Binding Designs, 1898-1902

I, Thou, and the Other One: A Love Story, by Amelia E. Barr (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898)
M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum

This is a rare pictorial design by Morse, done in the flat "poster style" that was popular at the end of the 19th century.

Tattle-Tales of Cupid, by Paul Leicester Ford (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898)
M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum

Poems of Cabin and Field: Illustrated with Photographs by the Hampton Institute Camera Club and Decorations by Alice Morse, by Paul Laurence Dunbar (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1899)
M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum

This is the only other book, along with the "At the Ghost Hour" series, with interior decorations by Morse. She created seven different page borders featuring peanuts, rabbits, watermelon, corn, tobacco, cotton, and raccoon motifs. The binding is stamped with intertwining orange and green trumpet flower vines.

My Study Fire, by Hamilton Wright Mabie (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1899)
M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum

In her article, "Telling Books by Their Covers," Anne Stewart O'Donnell states this design, which "incorporates an appropriately flamelike floral [...] in both bright and matte gold, is not merely stamped but also embossed ('sculpted' in relief by being pressed with heated, engraved plates)."

My Lady’s Slipper and Other Verses, by Dora Sigerson (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1899)
M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum

Morse decorated this cover with stylized, Art Nouveau Lady’s Slipper orchids.

Turrets, Towers, and Temples: The Great Buildings of the World, as Seen and Described by Famous Writers, edited and translated by Esther Singleton (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1899)
M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum

Dodd, Mead and Company published a series of books by Singleton, all with the same Gothic design by Morse.  

The American Idea as Expounded by American Statesmen, compiled by Joseph B. Gilder (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1902)
M. G. Sawyer Collection of Decorative Bindings, Helen Farr Sloan Library & Archives, Delaware Art Museum

This straightforward design is the latest by Morse in the collection of the Delaware Art Museum. By 1902 Morse had lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania for five years, holding the position of supervisor of Art and Drawing for the elementary grade schools of the Scranton public school system.