beatonna:A collection of classic book covers, from the 30s. The beginnings of pictorial dust
beatonna: A collection of classic book covers, from the 30s. The beginnings of pictorial dust jackets! An interesting gallery of covers for the Modern Library’s ‘Giant’ series. Some are truly bizarre, like the Wilkie Collins cover (shown here) and one for Boswell’s Life of Johnson where the great lexicographer resembles a peruked butternut squash. There are lovely relief-print covers for Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and cummings’s The Enormous Room that more than compensate for these shortcomings. Seen as a series they give me the impression of a less-sophisticated version of the Penguin Illustrated Classics imprint of the late 1930s. More on that later. By strange co-incidence I possess the Modern Library Giant edition of Don Quixote with the Doré illustrations (lacking its jacket, unfortunately). About a third of the way through I had to switch it for another copy (the Bohn edition in two much lighter volumes) because the carrying the 'Giant’ everywhere was like going on tour with a breezeblock! -- source link
#book cover#illustration#modern library#woodcut#don quixote#vintage