MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOISON
MANY charming changes have, since the drab days of my youth, come to enliven our English life. One of the most welcome of these discoveries is an entirely new conception ot what a national museum ought to be. In the early years of this century a museum was regarded as a repository. If the objects which it exhibited or stored were of antiquarian or artistic interest it became a necropolis of the past. If the building was devised to house collections illustrative of engineering, birds, reptiles, butterflies or geology these objects were all lumped together with weary itera- tion. What was so dreadful about the drab past was that museums were regarded as places to which little boys were taken for their instruction and enlightenment. However passionate might be one's interest in industrial machines, one was obliged none the less to visit also the museum in which quartz and crystals were displayed. However yearning might be one's love of butterflies, off one was dragged to see the stones of Nineveh. Much exhaustion was inflicted upon the little feet which pattered across those tiled pavements, and the discouraging conviction was engendered that the realm of learning was gigantic, encumbered and wholly impersonal. The effect was, with few startling exceptions, to render us a generation ill addicted to sight-seeing, a breed of men and women who had none of the insatiable Ruskin urge, but who preferred, instead of mounting to the top of Garisenda, to sip their vermouth in the public square. It was many years before I recovered from my enforced visitations to South Kensington and before I acquired the clever habit of visiting museums and galleries very frequently, but never for more than twenty minutes at a time. The children of today are exposed to no such discipline. If they like butterflies they are not forced to widen their areas of knowledge by gazing also on machines. And meanwhile the museums themselves have softened to the compassionate touch.
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I am glad to observe that Sir Leigh Ashton has no intention of treating the Victoria and Albert as some inhospitable Ceramicus of the past. From time to time he will open a section of his galleries for exhibitions of objects which, although not in themselves great works of art, are interesting to notice and observe. The stagnant pools into which the atmosphere of any museum tends to gather are thus refreshed by bright little rivulets of life. And it is agree- able, when visiting these special exhibitions, to observe that the fine classic pieces in the adjoining galleries do not really resent the intrusion and chatter of these less distinguished friends. I went to the Victoria and Albert this week to see the exhibition of inter- national book-jackets. Specimens from at least nineteen countries have been gathered together in order that we, may be able to com- pare the different ways in which publishers all over the world are adjusting themselves to the comparatively new fashion of putting dust-jackets on books. I gather from Mr. Charles Rosner's pamphlet which explains the exhibition that the credit for introducing these dust-wrappers can be claimed by Great Britain. It was not that we were quick to realise the potentialities in terms of salesmanship of this new device ; it was that the climate of London and of our provincial cities was such that books if displayed uncovered tended to become rapidly soiled. Originally, it seems, the books were just wrapped in paper and the title scribbled on the outside. From 1832 onwards publishers began slowly to realise that this paper covering could be expanded to attract the purchaser and to advertise the nature of their wares. '
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The book-wrappers now being displayed at the Victoria and Albert arc certainly diverse. They vary from the extreme austerity of Mr. Ben Nicholson's design for the wrapper of This Changing WG'rld to the elaborately emotional cover which Mr. Woroweitzik has drawn for the Israeli publishing firm of Yavneh. We have Mr. John Piper's fine drawing for The Unquiet Grave and the startlingly effective picture on the dust-jacket of Sir Reginald Coup- land's Isandhlwana. We have the contrast between the gay designs of Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell and the clear, clean printing of the Oxford Trollope. The French, who have not acquired the habit of dust-wrappers, have sent only the most conventional exhibits. The Czech and Dutch products are interesting, and there are some quite clever things from Finland. I do not agree with Mr. Rosner that the American jackets "are far superior to those of any other country." On the contrary, I feel that the Americans have not yet even begun to understand the art of book-production. The volumes which isstte from their publishing-houses arc heavy to hold, absorb too much room on our bookshelves, and arc disfigured by jackets which shout and yell. The impartial visitor to this exhibition would, I think, agree that our British covers are better in style and presenta- tion than those which have been sent us from abroad. Most of them display ingenuity and some of them are minor works of art. I have always felt that British publishers are better than those of other countries, and I am glad to have my opinions confirmed by seeing this minor exhibit of the publishers' art. Yet I left the exhibition feeling that even in Great Britain publishers have not yet discovered the ideal formula for a book-jacket.
One cannot resist the impression that publishers have not as yet made up their minds as to which is the most important of the many purposes which a dust-cover is intended to serve. The primary purpose is to preserve the book from becoming soiled when it remains, possibly for months, on the bookseller's shelves. That purpose can be fully and easily achieved. It is the secondary pur- poses of the cover which seem to create such confusion in the publisher's brain. Are publishers to attract the attention of the possible purchaser by garish colours and freak lettering ? Are they to impress upon the public mind the identity of their own firm by pro- ducing all their books in wrappers of similar design ? Are they going to use the space provided by the wrapper for some nauseating blurb or for advertising other current books ? What is the audience to which the wrapper is meant to make appeal ? Is the bookseller to be coaxed into displaying a book in his front window by the prospect of giving to his shop an attractive colour-scheme as seen from the street ? Is the uncertain purchaser to be seduced by array- ing a serious book in the motley of a harlequinade ? Is the book to be given what I believe is known as a "handsome appearance" in order to suggest that, as a present, it is more generous than in fact it is ? Or is the potential reviewer to be beguiled by being provided with labour-saving devices and given a trenchant summary upon the dust-wrapper of the contents ? It would seem from the exhibition which the Circulation Department of the Victoria and Albert has so ingeniously devised that most publishers aim at achieving every one of these diverse purposes at the same time.
I know exactly what purposes I, as a common reader, want a dust-wrapper to serve. It must keep the book clean, and not dis- integrate or corrugate while I read. It must conform to the tone of the book and not suggest that a book is light when it is heavy
or flippant when it is serious. The title and the author's name must be legibly printed, especially upon the spine. The blurb must
describe what the book is about in terms of precision, modesty and restraint. If the book is by a new author I like to know his age and previous publications and, in the case of a woman, whether she is Mrs. or Miss, Lady or Dame. The design upon the wrapper should harmonise in taste and emphasis with the tone and style of the book itself. I have no objection at all to the wrapper containing adver- tisements of other books published by the same author or firm. All I ask is that the wrapper should not irritate, shock, exhort or impose. It should tell the truth. The worst about so many wrappers is that they lie.
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