Martin Salisbury’s The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970 is a wonderful overview of the innovative illustrators who prompted many a book purchase with their lovely design work.
Via the publisher, the book examines how art movements over the period each influenced book jacket design:
Author Martin Salisbury traces the evolution of the book jacket from its functional origins as a plain dust protector for expensively bound books to its elaboration as an artistic device to catch the eye of browsing book buyers. The increasing awareness of the jacket’s potential to serve as a marketing tool across various areas of the publishing world—from literary fiction to academic titles, and children’s books—meant a proliferation of illustrative treatments. The book jackets reproduced here reflect the changing visual styles and motifs of the passing century, beginning with the Art Deco period and continuing through Modernism, the playful Thirties, the pre- and postwar Neo-Romantics, the new consumerism and realist subject matter of the Fifties, and the Pop Art of the Sixties.
If you count a bibliophile among your friends, check it out!
• The Illustrated Dust Jacket, 1920-1970 (Thames & Hudson)