You CAN judge a book by its cover – or, rather, its dust jacket
Serious collectors – actually, collectors of ANYTHING mass-produced – know that, apart from the writer’s, artist’s or maker’s signature or something that imparts association value (Herman Melville’s annotations in a natural history book on whales, for example), it’s all about getting the item in as close to its original state as possible. With books, that means as close as possible to mint, right-off-the-press condition, and complete – with the dust jacket if one was issued, and if possible without the price clipped off. That’s how particular (or anal, if you prefer) book people can get.
Dust jackets, especially the ones produced from the 1920s to the 1940s, often featured spectacular, stylized artwork; after all, they were in large part intended to tempt browsers to buy the books. The problem was, then as now, it was a pain in the neck to read a book with the jacket on, so people removed them, set their coffee cups down on them, tore them, misplaced them … The result: books with damaged, soiled or – worst of all – NO jackets!
Little did those readers of yesteryear know, but those dust jackets can add geometrically to the value of the book, because of the great artwork, certainly, but much more importantly because of their rarity. To pick one example, the first edition of Nelson Algren’s first book, “Somebody in Boots” (1935) features a really cool image of the proto–James Dean/Elvis Presley–type hero. A copy of the book in pretty rough shape lists for $180 on Bookfinder.com; there’s only one copy listed with a jacket – both book and jacket in fine condition – for $2,600!
Needless to say, not all vintage books in knockout dust jackets are high-end; what’s more, given the beauty of the artwork, small wonder that some folks collect books specifically for their dust jacket art. For those collectors – and those who are looking for specific books that happen to have great jackets – a Connecticut bookseller, Babylon Revisited (www.YesterdaysGallery.com), has a really terrific selection and has just issued a new catalog. I asked owner Michael Manz about his books:
AmeriCollector: Your Web site used to say your specialties are “photoplays, mysteries, fantasy literature, plays, romances, Westerns, Hollywood interest and business fiction” – along with children’s literature and 19th-century literature. Seems like an odd mix, doesn’t it?
Michael: The common link between the genres, more or less, is the era in which they were published. We like the way books were made during the Jazz Age and the Depression era, they have an appealing solid quality, often with dust jacket art that demonstrates real contemporary artistry.
AC: How old is your business, and about how many books do you have in stock right now?
Michael: My father started the business in the late 1970s. I’ve been involved one way or another since I was about twelve. You might say I grew into the business, literally. We have tens of thousands of books, but less than ten thousand currently online for sale.
AC: What is “business fiction,” anyway? And what is a “photoplay”?
Michael: We found that the typical genres – mysteries, romances, etc., didn’t always encompass the varied subject matter that novels from the 1920s and ’30s dealt with. We’ve created a few more genres, such as business fiction – that is to say, novels dealing with businesses, companies, executives and office workers.
Photoplays were a way for publisher’s to bank on the popularity of current feature films by printing, or usually reprinting, novels that the films were based on and including plugs and stills from the film.
AC: You also concentrate on pre–World War II material – which I take to mean Depression-era works – in their original dust jackets, many of which are wonderful artwork. In fact, your catalogs feature some amazing Art Deco images. Do a lot of people collect books of that period just for the jackets?
Michael: Collecting novels not typically considered important from before World War II – when the quality of jacket artwork seems to have taken a nosedive – is appealing to some of our customers simply for the artistry of the book and not the quality of the prose. Most collectors are interested in authors, but more than one are interested in the book itself as a piece of contemporary art.
AC: Sometimes paper quality prior to and during the Second World War wasn’t that great. Was the jacket art intended to compensate?
Michael: There were some reprint houses that used pretty cheap or acidic paper; many of their books are now in the junk heap. Perhaps the jacket was a way to draw people into buying a book in which the quality of the book itself was substandard. However, we have found that many publishers from this period used high standards of production and their products live on today, and possibly will outlive many of their more modern cousins.
AC: I know that a scarce dust jacket is sometimes worth much more than the book itself: for example, the jacket for Henry Roth’s “Call It Sleep.” Can you explain why? What advice would you give someone who wants to collect books in their original jackets?
Michael: Like many collectibles, the value is found in the most disposable part, or the most disposable items themselves – for example, baseball cards and comic books. Many a mom disposed of their children’s comic book collections and in doing so created scarcity and desirability in the collectibles market. This is the same with book jackets: They were the first to be discarded and are now the most valuable asset to a vintage book.
I would advise collectors to look for jackets in acceptable condition, keeping in mind that they have weathered 70 or 80 years of handling, as condition is always an important point for determining value. However, if a book has a damaged jacket, but there are no other examples available, that should not deter them from buying it.
AC: You have quite a selection of prewar books that appear from the outside to be pretty risqué. Were these writings really pushing the boundaries of acceptability? Were there film versions, and did they have to be toned down?
Michael: There were a number of publishers and authors pushing the boundaries of what amorous pursuits were acceptable for readers to consume. I think they were reflecting in their prose a growing sensibility among the populace, and meeting a demand for more realistic literature concerning what was actually happening in society. We’ve come across a number of Jazz Age titles that delve into “the fast life”: speakeasies, alcohol consumption and noncommittal romances. These were issues that were developing in society and needed to be addressed in literature.
AC: How did the look of dust jackets change after the war?
Michael: Books got thinner, paper quality got cheaper and artwork for jackets became more secondary in importance. There are still some great works out there by Salter and others, but the art of bookmaking definitely took a turn for the worse after the Second World War.
AC: What do you consider to be the highlights among the books you have in stock at this time?
Michael: I’m a big fan of early dust jackets, ones from 1910 to 1920 or even the turn of the century. These are naturally pretty uncommon, and they have a wonderful sense of appeal based on this scarcity. We also have some interesting photoplays for important films, and novels that deal with uncommonly found subject matter for the time, such as Hollywood, homosexuality, circus life, and women’s studies.
Images courtesty of Babylon Revisited Rare Books, www.babylonrevisitedrarebooks.com.
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