Frances Trego Montgomery. On a Lark to the Planets. Akron: The Saalfield Publishing Co., 1904 — Source.
Via: Public Domain Review
The Art of Book Design: On a Lark to the Planets
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Frances Trego Montgomery. On a Lark to the Planets. Akron: The Saalfield Publishing Co., 1904 — Source.
Via: Public Domain Review
Spectropia or Surprising Spectral Illusions Showing Ghosts Everywhere and of Any Colour. London, Griffith and Farran, 1865
This is the follow-up book to the Spectropia (1864) that I put up last Friday. This week I thought I’d share a bit of what’s between the covers including the directions. I’m afraid it’s all just a parlour trick meant to debunk the notion that ghosts exist. You can click for full size. [Read more…]
Tom Rachman. The Italian Teacher. Canada: Penguin Random House, 2019
I’m in the mood for something modern today and the cover of this Canadian book is such a riot of rich colour and texture that it fit the bill perfectly.
Via: Goodreads
James A Henshall. Book of the Black Bass. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Sons, 1889
I like the typography used for the title on this book, especially the way the ‘B’s’ and the ‘k’s’ change from above the fish to below the fish.
Via: archive.org
©voyager, all rights reserved
Yesterday was a perfect spring day with sunshine and warmth and all things good. Today is also a perfect spring day, but of the drizzly, rainy kind that feeds all the growing things. I’m not sure the little growing things really need the rain because the ground is still pretty wet from the last rain we had plus the winter melt, but the trees are doing thirsty work making leaves so they’ll use up any extra left over water. I know that there are parts of the world who are struggling with a too dry spring season and I wish I could share. Here it’s been snow and rain and rain and rain for many weeks. It should settle down eventually and I can only hope the trees get enough wet now to protect them from the blistering heat to come. The weather has changed so drastically over the course of my lifetime that I just don’t know what to expect anymore. I do love the trees, though, and I hate to see them suffer so let it rain on my beauties while they grow their summer suits. I can wait for the sunshine.
Birds in Their Homes. Father Tuck’s Nursery Tales Series. 189?, London, Raphael Tuck & Sons .
Beauty in Common Things by Chambers, A. C; Whymper, Emily Hepburn, 1833-1886, illustrator; Dickes, William, 1815-1892 (printer); Stanford, Edward, 1827-1904 engraver; Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (Great Britain). General Literature Committee. 1874. London
The gilded cover is an engraving of all the plants displayed in the book. I’ve added 2 of the interior plates below the fold for anyone interested. [Read more…]
Front cover from The greymare romance, written and illustrated by Edwin John Ellis, London, 1891.
(Source: archive.org)
Who doesn’t love a good horse romance story?
From archive.org
Cover for Kate Greenaway’s Almanack for 1893, London, [1892].
(Source: archive.org)
From archive.org, where you can view the entire book. I warn you this site can be a bit of a rabbithole.
Spectropia or Surprising Spectral Illusions Showing Ghosts Everywhere and of Every Colour. 1864, New York. James G. Gregory (Firm),publisher. Engravings by John Filmer
Boo.
From Archive.org
George Eliot. Scenes of Clerical Life. William Blackwood & Sons, 1857 — Source.
Baa.
From the Public Domain Review
Charles Lamb. A Masque of Days. London: Cassell and Co., 1901 — Source. Cover design by Walter Crane.
From the Public Domain Review
Walter Crane. A Floral Fantasy in an Old English Garden. London: Harper, 1899 — Source.
When I started this series I envisaged it as being about the art of book cover design, not about the art between the covers. The art between the covers of this book, though, is available on-line and it’s gorgeous so I thought I’d share a few interior plates. The book is a lighthearted look at the “personalities” of plants done in verse and gorgeous art nouveau design. [Read more…]