Unpopular Essays by Bertrand Russell (Simon & Schuster)
Contributed by Florian Hardwig on Dec 23rd, 2020. Artwork published in
circa 1958
.
Artist’s proof.
Unpopular Essays. 12 Adventures in Argument by the Winner of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature.
First published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London in 1950, this is the cover of a later paperback edition by Simon & Schuster, New York. While the Internet Archive gives a 1951 date (perhaps the date of the first printing with different cover), MoMa dates it to ca. 1957–1960, the years when the design firm was doing business as Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar. Anzeigen-Grotesk was their signature typeface.
I wonder whether the placement of the publisher’s logo is a comment on the client. There’s no denying that the designer put the little sower under someone’s thumb!
