Binding Designs, 1889-1893
The qualifications necessary are, first, ingenuity because you must invent an idea from your manuscript capable of being converted into a fitting design; second, a strong sense of balance and composition; third, a knowledge of historic ornament. The cover ought to suggest the content of the volume.
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The Odd Number: Thirteen Tales, by Guy de Maupassant (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1889)
Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
This was Morse's first cover design for Harper & Brothers, and its success influenced her decision to focus on book design:
"They wanted a series of French classics to be properly bound, and I was commissioned to try it. It was an apparently simple cover, but required a great deal of study, as the beauty of the design depended on the proper disposition of borders, and the balance of one set of lines with another. It was successful and was followed by enough more orders to induce me to think I could make a success of the work."
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Summer Holidays, Travelling Notes in Europe, by Theodore Child (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1889)
Carol Jording Rare Book Acquisition Fund, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
According to Mindell Dubansky, this design was inspired by sixteenth-century European strapwork, which resembles flat strips of leather, bent to suggest three-dimensional shapes.
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The Chatelaine of la Trinité, by Henry B. Fuller (New York: The Century Company, 1892)
Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
Morse described her inspiration for the design of this book in an article in The Art Interchange: “In ‘The Chatelaine of la Trinité’ I got the idea from a Tyrolean belt, it being the tale of travel dealing largely with the Tyrol. The design included a conventionalized edelweiss, the national flower.” This book was exhibited in the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago.
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The Alhambra, by Washington Irving (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1892)
Carol Jording Rare Book Acquisition Fund, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
The Alhambra and Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada (see below) were companion gift books. Both are bound in white cloth with beveled edges and feature intricate designs. In The Proper Decoration of Book Covers: The Life and Work of Alice C. Morse Dubansky suggests that it is possible that Morse may have looked to Owen Jones' The Grammar of Ornament, "Moresque Ornament from the Alhambra," as inspiration.
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Marse Chan: A Tale of Old Virginia, by Thomas Nelson Page (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1892)
M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
Morse created stylized tobacco leaves in the border and center ornament, a nod to the story's setting.
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The Wrecker, by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1892)
Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum
Morse decorated the cover for this ocean adventure tale with intertwined sea creatures and plants.
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