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.

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

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

Morse’s Design for "The Woman's Book" and Its Adaptation for "The House and Home"

Morse’s book cover design for Stevenson’s Ballads was featured in two nearly identical woman’s guides, published by Scribner’s in 1894. Both include chapters on occupations for women, principles of housekeeping, the art of travel, house building and decoration, and books and reading. The Woman's Book and its successor, The House and Home, introduced Morse as an excellent example of the successful woman designer. In P. G. Hubert Jr.’s chapter titled “Occupations for Women,” the field of book-cover design was recommended as a viable occupation for women. The author buttressed his point by printing color illustrations of two woman-produced book covers: Morse’s Stevenson’s Ballads (Dubansky, 90-8); and Songs About Life, Love and Death, designed by Margaret Armstrong. Here is a link to Harvard University Library's digital copy of House and Home (1896). This later binding is entirely different from earlier printings. The book cover design is not attributed to Morse.
The unsigned cover design for The Woman’s Book can now be attributed to Morse, as a reference has been found in an issue of The Book Buyer from 1894-1895 (see reference below). The 1894 book cover design on House and Home is an adaptation of this cover. Only Morse's design for the outer border was reused for this cover. The central cartouche and border are omitted from its design. I have seen copies of House and Home in red cloth only.

Morse's signed personal copy of The Woman's Book has recently been identified by Jackie Killian, Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Drawings and Prints, Cooper Hewitt Museum. It is in the collection of the Cooper Hewitt Museum library, New York City.
Reference: The Book Buyer. Vol. 11, February 1894-January 1895, p. 484.
Seen on Google Books, March 30, 2010, p. 484.
On p. 701, a full page advertisement for The Woman's Book:

...The Woman’s Book is issued in Two royal octavo volumes. Bound in durable Boston Linen, with Design in silver by Miss Alice Morse. Price, $7.50: Half Morocco, $10.00. Sold only by Subscription. Agents Watnted Charles Scribner’s Sons, APublishers, 153-157 Fifth Ave., New York.

In the third paragraph: The work of those artists who are distinctly cover-designers is shown in the Scribner books, by Miss Margaret Armstrong upon the cover of "The Bird’s Calendar", and by Miss Alice Morse upon the covers of "Polly" and "The Woman’s Book".
This reference also mentions Morse’s design for Polly, which I speculate is the design on one of the four-volume set by Thomas Nelson Page. Morse is known to have designed the first title in this set, Marse Chan (See Dubansky 92-12).

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