Variant Covers with Native American Themes

The current exhibition of Native American themed bindings has 116 different designs and 25 variants. One of the great designs that was ahead of its time is Florence Lundborg's 1904 cover for Yosemite Legends by Bertha Smith. It shows the influence of Albert Pinkham Ryder, and of Whistler, at whose short-lived Paris art school she spent the winter of 1899-1900.  She had previously studied in San Francisco with Arthur Mathews at the California School of Design. Mathews, who had studied architecture with his father before attending the Académie Julian in Paris, was a strong proponent of the Arts and Crafts aesthetic. Here the mists of Tonalism are gone, but the abstraction to simplified elements remains, with the totemic border rendered in Arts and Crafts style. Variant copies of the same edition are on green and russet buckram.

Florence Lundborg

Yosemite Legends by Bertha H. Smith

San Francisco: Paul Elder, 1904

Florence Lundborg

Yosemite Legends by Bertha H. Smith

San Francisco: Paul Elder, 1904

Margaret Armstrong often created variants of her bindings. For two titles by Washington Irving she made different covers with the same spine design, with variant cloth and stamping colors for each. The current exhibition includes this display of the four two-volume sets:

Margaret Armstrong

Astoria by Washington Irving

New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1897, Tacoma Edition

and

The Adventures of Captain Bonneville U.S.A. by Washington Irving

New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1898, Pawnee Edition

The cover of The Indians' Book, a volume of songs, stories, photos and artwork from many Indian tribes, collected and recorded by Natalie Curtis, was originally issued by Harper in 1907 in an unsigned binding. Most likely the cover was done by Angel de Cora (Hinook Mahiwi Kilinaka), a Winnebago from Nebraska born in 1871 who studied art at Smith College, illustration at Drexel, and at Boston's Cowles Art School. She did (and signed) the title page, and also did the lettering on the additional title pages that precede each section of the book. 

     A slightly revised edition was issued in 1923. This edition contains some additional drawings, photos and other material, but not all the additional songs that Natalie Curtis had planned to include in it. On October 23, 1921 she was hit by a car while crossing a street in Paris and died almost instantly. The cover uses the same design in a different color scheme. 

 Angel de Cora (Hinook Mahiwi Kilinaka)

The Indians' Book, Recorded and Edited by Natalie Curtis

New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1907

 Angel de Cora (Hinook Mahiwi Kilinaka)

The Indians' Book, Recorded and Edited by Natalie Curtis

New York and London: Harper and Brothers, n.d., ©1923

This copy with the publisher's printing code L-E (November, 1930)  

The variant cover for the 1936 reprint of  Blankets and Moccasins is particularly interesting because it uses an overprinting technique with semi-transparent inks to create additional colors. The first edition of 1933 includes a lengthy colophon, but only indicates that the cover design is from an Indian blanket.

Indian blanket design

Blankets and Moccasins by Gwendolin Damon Wagner and Dr. William A. Allen

Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1933, September

Indian blanket design

Blankets and Moccasins by Gwendolin Damon Wagner and Dr. William A. Allen

Caldwell, Idaho: The Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1936, December

Detail showing indigo, red, and overprinting

The enlarged detail below includes a black letter from the title. Using a less viscous, more transparent ink for the indigo would create this effect, with the ink flowing into the crevices more readily and being more transparent on the elevated parts of the weave. By using a kiss impression and greater viscosity for the red stamping, the fine texture of the cloth would be maintained and more of the red would stay high on the weave, allowing the indigo to run into the valleys. The black title is stamped with a slightly deeper impression than the blanket pattern, somewhat flattening the weave. 

For more images of covers in this exhibition and information about the catalog, click here.
  

Frederick W. Gookin

 
When trying to learn more about F. W. Gookin, the first few biographical notes I found did not even mention his work as a book cover designer. I thought, "Maybe this Frederick William Gookin (1853–1936) is the wrong one." 

He was the Buckingham Curator of Japanese Prints at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he is described as "a lifelong Chicagoan."

Another bio presents him as a banker who was born in Ludlow, Vermont, was the Assistant City Treasurer of Chicago in 1901, served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Chicago Literary Club from 1880-1920 and as its president in 1921. "He presented twenty-one papers during his nearly sixty years of membership. One of them—Our Defective American Banking System: A Diagnosis and Prescription, presented November 2, 1908 —was published by the Club."

The first Gookin binding I acquired was on a self-published 1893 cookbook created for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. It was in the Second Exhibition.

Frederick W. Gookin

Favorite Dishes: A Columbian Autograph Souvenir

by Carrie V. Shuman

Illustrations by Mary Root-Kern, Mellie Ingels Julian,
Louis Braunhold, George Wharton Edwards

Published by Carrie V. Shuman, Chicago, 1893, Second Edition

Printed by R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co.

In the Third Exhibition we had this one:

 Frederick W. Gookin

 Uncanonized

by  Margaret Horton Potter

A. C. McClurg & Co. ,  Chicago,  1901, Sixth Edition

Another by the same author, a year later, is on a shelf, not yet exhibited. It has an almost invisible monogram, similar to the one above, blind stamped in the border, that can only be seen in a strong raking light. Thanks to John Lehner for finding it.

