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]

New Exhibition

The current exhibition features three topics: Native American themes, books by women, and book covers by women. Below are a few snapshots of the installation.  Sorry about the flash glare from the clear dust jackets and the cabinets.

The above cabinet includes covers by Frank Hazenplug,

Thomas Watson Ball, George W. Hood and

The Decorative Designers.

Wah-See-Ola (1905) is a scarce private printing with a cover by the

Decorative Designers. The Virginian (1902) cover by Rome K. Richardson.

The Crystal Rood (1914) cover by Frank Hazenplug

This cabinet features Adrian Iorio, Lee Thayer, Sarah Wyman

Whitman, Alice C. Morse, Blanche McManus Mansfield,

and Margaret Armstrong.

Above covers by Margaret Armstrong, the Decorative Designers,

Thomas Watson Ball, and W. W. Denslow.

Shelf includes Amy M. Sacker, Margaret Armstrong, Rudolph Schaeffer,

and Alberta Hall. The left case is Florence Lundborg's cover on Yosemite Legends (1904).

The right case has sampler-style covers by Lee Thayer (1898) and A. Hilgenreiner (1887).

Covers by Bertha Stuart, Alice C. Morse.

Now Available in Paperback

The Art of American Book Covers 1875-1930 is now available in paperback from George Braziller, with the same high quality paper and printing as the two sold-out hardcover editions. This is a Smyth-sewn paperback—the same sewing used in the cloth editions, so it will open flat and not fall apart. 
     Inside the cover this is exactly the same book that was the recipient of the 2011 Worldwide Books Award for Publications from the Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA)

Click the cover to see the details on amazon.com or read about the book and download sample pages at minsky.com.