“Russian Rubens”, Bantam Books
Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Steve and tagged with “rubens”. License: All Rights Reserved.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Bantam Books RC4424, 1970. Cover Artist: unknown
Three cover designs from the American publishing house Bantam Books — two books by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881), and one anti-Communist spy novel — united by the typeface. Bantam must have believed that Rubens had a Cyrillic or Russian “feel”. Apparently, the Fonderie Typographique Française did so, too: Their version of Rubens was named Moscovites.
![Three Short Novels (Poor Folk, The Double, The Eternal Husband) by [Fyodor] Dostoevsky, Bantam Books QC5728, 1970. Cover Artist: unknown](https://fiu-original.b-cdn.net/fontsinuse.com/use-images/29/29024/29024.jpeg?filename=7478641786_a843e0a825_k.jpg)
Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Steve and tagged with “rubens”. License: All Rights Reserved.
Three Short Novels (Poor Folk, The Double, The Eternal Husband) by [Fyodor] Dostoevsky, Bantam Books QC5728, 1970. Cover Artist: unknown
Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Steve and tagged with “rubens”. License: All Rights Reserved.
Judgment on Deltchev by Eric Ambler, Bantam Books F2781, 1964. Cover artist: Mitchell Hooks
2 Comments on ““Russian Rubens”, Bantam Books”
Bantam was not the only publisher to link Rubens to “Russianness”, see Pushkin by Ernest J. Simmons, Vintage Russian Library V-744, 1964 (Cover Artist: Robert Korn).
The version of Rubens that has been used for these covers appears to the one by Photo-Lettering. Unlike the metal original, its ‘M’ doesn’t have a diamond at the central vertex, and the ‘G’ has only a flared terminal in place of a bar — among other things. The same shapes are shown in the Solotype catalog.
Othello, a relative of Rubens, used for Russian music: