Judging a Book by Its Cover

Fans, Publishers, Designers, and the Marketing of Fiction

Nickianne Moody, Nicole Matthews

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754657316
• eBook ISBN: 9781351924672
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

How do books attract their readers? This collection takes a closer look at book covers and their role in promoting sales and shaping readers' responses. Judging a Book by Its Cover brings together leading scholars, many with experience in the publishing industry, who examine the marketing of popular fiction across the twentieth century and beyond. Using case studies, and grounding their discussions historically and methodologically, the contributors address key themes in contemporary media, literary, publishing, and business studies related to globalisation, the correlation between text and image, identity politics, and reader reception. Topics include book covers and the internet bookstore; the links between books, the music industry, and film; literary prizes and the selling of books; subcultures and sales of young adult fiction; the cover as a signifier of literary value; and the marketing of ethnicity and lesbian pulp fiction. This exciting collection opens a new field of enquiry for scholars of book history, literature, media and communication studies, marketing, and cultural studies.

Part 1
Approaches to the Book Cover

Chapter 1
The Paperback Evolution: Tauchnitz, Albatross and Penguin

Alistair McCleery
Napier University

If you really like it you can have the rights,
It could make a million for you overnight.
If you must return it, you can send it here
But I need a break and I want to be a paperback writer
Lennon and McCartney, 'Paperback Writer', Revolver (1966).

When the Beatles sang these words from 'Paperback Writer' (and John Lennon was, indeed, published by Penguin), this aspiration caught the mood of a period in the 1960s when the paperback was both a key vehicle for cultural transmission and an aesthetic object in itself. In hindsight, the paperback may then have been at the height of both its influence and its popularity. 'When Paperbacks in Print was first published in May 1960. as a "reference catalogue" of paperbacks on sale in Britain, it listed as many as 5,866 titles; and by June 1962 this total had risen to 9.578 – an increase of 65 per cent' (Findlater 1966, 12). This recapitulated an earlier period of expansion in the USA where 3 million paperbacks had been produced in 1939 but 214 million in 1950 (Pryce-Jones 1952, 18). The UK and the USA had both seen the scope and range of paperback publishing extend: in the former case, beyond reprints to original work in both fiction and non-fiction and, in the latter, beyond genre fiction to literary fiction and non-fiction. This convergence between the two largest English-language publishing countries was apparent also in paperback design. The UK production of paperbacks began in a European tradition of typographical covers, showing restraint and austerity in their functionality, while the US production of paperbacks, faced with competition from magazines for the same retail space in drugstores and markets, adopted the vivid colours and illustrations on the covers of these rivals to create a more flamboyant and exuberant tradition. This essay follows in detail the development of the European tradition through Tauchnitz and Albatross to Penguin. In the UK in the 1960s the Europeans assimilated the US tradition, rather slavishly in its initial use by Pan and other paperback houses, and rather tentatively by Penguin in the early years of the decade. From that imitation and hesitation emerged a creative and innovative flowering of UK paperback cover design, particularly in Penguin books from 1965 through to the end of the decade.

All of the defining characteristics of the twentieth-century paperback can be traced, however, back to the nineteenth century and before: the binding and cover material, the convenient size and the long print run. In Europe the development of the form had been closely linked to function. If books were to be rebound by their owners to create a more permanent and uniform library, then the publishers need only issue them in inexpensive covers. If books were regarded by their owners as relatively disposable upon reading, after whiling away the time on a railway journey or on holiday, for example, then the publishers need only issue them in inexpensive covers. If books were to be carried around a great deal, on a train or to the salon of a spa hotel, then publishers needed to produce them in conveniently portable sizes and weights. If publishers regarded their mission as the democratisation of knowledge through provision of good books at low prices, then they could reduce costs by reprinting, in long runs and in uniform formats, titles that had already proven themselves in the marketplace or critical cockpit. Such books, moreover, would sell through that pre-existing reputation (of title or author) rather than the visual appeal of the cover. Mass-market consumption did not demand self-advertisement of the individual title but it did require recognition of and confidence in the publisher as brand.

