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.)

A Dust Jacket for the Gypsy Series

It's a rare and wonderful occurance to find an Alice C. Morse book with a dust jacket, so of course I was thrilled to find one for Dodd, Mead & Company's Gypsy Series, published from 1894-1897(Dubansky entry 94-8). The occurance is so rare, in fact, that I only have one other book with a printed paper dust jacket in my collection. It is for a book that is yet another post-book discovery, A Singer of the Sea, by Amelia E. Barr. The Series, written by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps included four titles. Gypsy's Cousin Joy is the second book of the Gypsy Series, published in 1895. The design of the dust jacket is the same as the book's cover. The book is bound in a gold reverse cloth with green and orange stamping, with the title and author's name stamped in gold with an orange shadow.

A Newly Discovered Design - In Honor's Cause

Browsing recently on Ebay, I serendipitously discovered this book. Immediately, I recognized it as a possible Morse design and I started to look closely for a signature. Fortunately there was one, signed A. M., embedded in the title panel in the lower left corner and you can see a detail of it below, In Honour's Cause is a children's book and  looks very much like the cover published a year later for The Missing Prince (Dodd Mead, 1897; Dubansky entry 97-3). It is the second book found for a work by Fenn; the other being First in the Field, posted two entries ago. There are very few pictorial covers designed by Morse and these are logically found on books of children's literature. What stands out to me about their design is the wiggly (for lack of a better word) character of her drawing, the way she blocks out form and also the lettering style. If you look at enough of her designs, you will recognize them as well. 



George Manville Fenn

In Honor's Cause. A Tale of the Days of George the First.

Illustrations by Lancelot Speed

New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1896

Burr Printing House, New York

202 x 140 x 30 mm

Signed

Buy a copy of The Proper Decoration of Book Covers: The Life and Work of Alice C. Morse

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