First in the Field

First in the Field
George Manville Fenn
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1894
20.2 x 14.5 x 3.4 cm
Unsigned

Reference: A. C. McClurg & Co. Illustrated Holiday Catalogue of Books, 1894; p. 372. (identified by Valinda Carroll).

A recently attributed to design my Alice C. Morse, not published in The Proper Decoration of Book Covers.

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A New Design and Its Adaptation: The Song of the Rappahannock and The American Idea

The Song of the Rappahannock
Ira Seymour Dodd
Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898
175 x 115 x 27 mm
Signed

This publisher's binding is signed with Morse's monogram, a conjoined "AM", near the eagle's foot (right side). Song of the Rappahannock is another design recently discovered (by Valinda Carroll). The photograph here looks slightly different than my copy which has darker navy blue cloth with no linen weave appearance and red white stamping (not tan). The eagle design on this book was later used on another book, The American Idea, by Joseph B. Gilder. Dodd Mead, 1902.

Design by Alice C. Morse for a Series of Books by H. A. Guerber

Since the publication of The Proper Decoration of Book Covers: The Life and Work of Alice C. Morse, I have discovered additional book cover designs, design variants and adaptations. This beautiful design adorns the covers of a number of books by H. A. Guerber. One set with this binding about opera are Stories of the Wagner Opera and Stories of Famous Operas and Stories of Popular Operas. This set was popular and reprinted at least once, issued in the same binding and color scheme. While the cover is unsigned, its design was attributed to Morse in a Dodd Mead publications list in Ian Maclaren's Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush, 1895.

Titles seen in this binding to date (as of April 2016) are:

Stories of the Wagner Opera. 1895. (green cloth)
Stories of Famous Operas (green cloth)
Stories of Popular Operas. 1904. (green cloth)
Legends of Switzerland. 1899. (brown cloth)
Legends of the Virgin and Christ. 1901. (blue cloth; red cloth)
Stories of Shakespeare's Tragedies. 1911. (green cloth)
Yourself. 1902. (green cloth)



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Original gouache drawing found for "The Conquest of Granada"

About a year and a half ago, the Cooper-Hewitt Museum began an inventory of its prints and drawings and discovered a collection of Morse’s original designs for stained glass, book covers, and other related subjects. Among the 35 designs for book covers, only one has so far been identified as belonging to a published book.

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Washington Irving

Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada:Agapida Edition; Author’s Revised Edition (in two volumes)

New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons

226 x 165 x 38 mm

Printer: The Knickerbocker Press, 1893

Dubansky Entry 93-2, p. 66

This is a half, preparatory drawing of Conquest of Granada. Cooper-Hewitt Accession Number: 1943-33-1-19; size: 20.4 x 7 x 1cm.:

The motifs used in this design also appear in Morse’s designs for stained glass…

Reference for "Landscape Gardening"

The following reference for this title (Samuel Parsons. Landscape Gardening . . . New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891) was not included in my book (see Dubansky Entry 91-10, p. 58). It is a full-page illustration and accompanying review in American Bookmaker, June 1891, “Cover Stamps,” p.180-181.

Cover Stamps.
____

In the present issue of THE BOOKMAKER appear the cover stamps of two books which are to be published at an early day. Of these that on page 180 is to ornament the back and recto of the forthcoming work of Samuel Parsons, Jr., “Landscape Gardening,” of which G. P. Putnam’s Sons are the publishers. The book being bound in cloth of citron shade, the floral and leaf ornamentation and the lettering, which in the reproduction are here given are printed in black, will appear in gold on the book cover, as well as the dark background in which the conventionalized carnations are placed in the lower part of the recto. The appropriateness of the design and the excellence of its mode of treatment are very apparent.

Note: I have never seen this binding in a citron shade, mentioned above, only in green cloth on the spine and the same cloth used in reverse on the sides. As an aside, many of the photographs of landscapes were taken in New York's Central Park.

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Reference for "California and Alaska"

American Bookmaker, June 1890, p. 154-156 features a full-page illustration of Morse’s design in a black and white line drawing and a description in the column Books, Booklets and Brochures.

William Seward Webb
California and Alaska and Over the Canadian Pacific Railway285 x 200 x 50mm
New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1890
Printer: The Knickerbockers Press, electrotyped, printed and bound by G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Illustrated
Dubansky entry 90-7, p. 52-53

The binding for California and Alaska is in the style of a sixteenth-century French fanfare binding. It is bound in dark brown full morocco, stamped in gold on the front cover and blind-stamped on the back cover. The top edge is gilt and the endleaves are printed with tiny flowers. Only five hundred copies of this cover were produced. It sold for the high price of $25.

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Reference for Harper's Odd Number Series

This cover in dark blue cloth with silver stamping is described in the reference below. See Dubansky entry 89-4, pp. 48-49 for a description of the series contents and description of binding variants.

Four volumes of the Odd Number Series, including Pastels in Prose, were produced in a set, bound in white cloth with gold-stamping, top edge gilt and printed endleaves.

Reference: The American Bookmaker, June 1890, “Books, Booklets and Brochures” p. 155:

The little 12mo volume published by Harper & Brothers, called “Pastels in Prose,” has been termed, not inaptly, “a gem of bookmaking.” It forms one of the “Odd Number Series,” so called from the fact that the style of binding which was applied to the initial volume, a translation of Guy de Maupassant’s thirteen tales, is used upon others in the set. It is not at all surprising that the publishers are disposed to perpetuate this book cover design and did not discard it upon the completion of the work for which it was originally drawn. This design was prepared by Alice C. Morse, to whose artistic ability reference was made in THE BOOKMAKER for May, in which another of her cover designs was reproduced. It is somewhat difficult to write a description of the cover stamp which distinguishes the “Odd Number Series” and do just ice to its chaste beauty. It consists of a rectangular framework bordering the recto; within this are segments of minute Gothic arches bordered by straight lines. Within this again are two panels framed in ornamental lines, curves and dot. The upper panel is the narrower and contains the title of the work” the lower panel, four times as long, bears the colophon of the publishers. The binding is in a blue black cloth, which admirable set off the cover design stamped in silver, while the title is in gold letters. Upon the back of the volume the title appears in gold again, while the ornamentation on the cover is sparingly and tastefully employed above and below the title and at the bottom. At the Threshold of the interior a delicately tinted frontispiece is found, and this is succeeded by numerous vignette illustrations, drawn by Henry W. McVickar, which seem to be imbued with the spirit of the context. One of these, which accompanies a tale of “Clown and Columbine,” is given on page 153 of THE BOOKMAKER. There are nearly three hundred pages to this volume, will printed on excellent paper and a finishing touch is added by imparting to the upper edges of the leaves a light yellow tint.

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