“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts”*…
James Baldwin, Go Tell It on the Mountain, Alfred A. Knopf (1953)
Book jackets are supposed to do heavy sales duty: evocative art, enticing text– it’s all supposed to instill an irresistible urge to “buy me, read me.” Facsimile Dust Jackets is a colossal collection of covers, mostly from the 1920s-1950s, that one can buy to wrap around one’s own old books, frame as the works of art that they are… or simply browse for the pleasure of peaking through a colorful window back in time.
Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, The Hogarth Press (1925)
Ian Flemming, Casino Royale, Jonathan Cape (1964 reprint based on ariginal)
Read all about it here, and browse the collection– currently over 9,300 covers– here.
* Charles Dickens
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As we dust our dust jackets, we might send sentimental birthday greetings to James Hilton; he was born on this date in 1900. While Hilton capped his career as a successful screenwriter (Mrs. Miniver, Foreign Correspondent, Camille, and many others), he is probably best remembered as a novelist– especially as the author of Lost Horizon (thus, the creator of Shangri-La) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips.
James Hilton, Lost Horizon, The Macmillan Company (1933)
