"House and Hearth" Design Re-used

Recently, I found two books with Morse's designs re-used on books published by Dodd Mead. Both of them were authored by E. P. Roe. The one shown below is A Brave Little Quakeress (1892), featuring a design originally created for House and Hearth (1891). The picture below is Alice Morse's exhibition cover that is in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Deptarment of Drawings and Prints). To read more about Morse's book covers in on The Metropolitan Museum website, click here. The other book will be the subject of another post. This design is described in entry 91-3, Dubansky book.

Book cover for House and Hearth, 1891
Designer: Alice C. Morse (American, 1863–1961); author: Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford (American, 1835–1921); publisher: Dodd, Mead & Company, New York
Beige cloth covered boards with light and dark brown and gold decoration

Overall 6 3/8 x 9 3/16 in. (16.2 x 23.4 cm), front cover 6 3/8 x 4 in. (16.2 x 10.1 cm), front cover and spine 6 3/8 x 5 1/4 in. (16.2 x 13.4 cm)
Gift of Alice C. Morse, 1923, transferred from the Library (56.522.50)

Here is the adaptation of Morse's design on A Brave Little Quakeress, by E. P. Roe, Dodd Mead, 1892. The color in this Ebay photograph is off. A more acurate photo may be forthcoming. The cloth is gold and the stamping orange-red. This design adaptation is not in the Dubansky book.

Three Men in a Boat. A Published Design Firmly Attributed to Morse

If you are collecting Morse covers you will be happy to know about this cover on a poplular text from the late 19th century. Gullans and Espy attributed a binding for Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1890) to Morse, but I was never quite sure if this was the cover because it seemed at the time, so unlike Morse's work, especially her early work -- which this is.

I was wrong, as this image in The American Bookmaker clearly attributes this design to Morse (May 1890, p. 127). The  pictorial design that Morse made for this book is not quite so successful on the published binding as it appears here. It is stamped in green on blue cloth. The stamping color is simlar in tone to the cloth color, making the detailed design difficult to decipher.  Not in Dubansky.

My copy of Three Men in a Boat



 

R. L. Stevenson's, Island Nights Entertainments - A Possible Morse Design

Robert Louis Stevenson. 

Island Night's Entertainments. 

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1893

Awhile back, Christina Kraus sent a picture of this unsigned book cover, thinking it might be by Alice C. Morse. It looks compatible with Morse's work but I haven't found any proof of its designer as yet. Morse did design the cover of Stevenson's  The Wrecker for  Scribner's, published in 1892. (See Dubansky entry 92-13.)

Morse's Design for The Giunta Series - New Binding Variant Identified

The Giunta Series, 1890-1893
Charles Reade
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company
167 x 103 mm
(Dubansky Entry 90-1, p. 49)

The new information in this reference is that the Giunta Series was also available in leather binding variant. I have not seen an example of this variant. From the Publisher’s List at the back of Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, Dodd, Mead and Co. 1895; see p. 239 on Harvard’s copy on Google Books:

Including the classics of literature. Named after the great Florentine printers of the fifteenth century, the brothers Giunta, the books are made at the University Press, Cambridge, on type imported from France, and are models of typographical excellence. 16mo, cloth, per vol., $1.00, Also in a variety of dainty bindings in leather at various prices.

Photograph: Eileen Travell

Buy a copy of The Proper Decoration of Book Covers: The Life and Work of Alice C. Morse
http://alicemorse.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html