwood, Vernon S. Facts and Phases of Animal Life, Interspersed with Amusing and Original Anecdotes. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. First edition. Decorated cloth. 8vo. 75 wood engravings. 286 pp. [The Bookmark]

The jacket repeats the binding design in red and black. The red was used mainly where gilt was used on the binding. There also are ads for four Arabella B. Buckley titles on the back of the jacket. The beveled jacket flaps are plain.

Not many jackets survive from before the 1890s that used color for illustration, although it was probably common long before this example. Many earlier jackets survive that used color for printing text.

Note how decorative this jacket is compared to the Osgood jacket for the Hawthorne title in the next post. Both jackets are from 1883 and both covered decorative bindings, but the Osgood jacket hid the binding rather than promote it, and booksellers were probably much more inclined to discard the Osgood jacket and retain the Appleton one when they put the books out for sale. Neither publisher bothered to put its name on the jacket, knowing they wouldn't survive for long.

More jackets seem to survive from D. Appleton & Co. in the 1880s (although many of them did not use color) than from any other publisher in that decade except Belford, Clarke & Co.

1883. Rare Hawthorne jacket.

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Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Dr. Grimshawe’s Secret: A Romance. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co., 1883. First edition. Decorated cloth. 8vo. [Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library]

This is the only jacket known to survive on a Hawthorne first edition. None of his books published during his lifetime (1804-1864) are known in jacket, although some probably had them. Ticknor & Fields was Hawthorne's main publisher, but no Ticknor book for any author is known to survive in jacket.

The above example also is the only jacket known to survive on a trade book issued by James R. Osgood & Co. (The only other known Osgood jackets are on the large paper edition of Garfield's Works, also from 1883.) It is printed only with the title and author, not even the publisher's name. Such jackets may not have been seen by customers very often. Many were no doubt discarded by store clerks as books were put out for sale so that the more attractive bindings could be seen.

Several gift editions of Hawthorne titles published by Houghton Mifflin in the 1890s survive in cloth or paper jackets and boxes.

1905. Henry James jacket & slipcase.

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James, Henry. English Hours. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1905. First trade edition. Original decorated cloth. 8vo. Illustrated by Joseph Pennell. [The Bookmark]

The trade binding in the rare publisher’s dust jacket and slipcase, all in exceptional condition. This is the only example of the slipcase we know of and just the second example of the jacket. There also was a large paper edition which was issued with jacket and slipcase.

Early Houghton Mifflin jackets were typically entirely plain or printed only with title information on the spine. By the 1890s and early 1900s the firm was repeating binding designs on some of its jackets, although it would continue to use plain or nearly plain jackets for years to come. The regular use of blurbs, advertising and color was still years away for most Houghton Mifflin jackets, although many other firms were employing some or all of these features by 1905.

Despite the lack of color, this jacket conveys the beauty of the binding by reversing the dark and light areas of the design using only shades of black ink and the color of the paper itself. In The Art of American Book Covers 1875 - 1930 (New York: Braziller, 2010, p. 53), Richard Minsky attributes the design to Thomas Watson Ball, noting that it is usually “wrongly attributed to Bruce Rogers, who did the typographic design for this book.”

1829. Original dust jacket?

Heller, Joseph. Muggendorf und seine Umgebung oder die fränkische Schweiz. Ein Handbuch für Wanderer in dieser Gegend. Bamberg: J. C. Dresch, 1829. 8vo, pp. xiv, 214, with 2 engraved plates of views (with their original tissue guards) and 1 large folding engraved map at end. [Cambridge University Library]

Following description from Quaritch catalog Dec. 2009.

[A fine copy printed on fine paper; bound in the publisher’s de-luxe binding of richly gilt and blind tooled half calf and yellow boards, the boards printed with engraved illustrations incorporating the title of the book, gilt edges, a stunning binding, preserved in contemporary ‘dust jacket’ of coarse blue diced wrappers, with gilt (now nearly all oxidized) vine border on front and back wrapper, the flaps are cut in an ondulating design, the spine and extremities of the dust jacket are rubbed, and there is a very small piece missing on the front wrapper lower left corner, but generally in very good condition. Small ink stamp of ‘Sammlung Bauer, Bamberg’ on back blue endpaper. ...