The 'Universal-Bibliothek' of Reclam in Germany, for example, comprises a large series of reprints of well-known authors at low prices that began with a liberalisation of German copyright law in 1867. The small format paperbacks (152 x 95.25 mm), produced using stereotypes, were sold initially for 20 pfennigs in a standard art nouveau paper cover in red with a rose logo. In the 1920s the cover design became more self-consciously typographic while the immediate post World War II volumes adopted calligraphic covers with the occasional line drawing. The more familiar undecorated, yellow covers were introduced in 1970. The standardisation of the Universal-Bibliothek lent itself in 1912 to the introduction of book-vending slot machines of which there were 2,000 by 1917, chiefly at railway stations, mainline and branch, as Reclam exploited a hunger for self-education and a renewed cultural nationalism.

That same market was sought by 'Die Insel-Bücherei', founded in 1912 by Insel Verlag in Leipzig. Insel, however, introduced higher production values, in design, typography and materials, to its books than Reclam. Consequently, its hardcover titles, though produced in print runs of 10,000 to 30,000, sold initially at 50 pfennigs, more than double the price of rivals in the Universal-Bibliothek. That margin permitted the use of illustrations within the books. Boccaccio's Decameron, published in 1912, contained seven contemporary woodcuts while the Bilder des Todes of 1917 was a vehicle for Holbein's illustrations — although it retained a typographical cover enhanced only by the use of rules. The standard Insel-Bücherei covers (until 1961) are decorative, consisting of abstract or semi-figurative patterns (resembling wallpaper) with a label, stuck on or printed, that gives author, title and series data in the same Gothic typeface in which the text of all the books is printed. These patterns, a concept later copied by Penguin for its Penguin Poets (from 1941), King Penguin (from 1943) and Penguin Scores (from 1949) series, generally bear no relation to the nature of the title they distinguish: an edition of Beethoven's letters is covered in a faux-Japanese design of a twig falling into a stream and a row of grass or bamboo set in alternate squares, while the woodcuts of Jost Amman are covered by a repeated flower design set against a tweed rug. What is important is that the cover pattern, no matter its precise nature, makes these volumes instantly identifiable as belonging to the Insel-Bticherei. However, the Insel books were not paperbacks. Only the exigencies of wartime restrictions in 1941 led to the adoption of paper covers; and the familiar board covers were reintroduced in 1951 by the West German Insel Verlag in Frankfurt (an East German Insel Verlag survived in Leipzig). Despite their low price, the numbered volumes of the Insel-Bücherei were intended to be collected and retained by their owners; the attractive covers with their patterned papers promoted not the individual book but the brand.

Figure 1.1 Das Ständebuch, 114 Holzschnitte von Jost Amman mit Reimen von Hans Sachs Insel-Bücherei Nr. 133 (nd)

