A newly discovered cover by Thomas Watson Ball

Thanks to Prof. Ina Saltz of the City College of New York, who recognized Ball's lettering style on a copy of this book in the CCNY Library. 

Thomas Watson Ball
Doris Kingsley by Emma Rayner 
New York: G. W. Dillingham Company
n.d., copyright 1900, 1901

Some research still needs to be done on this edition. It is scarce, with only ten library copies listed in WorldCat. Not all of those are in the original binding.  The design incorporates the "flaky" white common to this period. See the September 6, 2009 post for more about the use of white on covers at that time.

Ball did this for Dillingham the same year as A Master of Fortune, another maritime scene that also used the flaky white.  It's not as scarce a book as Doris Kingsley, but is hard to find with all the white intact. I had a nice copy that was protected by the original dust jacket in the Second Exhibition of American Decorated Publishers' Bindings 1872-1929 (2008):

Thomas Watson Ball
A Master of Fortune by Cutcliffe Hyne
New York: G. W. Dillingham Company
n.d., copyright  1901

Dillingham used lighter cloth and deleted the white stamping on later copies. That year they also had T. W. Ball do the cover with flaky white for Norman Holt, see the blog post of August 31, 2016.

 

Books for Sale with Interesting Covers

  
Whether or not you want to acquire them, you might enjoy seeing some publishers' bindings from my collection that are available for purchase. Click the cover to download a PDF of about 4 MB.