This is a very fine copy in its first binding, a luxury binding, supplied by the publisher for the few copies printed on fine paper (Velinpapier), and more unusually it is still with its corresponding ‘dust jacket’ of blue decorated paper. ... The dust jacket has no text but fits like a glove. There can be no doubt, especially when considering the freshness of the binding, that the dust jacket was issued together with this copy by the book’s publisher.

Dust jackets of such early date are very uncommon and very rare in the market.]

Although the binding is original issue, the jacket could have been added later. But several factors besides the near pristine condition of the binding suggest the jacket is original too. A deluxe binding would logically have called for the protection of a jacket or box, both of which publishers were issuing by the late 1820s. The scalloped flaps are similar to those noted on other German jackets of the 19th century. The lack of lettering on the jacket was common on publisher’s jackets in the 19th century, as were unlettered slipcases and sheaths, especially German ones. Even if not publisher issued, this jacket clearly was designed specifically for this book as the printed areas fit precisely within the perimeter of the boards. The jacket also was precision cut. It was not homemade.

It is possible that an owner ordered this jacket after purchase from a printer or binder who sized, cut and folded it to fit the book "like a glove" and decorated it with gilt. If so, the wear on the jacket and the lack of wear on the binding suggest that the jacket was added very soon after purchase, not decades later by a collector.

If original issue, which seems as likely as not, this would be the earliest known example of a flap-style jacket issued by a publisher, and probably the earliest publishers’ jacket overall. The next earliest flap-style jackets are from 1836 and 1839, both also issued on German books bound in decorated paper boards. The earliest known sealed wrapping jacket is on a copy of a British annual, Friendship’s Offering for 1830, which was issued late in 1829, probably in November or December. The Muggendorf probably appeared earlier in 1829 than that. If so, this would be the earliest known publishers’ jacket of any type, although proving beyond doubt that it was publisher-issued is probably impossible.


[Photographs by William Hale, Rare Books Department, Cambridge University Library]

1855. Hewitt’s Ancient Armour.

Ancient Armour And Weapons In Europe: From The Iron Period Of The Northern Nations To The End Of The Thirteenth Century, by John Hewitt. Oxford and London: John Henry and James Parker, 1855. First edition. 8vo. Decorated blue cloth. TEG. Illustrated. 387 pp. [The Bookmark]

Pictured (right) is the second copy of this title to come to light in a dust jacket made from a scrap sheet from another book. In both cases, the scrap sheets are from the same book, Catechetical Notes and Class Questions, Literal and Mystical, Chiefly on the Earlier Books of Holy Scripture, by Rev. J. M. Neale, D. D. (Rivingtons: London, Oxford & Cambridge, 1869); or from its 1872 edition.

The bindery for both the 1855 Hewitt and the 1869/72 Neale was Burn of London. When the first jacketed Hewitt came to light, it seemed it might have been Burn’s file copy in a unique jacket. Now that two are known, this may be how the bindery jacketed the books for distribution, by using waste paper lying around the shop.

Ancient Armour was issued as one volume in 1855 with second and third volumes added in 1860. The work was also reissued in three volumes that year. One set has been noted with 1855 on the first title page and 1860 on the second and third, with all three volumes numbered on the spines. Another set has 1860 on all three title pages but no volume numbers on any spines. The two jacketed copies are dated 1855 and have no volume numbers. If they were bound in 1855, they were evidently in storage for years before being jacketed. Or they may not have been bound until circa 1869.

Jackets made from printed scrap may have been common in the nineteenth century. Some binderies probably used such paper (as well as plain and wax paper) whenever publishers did not order specifically printed jackets. Scrap paper was also used to some extent to cover unbound sheets. Jackets made of printed scrap would have been discarded more often than any other type—at least it is unlikely that booksellers would have put books out for sale wrapped in the unrelated printed sheets of other books, or that purchasers would have saved such jackets. They truly were for storage and shipping only. The two Hewitts evidently were never displayed or sold. Except for some browning to the endpapers, they are in new condition. They were found in a Belgian bookshop that was cleaning out old forgotten stock—just the kind of shop one would like to browse in.

(right) Binding and jacket of the other 1855 Hewitt. In both cases the bindings are identical and the jackets only differ in that they are different leaves of the Table of Contents of the 1869/72 Neale. The sheets are printed on both sides with parts of six pages showing on each side. They were machine cut into jacket form. Image shows underside of jacket with folded flaps. There is offsetting on the jacket from the binding design. Click to see larger. [The Bookmark]