Tauchnitz Editions in Leipzig was another such brand and. because it published in English, it became more influential in the development of the paperback and its design in the UK. Tauchnitz had established in the mid-nineteenth century a confident reputation for its reprints of British and American authors in an English-language paperback series not for sale in the UK for copyright reasons. From 1841 to 1937 it issued some 5,000 titles, selling some 60 million copies in total, becoming 'the cherished companion of English-speaking travellers in central Europe and the royal road for foreign students to the treasures of English and American literature' (Steinberg 1955, 354). All the great figures of English literature, particularly its Victorian novelists, were to be found in its easily recognisable but undistinguished format. Hans Schmoller remarked: 'Up to about 1930 there was nothing to commend the books typographically: they were squat volumes, rather too wide for the coat pocket, and set in small type with too many words per line to make for easy reading. The covers were white and almost identical with feeble title-pages' (Schmoller 1953, 37). The fortunes of the company had begun to decline in the decade before 1930. That Tauchnitz had not earlier collapsed altogether during World War I and its immediate aftermath was due to the endeavours of its then Director, Curt Otto. However, its bare survival, without the necessary major restructuring in response to wartime conditions, specifically the closure of markets and lack of materials, particularly paper, left it in a weakened state to face the problems of hyperinflation that seized Germany until the introduction of the Reichsmark in 1924. The decision of the Society of Authors, initiated by John Galsworthy, to recommend to British writers (and agents) a change in contractual practice from concurrent UK and Tauchnitz publication to a delay of one year between former and latter compounded the problems of the publisher from 1926 onwards. Curt Otto died in July 1929 and achieved on his demise an apotheosis in the eyes of the Board of Directors. Tauchnitz Editions was reorganised, in that November, as a private limited company with all the shares held exclusively by the direct descendants of the first Baron Tauchnitz. Dr Hans Otto, brother of Curt, became the Chairman of the Board. Max Christian Wegner, formerly at Insel-Verlag, was appointed as 'Geschaftsfuhrer', or manager-in-chief, with day-to-day responsibilities for the ailing firm but answering to a conservative Board very conscious of the company's traditions and glorious past. His appointment accounts for Schmoller's design 'watershed' of 1930, as Wegner set out to modernise Tauchnitz and place it upon a more secure footing.

Herbert Kästner characterised the mission of Wegner's training ground, Insel, as the provision of quality books in volume at relatively low prices (Kastner 1987, v). This goal emanated from the democratic ideals of its founder, Anton Kippenberg; Wegner was Kippenbeig's nephew and shared those ideals. He wrote an afterword to Aurbacher's Die Abenteuer von den sieben Schwaben published by Insel in 1919; in 1924 he was one of a number of translators of the novels of Balzac's La Comédie Humaine issued by Insel in ten volumes; and in that same year he was responsible for the production of a catalogue of all Insel's titles since 1899. Wegner was a man of learning and cultural refinement; the high production values and aesthetic appeal of the Insel volumes reflected his own preferences. Wegner was 'Prokurist', or a company officer with statutory authority, at Insel before leaving to take over at Tauchnitz; he would have been acutely aware of the commercial need to integrate those production values with effective marketing of the brand. The decisions he began to implement at Tauchnitz from late 1929 until his departure in 1931 stemmed from that need, those preferences and those ideals.

Wegner introduced a coloured band to the Tauchnitz volumes to distinguish genres. 'A paper band, coloured to express the various types of works published, encircles each book; bearing a short description of the contents, it serves as an aid to booksellers and purchasers' (Tauchnitz Edition 1932, 13). He indicated the breadth of the Tauchnitz library by changing the half-title to 'Collection of British and American Authors'. However, it was not so much the design changes Wegner brought about as those he made to the company's publishing operation that led to his rupture with Tauchnitz. The odds were stacked against him: the nature of the literary market and of publishing practice, not least the delay initiated by the Society of Authors and the increasing role of literary agents, had changed since the company's heyday without the Board fully comprehending it. Where Wegner did attempt to rejuvenate the Tauchnitz list, he was frustrated by the Board. As Peter Mayer was to do when he took over the cultural icon of Penguin Books in 1978, Wegner set out to restore the financial health of Tauchnitz by cutting back on the size of the backlist kept in print. The general economic climate in 1929 militated against the tying up of company assets as stock in its warehouse. Wegner also took what would now appear to publishers the sensible step of divorcing the editorial and marketing aspects of Tauchnitz books from their production by employing two other Leipzig printers (and a third when necessary in Budapest) in order to secure the best price – eventually, one of these, Brandstetter, was to predominate to the point of monopoly. No doubt, if he had continued at Tauchnitz, Wegner would have pursued further reforms including the modernisation of the cover design and typography, It was not to be – at least, for the time being. Wegner's surgery, however necessary, proved anathema to the Board and he was forced out of the company by mid-1931. Tauchnitz lost its dynamic Geschäftsführer.

Wegner's ideas, experience and drive were put to new use in the creation of the Albatross Press with John Holroyd Reece in Paris. Curtis Brown, the literary agent, claimed the role of matchmaker.

