The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-06-11
ATTRACTIVE COVERS
Sell Many Cheap Books of Little or
No Literary Merit.


No Literary Merit.
New York Evening Post.
There is only one. firm in this country
which has taken up book-cover design
ing as a business, although there are
many artists VINO do it in an occa sional
way. That firm has its workshop around
the corner from the Evening Post build
ing.
There are art schools whose courses in
clude study of this branch of work,
with the result of placing in the field q
large number of students who prove eff
fective nuisances to publishers because,
though possessed of clever ideas, they
have not been trained to express them
properly.
Publishers say there is a great differ
.ence between foreign and American com
mercial binding. 1t consists principally In
the fact that the foreign bindings are
temporary and the American are per-
lHanent. Foreign bindings are cheap, as
they are Intended to be ripped off by
purchasers, and the book rebound by col
lectors.
In this country the development has
been in the direction of ink-stamping.
and has been brought to a state of con
siderable exceflence; In Europe most of
the stamping is in gold, not more than
one or two inks ever having been used,
are
frequently used, stamped in two or three
inks and in gold.
The designing of book-coVers in Eu-
rope" said successful designer recent
ly, lis done largely by artists who do
the work simply as 'pot-boilers,' while
here, because of the greater attention paid
to designing, school has been develop
ed. So far as Is possible the object of
the designer Is to express in some meas
ure on the outside Of the book it's con-
tents or central idea. The drawings must
be made with extreme accuracy, as the
die-cutter engraves directly from the de-
sign.
'The difference between the modern
pictorial cover and that of the past is
that now the impressionist style prevails
as against the realistic; however, it may
DO said that the pictorial cover can be
used only on certain books.
Never before In the history of books
has so much attention been paid to ex-
terror establishment in a commercial
way, and attractive covers are put even
on cheap books it being possible to OBJ
tain a good effect at little cost-the sole
object being to get cover which at
tracts the eye and thereby advances the
sale of the book, many books Of abso-
lutely no literary merit selling on the
cover value. a fact generally acknowl-
edged by publishers. AS an instance, a
certain Juvenile book of really great
merit met with little or no sale in its
first edition, because of an unattractive
cover The publishers understanding the
reason brought out a second addition
with an attractive cover with the result
CT immediate recognition and a very
large sale.
Many times cover may have not a
particle of "ornamentation and yet meet
with commercial requirements viz. at
tracing the eye of the prospective buyer
AS another instance of what a binding
will do for books q novelty design brought
out during the holidays was taken up
by a publisher who used it to cover a
vast field Of literature ranging from the
Pilgrims Progress to the lightest novel;
these books were sold principally in the
department stores where. in each case,
longFcounter was devoted to this par
ticular line of books. These were sur
rounded by purchasers, five and six deep,
who bought at random. with no regard
to titles, simply because Of the pretty
cover 49,