Don’t judge a book by it’s cover Aubrey Beardsley !

Before the 1800’s books were often made with a cover of wood, leather or even gold

in order to protect the pages inside. It wasn’t until cloth and paper were used that the

book cover takes the form that we recognise today. Aubrey Beardsley (1872 –1898 )

friend to the likes of Oscar Wilde and James A McNeill Whistler, was not only a

huge contributor to the Art Nouveau movement, but he was also instrumental in increasing

the desire to own and recognise books. His wonderfully ornamental and

often erotic styles of artwork, adorned a variety of covers for numerous desirable books.

As more writers and publishers emerged during the early 1900s, publishers realized that cover design,

in addition to identifying the subject matter, could actually help push the sales of a book.

Like this similar cover designed by Theodore Brown (1899). More similar examples here.

The dust jacket came into play around the 1820’s and was used primarily to protect the cover.

They generally just duplicated the design of the cover, and were almost always discarded immediately

as packaging. For this reason, an 1800s book with a dust jacket can today fetch ten or twenty times

the price of one without.  Mass production techniques in the early 1900’s made the

production of fancy hard covers more expensive.

Since the 1930’s, the dust jacket became more decorative and collectable,

advertising the nature of the book and introducing the work of illustrators to the literary world.

Front Cover is a great history of the book cover explained through illustration.

Here are a few of my favourites included within.