How To Judge a Book by its Cover
Review by Mary Cregan
Published: October 6 2007 01:05 | Last updated: October 6 2007 01:05
History of My Life
By Giacomo Casanova
Johns Hopkins University Press 1997
Cover design: Glen Burris
Illustration: “Ruhende Venus” (“Resting Venus”)
By Dirk de Quade van Ravesteyn
The
book cover originated in the 19th century as a simple paper wrapper
whose job was to protect the binding of the book. It has since become
an essential marketing tool, and the designer’s task has been to
transform the cover – and by extension the book – into an irresistible
object. In his book Front Cover, Alan Powers put it bluntly:
the best covers possess a “hidden eroticism”. You want to take them
home, make them yours. But once the book finds its place on your
bookshelf, it’s the spine, and not that seductive cover, that you’ll be
staring at for the next 30 years.
Some of the most beautiful spines I have ever seen appear collectively on the six-volume edition of Casanova’s History of My Life. Fittingly for the autobiography of the Venetian-born connoisseur of sexual experience, the image across the spines is that of Venus herself, in an enlarged version of a 17th-century painting that appears in a cartouche on the front of each volume. Venus’s body is divided horizontally across the six volumes. If you want all of her – not just her feet, head, or lovely parts between – you must buy the entire set.
When the publishers decided to acquire the rights to Willard Trask’s translation of Casanova’s 3,500-page memoir, they knew they wanted a recumbent Venus on the spines, and wanted people to buy the entire edition. But putting Venus’s head on the first volume might encourage buyers to stop there, so they searched for a nude lying in the opposite direction.
This was more difficult than it might seem: artists from Titian to Ingres typically painted nudes with the head on the left. At last the publishers found Dirk de Quade van Ravesteyn’s “Resting Venus” in an old book on Mannerist painting.
At Book Expo that year, they put up a 20ft banner of the nude Venus. Members of the Romance Writers of America, whose booth was nearby, were offended by the extravagant display. Casanova would have been amused.
Mary Cregan, a former book designer, teaches literature at Barnard College, New York.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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