[Wegner] told me he would like to start a rival to Tauchnitz, which he believed had held a monopoly of Continental publishing in English cheap editions quite long enough, and that he was looking for someone to back him. Not long afterwards, that urbane and picturesque international, John Holroyd Reece turned up in my office, with the same sort of scheme Wegner had... I brought Reece and Wegner together, and they clicked at once. Through our Paris manager, who was a friend of both, they were brought into touch with a famous British financier, who put up the money, although he preferred to keep in the background (Brown 1935, 178).

The financier was Sir Edmund Davis, the Jewish 'Randlord' (and his ethnicity is not incidental), who shared with Holroyd Reece a longstanding interest in the collection of art and antiques. Where the millionaire was able to indulge this through the purchase of a large number of artworks, the publisher had channelled his enthusiasm through the establishment of Les Editions du Pégase/the Pegasus Press in 1927, with the support of the American typographer Frederick Warde. Holroyd Reece had begun his career in publishing with Ernest Benn, through which he had made a wide range of contacts, and in 1928 he had undertaken the Paris publication of Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness on behalf of Jonathan Cape. Under the imprint of the Pegasus Press, however, Holroyd Reece chiefly published expensively produced fine art books and material on typography and graphic design in small print runs. Through Warde, he met Stanley Morison, the noted typographer and designer, and then Hans Mardersteig, who played the major role in designing the modern paperback that Wegner had been frustrated in developing at Tauchnitz. Albatross Verlag was registered at the Leipzig 'Handelsregister' (register of businesses) on 26 November 1931. with Wegner named as 'Geschäftsfiihrer'; he began signing contracts onbehalf of Albatross that very month The Board of Directors of Albatross included William and Ian Collins; its Chairman was Arnoldo Mondadori. Albatross was owned by the 'Publishing Holding Company', registered in Luxembourg and wholly owned by Davis.

These cast members interacted to create the template of the modern European paperback and to base its typographical design on printing practice rather than illustration. The leading actor was Hans Mardersteig, himself a typographer and printer. Mardersteig had begun his career working for Kurt Wolff in Leipzig from 1917, but left for health reasons when the latter enterprise moved to Munich in 1919. Mardersteig set up his own hand press, the Officina Bodoni, at Montagnola di Lugano in Switzerland in 1922, where he produced three books for the Pegasus Press in 1927, 1928 and 1930 that were edited or co-authored by Stanley Morison. Mardersteig printed a limited edition in 1926 of an Italian translation, Dell'Arte della Stampa, of Charles Ricketts's 'A Defence of the Revival of Printing' (1899). (Ricketts, in turn, was the principal adviser to Sir Edmund Davis in his acquisition of the large art collection housed until the late 1930s at his home, Chilham Castle in Kent; this collection, including some 170 oils, 100 drawings and 30 sculptures, reflected Ricketts's taste as much as that of Davis and his wife in its focus upon modern artists and prints).

In 1926 Arnoldo Mondadori encouraged Mardersteig to enter an Italian national competition to produce the collected works of d'Annunzio; Mardersteig won and moved the Officina Bodoni to Verona within the Mondadori printing works. This was necessary to fulfil the conditions of the competition: not only was a limited hand-set and printed edition of 209 copies of each of 49 volumes on Imperial Japanese velina to be produced but a further 2,501 copies of each volume were to be machine-printed on hand-made Fabriano paper. (The Italian state spared no expense for its national poet). Through publication of these volumes from 1927 to 1936, Mardersteig demonstrated the successful marriage of high craftsmanship in typography and graphic design with modern production methods. Indeed...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• List of Figures
• Introduction
• Part 1 Approaches to the Book Cover
• Part 2 What Makes a Book Popular?
• Part 3 ‘The Record of the Film of the Book’: Cultural Industries and Intertextuality
• Part 4 Translating Covers: Moving Audiences and the Marketing of Books
• Bibliography
• Index