Poster Covers

Influenced by the craze for posters begun in Paris, American book covers began to display the painterly qualities often found in late nineteenth-century posters. Based upon the popular poster ads launched by Harper's Magazine in the early 1890s, poster covers often covered the entire front cover, employed bold color and a simplified figural style.  In other words, they mimicked a painting – but in miniature.  The last book in this case, by the  ever-popular Decorative Designers, demonstrates the use of the "split fountain" technique whereby gradient ink colors are produced through a technique where two or more colors are placed in the ink fountain of the press with a separator. During the printing process the inks mix together, creating a color gradient.  In Northern Lights, a blue-orange blend split fountain plays over a blue-turquoise sky. (For a complete explanation of this process, see Richard Minsky's American Decorated Publishers' Bindings, 1872-1929, of 2006, available in the Athenaeum on cd/rom.)  

Owen Wister. The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1900.

Illustrated by: Frederic Remington (1861 – 1909)

Gift of: The John Livezey Fund

Lucy Meacham Thruston. Called to the Field: A Story of Virginia in the Civil War. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1906.

Cover Design by: Decorative Designers

Gift of: The John Livezey Fund

Price Collier. America and The Americans. New York: Scribners, 1897.

Cover Design by: Unknown

Gift of: The John Livezey Fund

Richard Jefferies. Amaryllis at the Fair. New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1906.

Cover Design by: Unknown

Gift of: The John Livezey Fund

Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr. I, Thou, and the Other One: A Love Story.  New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1898.

Cover Design by: Alice Cordelia Morse (1862 – 1961)

Gift of: The John Livezey Fund

Gilbert Parker. Northern Lights. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1909.

Illustrated by: Various

Cover design:  Decorative Designers

Gift of: The John Livezey Fund