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Literary Review
From functionality to designer chic
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ABHIJIT GUPTA takes a look at the early uses of the book jacket and the ways in which it has evolved over the years.
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THE facetious Mr. Harcourt in England, Their England held forthright, if unconventional, views on the utility of book jackets. Consider his advice to a tyro reviewer on the secrets of his craft: "Read the publisher's jacket first ... If the jacket says that the book is an illuminating, unique, sensational, thought-provoking expose from within of the political situation in Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia, then the odds are about three to one that the book is about Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia. About once in four times they put the wrong cover on and you find that it's a book of short stories called Tikkity-Tonk, Old Fish!"
Such qualities notwithstanding, the book jacket (or dust jacket, or dust-wrapper) is an object whose value has often been lukewarmly debated. Most readers will have noticed that it is with the hardback book — and not the paperback — that the dust jacket comes. The jacket also serves as the cover of the book and once that is taken off, what you usually get is a volume bound in plain rexine, with the title, author and publisher's colophon embossed on the spine. Such additional information as what the author eats for breakfast may be obtained from a perusal of the jacket flaps.
The dust jacket first appeared in the 1830s and served the strictly utilitarian purpose of protecting the book while it was being transported from publisher to reader. It was not till towards the end of the century that publishers realised that a well-designed dust jacket could help sell more copies of a book. In fact, the whole idea of a publisher's cover itself originated during this time. As is well known, books were sold as unbound sheets till the 19th Century. Individual buyers or libraries would have them specially bound, with their own names or monogrammes tooled in gold and such-like. But by about the second quarter of the 19th Century, books became commonly available case-bound from the publisher, and by the middle of the century, most books would have been purchased already bound. The next logical step was the plain dust jacket and eventually, the illustrated cover.
But why does the dust jacket mostly come with hardbacks? This is because most hardback books are case-bound in leather or cloth and you have to laminate the cloth or cover before binding in order to print reproductions. Far easier to print the cover separately and slip it on as a jacket. Paperbacks do not have jackets precisely because they have paper covers on which you can print. However, there have been exceptions like the very early Penguin paperbacks. These had dust jackets which essentially replicated the cover but also contained a list of current Penguin titles available on their backs.
Since then, the dust jacket has been used in rather more sophisticated and creative ways. Take the example of Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), which has a lengthy text on the front flap which is claimed to have been "Removed from chapter 5", and is not actually in the book. Or take the case of William Carlos Williams's early book of poems Al Que Quiere! Whose blurb features the following caveat: "You, gentle reader, will probably not like it, because it is brutally powerful and scornfully rude. Fortunately, neither the author nor the publishers care much whether you like it or not. The author has done his work, and if you do read the book you will agree that he doesn't give a damn for your opinion." (This instance was provided by Molly Schwartzburg in an e-discussion group).
Visually, too, many dust jackets have become works of art in their own right. This phenomenon, interestingly, has not just been confined to the world of books. Vinyl records initially came in regulation sleeves but soon individual covers were commissioned for the albums, some of which have become almost as famous as the album itself. In fact, record companies have been rather more adventurous than publishers in this regard — one is yet to see a publisher package his book in a zipped-up pair of denim shorts, as Andy Warhol did for the Rolling Stones album "Sticky Fingers". Or indeed, in a fictitious small-town newspaper, as Jethro Tull did for "Thick as a Brick".
Early instances of dust jackets, especially before the1880s, are notoriously difficult to find. Not only were they fragile and therefore difficult to preserve, there was no understanding among librarians and archivists that the jacket copy could provide insights unavailable between the covers or even in archived documents. Bibliographers woke up to this fact roundabout the 1920s but this led to a fresh set of problems. As dust jackets of first editions became hot property among collectors, it became increasingly difficult to vouch for their authenticity. John Carter put it beautifully: "Since the marriage of book and dust-jacket was never meant to be permanent, divorces can all too easily be followed by re-marriages; and it may take a shrewd eye to tell, without external evidence, whether a jacket on a modern first edition has always been on it or came from another copy."
All this could have been avoided had libraries retained the original book jackets. But till very recently, the major copyright libraries of the world have had a policy of throwing away book jackets. The main reason cited was lack of space, and expense — in order to protect a jacket adequately, you would have to use a dust-jacket protector. Most dust jacket protectors are made of a 1.5-millimeter polyester film (some with paper backing) that wraps around your dust jacket. There is now some desultory talk about digitising jacket covers but at the time of writing, there is little consensus among libraries on this issue.
Abhijit Gupta is co-editing a history of the book in India.
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Literary Review
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