J.R.R. Tolkien’s Silmarillion was first published by Allen & Unwin in London (with Hawthorn for the jacket typography). Shown here is the first U.S. edition, by Houghton Mifflin, with cover art by Tolkien himself. The display typeface is Rubens.

Note how the J towers a little over the other capitals because its base was aligned to the line of the frame, instead of letting it overshoot.

The typography on the spine and inside the book follows the British precursor, with Perpetua and Imprint.

[More info on ISFDB]

In this 1974 book, Whitney Balliett (1926–2007) profiles Alec Wilder and nine related artists. The texts were originally published in The New Yorker for which Balliett served as a jazz critic and book reviewer over a period of forty-seven years.

The uncredited designer used ITC Busorama Bold for the main title. It appears with several of its alternates: the compact variants for E and F, the R with concave leg, and the top-heavy forms for S and &. Busorama is supported by Kabel Light.

Back cover. Happy World Ampersand Day! The photo credit for Geoffrey James uses a light weight of Venus Extended with a wide J.

Book jacket of the hardback edition by Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1977. The title is set in a condensed Goudy Heavyface. Author name and subtitle are in what looks like ITC Cushing. This revival of Cushing Oldstyle was made by Vincent Pacella. It wasn’t released by ITC before 1982, so this is probably a precursor that was exclusively available from Photo-Lettering, Inc. Pacella worked at PLINC where many of the ITC fonts were produced. The photograph is by Todd Tarbox.

From the inner flap:

In this important and controversial book, Geneva Smitherman defines Black English as
comprising a set of grammatical and phonetic rules, a special lexicon, and a particular rhetorical style. In analyzing these elements, she discusses attitudes toward language and explains the differences in usage and in linguistic attitudes that often lead to misunderstandings between blacks and whites and offers specific suggestions for public policy that would recognize the validity and make use of Black English. Shifting occasionally into Black Idiom as she writes, Dr. Smitherman makes clear that Black English is a vital and effective language, as legitimate a form of speech as British, American, or Australian English.

Dr. Smitherman relies heavily on black culture and its inherent African oral tradition for examining and understanding black speech. Talkin and Testifyin provides the immediacy of a culture, language, and experience that ranges from African villages to Motown, from myth to reality, from the sacred to the secular. Interwoven throughout the text as evidence for the author's arguments are the words of Frederick Douglass, Curtis Mayfield, W.E.B. Dubois, Richard Pharr, lmamu Baraka, Claude Brown, Nikki Giovanni, Smokey Robinson, Maya Angelou, Richard Wright, Bessie Smith, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Stag-O-Lee, Martin Luther King, Jr. , Chinua Achebe, Langston Hughes, James Brown, Adam Clayton Powell, Isaac Hayes, Malcolm X, Aretha Franklin, Haki Madhubuti, Frankie Crocker, the Reverend C.L. Franklin, Jesse B. Simple, and many others.

Title page of the Houghton Mifflin edition. Cooper Black Italic is used for the title (with swash caps), and Baskerville for other text.

Cover of the paperback edition by Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1986, pairing Baby Teeth and ITC Avant Garde Gothic.

Front cover.

Philip Roth’s last novel, released in 2010, and set in a fictionalized 1944 Newark, New Jersey during the height of the polio epidemic. This was also the conclusion of Roth’s “Nemeses” novels, that included 3 other books. This cover marked the fourth and final collaboration between Milton Glaser and Philip Roth. From Glaser's site:

The cover references both the stifling heat wave in Newark, New Jersey in the 1940s, and the protagonist's interest in javelin throwing.

I love Glaser's jacket designs because they show a side of Glaser I'm not used to seeing. Anyone eye-balling this book at the local Barnes and Noble would have had severe difficulty linking this cover to the Push Pin maestro. There's no idiosyncratic display type, no zany illustrations, no art nouveau influence. 2010 was maybe when Gotham’s popularity peaked and I see it as a very timely choice. To me, range is what defines a good artist, this cover makes a point of that for Glaser.

Back and front of the jacket, with inner flaps.

This is Laura’s book, although most of it is told by three men — the three men who knew her best. When the story opens, Laura’s life is ended. — flap jacket text

Vera Caspary’s Laura (1942, 1943) is a detective novel and Caspary’s best known work. Shortly after the book was released, it was adapted into a successful film of the same name (with Gene Tierny and Dana Andrews as lead actors, and starring Vincent Price). Over time, the novel acquired a certain cult status. If you happen to have a first edition print in your shelves, don’t dispose of it for a dollar or euro in your yard sale — it may sell at a higher price.

The book was published as a hardcover with an illustrated jacket. The typography uses Lydian Bold for the book title, and Lydian Roman for the other information using sentence case on the cover, all caps on the spine. The text on the book’s back cover, the book cover itself and the title page seems to be set with ATF Garamond.

On the title page, the title shows Garamond’s distinctive capital R, paddling its foot below the baseline. This approach to the italic R is not exclusive to ATF Garamond. It can also be found in Amsterdamer Garamont, but compared with ATF’s version, the Amsterdamer glyph seems to dive all-in. The author’s name is set with loosely spaced small caps. Houghton Mifflin (and) Company was a partner of “The Riverside Press Cambridge” which is mentioned in blackletter. If the Garamond is type from the American Type Founders, the blackletter could be ATF’s Cloister Black.

Cover of the first edition of Laura published by Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943.

Title page.

Book Club edition, 1943.

Book Club edition, 1943.

Kenneth C. Davis: Two-Bit Culture: The Paperbacking of America, Houghton Mifflin, 1984. Cover design uncredited.

“Chronicles the Paperback Revolution—the men and the women, the companies and the characters, that enabled American writers to find American readers by the millions. Crammed with facts as well as gossip, ‘Two-Bit Culture’ not only brings to life the history of the paperback but examines its present state and predicts where the fascinating business may be heading.”

There are now ten separate anthologies in the annual Best American series, which began in 1986. Most, but not all, of this year’s titles show similar cover treatments, using types by Hoefler & Co.

For many years, the series featured a different cover format designed by Carin Goldberg, which used Schneidler Initials. That face is still used as a series logo, as shown in the last slide.

Published 1971; 15th printing 1975

A Houghton Mifflin textbook by Joseph Hollister Jackson.