 Frederick W. Gookin

Istar of Babylon

by  Margaret Horton Potter

Harper & Brothers, New York and London, 1902

Driving

Long a favorite cover, but still an unidentified monogram, Driving by Francis M. Ware (Doubleday, Page, 1903) is among the most elegant books of its time. Published on the eve of obsolescence for the carriage trade, it is a manual for the acquisition, care, and handling of horse-drawn vehicles, from carriage to sleigh, wagon, sulky, runabout, and many more. All the vehicles are pictured and their features described, along with the proper harness, stabling and stalls for your horses.

The monogram appears to be JEHL or something similar.  If you have a clue who this might be, please post a comment.

Driving

by Francis M. Ware

Doubleday, Page and Company, 1903

28 x 19 cm

 Monogram on Driving

The Arncliffe Puzzle

 
One of the  mysteries that was unsolved at the time of our first exhibition of American Decorated Publishers' Bindings 1872-1929 was the artist responsible for the cover of The Arncliffe Puzzle. It has always been one of my favorites, with a hooded figure blending from within to outside a red-orange circle, holding a gold question mark like a sickle in one hand, and its gold dot like a ball in the other.  It is one of the best examples of an artist playing with the picture plane on a book cover, using both color and imagery to achieve the effect.

The author is not identified on the cover, another mystery.  It says "By the author of A Mysterious Disappearance." That one is solved on the title page, where Gordon Holmes is named. But with no designer's monogram and no comparable covers to help, the artist remained unidentified.

The author's identity was not exactly a clear giveaway, despite the title page attribution. Gordon Holmes was a pseudonym used by more than one author. It was shared by Matthew Phipps Shiell (who also wrote as M. P. Shiel) and Louis Tracy. They also collaborated under the name Robert Fraser. A quick search of WorldCat revealed that in later editions the authorship is attributed to Louis Tracy. But the cover artist was not identified.


More recently, in researching the design influences of artists of the period, I acquired a copy of Decorative Design by Joseph Cummings Chase [Wiley 1915]. This cover is illustrated on page 37, and the design attributed to J.C.C.

  Joseph Cummings Chase

The Arncliffe Puzzle

by Gordon Holmes (Louis Tracy) 

New York: Edward J. Clode, 1906

The Light of Stars and others from R. F. Fenno

I have been looking for a copy of The Light of Stars for years. The title was listed in an ad in another Fenno book, The Tempting of Paul Chester. WorldCat shows only four copies in libraries (LC, Huntington, Ohio State and Bowling Green) and 21 microfilm copies. One finally turned up this month. 

The cover is unsigned and not easy to attribute. The stream flowing out of the woods onto the cover puts it in the category I call "out of the box," in which pictorial elements break a visual barrier established by the artist. Some examples will be in another post. This cover approaches proto-surrealism with a touch of classical illusionism:

 

The Light of Stars

by Hattie Donovan Bohannon

R.F. Fenno & Company, New York, n.d., ©1909

The closest I have seen to this style of trees, flat and childlike Modernism, is Olive Lothrop Grover's cover for Dana, Estes on The Story Without an End:

 The Story Without an End

by Sarah Austin

Dana Estes, Boston, n.d., ©1899

Cover by Olive Lothrop Grover, with OLG monogram

You can see a very different OLG design in the July 24, 2011 post.

Robert F. Fenno started the company in 1895 in New York City, and the firm published under his name until he retired in 1929.

 The Tempting of Paul Chester

by Alice & Claude Askew

 R.F. Fenno & Company, New York, n.d.,  (after 1909)

Cover signed with an unidentified monogram 

Black Butterflies

 by Berthe St. Luz (K. David)

 R.F. Fenno & Company, New York, 1905

Cover by W. E. B. Starkweather, signed WEBS

 

The Waters of Edera

by Ouida (Maria Louise Ramé)

  R.F. Fenno & Company, New York, 1900

Florence Pearl Nosworthy, signed FP

New Exhibition Catalog

   
Pre-publication subscriptions are now available
for the catalog of the exhibition

Trade Bindings with
Native American Themes
1875-1933

The focus of the exhibition that you read about in the August 23 post has evolved into a deeper look at covers with Native American themes. Geographically, the covers represent a wide variety of cultures from the Arctic to South America. Stylistically they vary from decorative use of Indian motifs by major designers to pictorial illustrations on children's books.

A few of them are pictured below. For more information about the exhibition, images, and pre-publication discount subscriptions, click here.

Astoria
by Washington Irving
Putnam, 1897. Two volumes, Tacoma Edition
Cover by Margaret Armstrong

  

 The Sign of the Prophet
by James Naylor
Saalfield, 1901 

 The Story of Tonty
by Mary Catherwood
McClurg, 1901

  Lords of the Soil
by Lydia Jocelyn and Nathan Cuffee
C.M. Clarke, 1905 

   Wolf: The Memoirs of a Cave-Dweller
by P.B. McCord
B.W. Dodge, 1908
Cover by P.B. McCord

Afloat on the Ohio

A long-time favorite cover is Afloat on the Ohio. Who created it is a mystery. The book is signed CYR on the back cover, but no known book cover designer had that monogram. It is likely their last name--there are and have been several artists named Cyr, and there were many Cyr and St. Cyr families in America at that time.  The name Cyr was well known because of Ellen Cyr, author of the popular series of graded reading books used by many schoolchildren.
     Way & Williams employed some of the best designers, including Bruce Rogers, Maxfield Parrish, J. C. Leyendecker, Frank Hazenplug and Will Bradley. 
If you have any information about who the cover artist might be, please post a comment!

Afloat on the Ohio

by Reuben Gold Thwaites

Way & Williams

Chicago, 1897

[signed CYR, unidentified]