Everyman's Library volumes were issued with dust jackets, from the drab, purely functional early wrappers with their advertisements of other Everyman volumes and Dent series, to the ultimate incorporation of pictorial covers designed to help sell the book as well as protect it. In the images below, the style numbering follows Seymour's Guide 19-34. There are many variations within versions, all of which Seymour has painstakingly catalogued. As it would be impractical to attempt to show all of them, only major variations are illustrated, and then only with representative examples, taken from the collection of Jeffrey S. Anderson, unless otherwise noted.
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| Dent red, priced (1906-11) | Dent black, priced (1911-14) |
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| Dutton black, unpriced (1911-1915) | Dent black, unpriced (1915-27) |
Version 1 Dust Jackets (1906-27)
In the early days of Everyman's Library, the dust jackets were drab and unattractive, obviously intended only to protect the binding prior to sale, after which it was expected that the purchaser would discard it in order to display the ornate gilt spine. Dents used these jackets to advertise not only other Everyman volumes, but also other Dent series. All things considered, it is a wonder that any of these jackets have survived. They are scarce, but can still be found. They are usually associating with binding Style 1, but may occasionally be found wrapped around Style 2 bindings. The same jackets were used, with 'Leather' instead of 'Cloth' printed on the spine, for the Style 1 leatherette volumes (Seymour 20), but these are very rare.
All of the Version 1 jackets are characterized by the sundial device on the spine. This is such a finely cut device that seldom is it clearly printed on the paper, but at the top one can clearly distinguish the Agnus Dei image used by Dents in the Temple Shakespeare and Temple Bible series. This lamb symbol is part of the coat of arms of the Middle Temple, one of the four London Inns of Court. At the bottom is the epigram, "Shadows we are and like shadows depart", which appears on an actual sundial that dates from 1686, located on a wall in Pump Court in the Middle Temple region of the City of London.
The earliest jackets were printed in red, and the example at left is of the first jacket issued in 1906, with "The Aim and Scope of the Series" beneath the title. Beginning in 1911, black ink was used instead, which certainly increased legibility. Due to rising prices after the Great War, Dents left off printing the price on the jacket in 1915. From 1908-15, Dutton had separately printed jackets, identified by their name alone at the foot of the spine, and by the lack of the British currency markings. After 1915, when Dents also stopped printing the price, the separate Dutton jackets apparently stopped being printed (Seymour 25).
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| Source: Terry Seymour Hand & Quill Jacket (1926-27) |
Source: Charles Bowers Encyclopedia Jacket (1913-?) |
Other Early Jackets
The cream-colored "hand and quill" dust jacket is seldom seen and was apparently an experimental or transitional step towards the redesign of the Version 2 jacket (Seymour 24).
Seymour (Guide 7) had originally concluded that The Everyman's Encyclopedia was issued without dust jackets, based on never having seen one in his many years of collecting and the fact that many illustrations of sets were without them. But this example from the collection of Charles Bowers of Ontario, Canada, is proof enough to fill the rest of us collectors with abject envy.
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| Version 2 (1928-32) | Version 3 (1933-34) |
Versions 2 and 3 Dust Jackets (1928-1934)
The Version 2 jacket was introduced when the binding style changed (Style 2) in 1928. A new lighthouse logo designed by Reginald Knowles appears on the spine, and the names of both Dent and Dutton are printed at the foot. The jackets appear in different colors, but these are oddly not matched to library section. Instead, the section is indicated on the cover by a specific icon, also designed by Knowles. To see the complete set of these images, see Knowles Jacket Devices.
The Version 3 jacket is very similar to the preceding, but the scrollwork on the spine and cover has changed, and the lighthouse was removed from the spine. For a complete discussion of these two jacket styles, see Seymour 25-7. One will also occasionally come across either one of these jackets on a binding Style 3 volume.
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| Source: John B. Krygier Dent |
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| Later Leather Dust Jackets (1920-29) |
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| Source: Terry Seymour Leather Slipcover (1929-40) |
Later Leather Dust Jacket (1920-29)
The leatherette bound volumes were originally wrapped in Version 1 dust jackets (Seymour 20). With the switch to the sturdier new leatherette binding in 1920-21, this plain gray jacket came into use, with the Celtic knotwork spine emblem on the spine matching the one on the new binding (Seymour 31).
In 1929 the grey jackets were replaced with a cellophane wrapper in a flimsy cardboard slipcase, a style used until the leather bindings were discontinued around 1940.
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| Knot design jacket, small number on spine (1935-38) |
Knot design jacket, large number on spine (1938-52) |
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| "EL" shell design jacket (1945-52) | Pictorial jacket (1941-42) |
Version 4 Dust Jacket (1935-1952)
The Version 4 jacket was introduced when the binding style changed (Style 3) in 1935. The covers were designed by Eric Ravilious. An abstract knot design appears on the cover and on the spine in the first two variants, but they differ in the size of the number on the spine. Beginning around 1945, the "EL in a shell" design began to appear concurrently with the knot design. The pictorial cover first appeared in No. 967 (as shown), and Seymour has other examples in his collection, all in the range of Nos. 967-971, after which they were no longer produced, probably due to wartime economy measures. The Version 4 colors varied but again there seems to be no clear assignment of colors to sections, although all the jackets I have seen for the Fiction section are red, and for the Poetry & Drama section are green.
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| Children's Dust Jackets |
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| Source: Terry Seymour Five Weeks in a Balloon; Around the World in 80 Days (No. 779) with wraparound advertisement (1956) |
Children's Dust Jackets (1949-1960)
In the early 1950s, Dents began to produce pictorial covers for children's titles, with the same basic format as the Version 4 jackets. They issued 24 volumes in the Young People section with these jackets until 1960 or so, after most of these titles had been transitioned out of the Everyman's Library and into the Children's Illustrated Classics series. Even though this extended into the large format binding period, the pictorial jackets continued to be produced until the warehouse inventories of the Style 3 bindings were exhausted.
Dents occasionally produced wraparound advertisements promoting BBC radio broadcasts, television programs, and movies in hopes of increasing book sales by the association (Seymour 33-4). At left is an example of one promoting Michael Todd's film Around the World in 80 Days (1956), starring David Niven and with a supporting cast that included practically every major movie star of the day, such as Sir John Gielgud, Charles Boyer, Marlene Dietrich, and Frank Sinatra.
Although Seymour writes, "We can probably assume, however, that no production of Spinoza's Ethics was ever mounted" (33), surely some lucky collector will one day turn up a movie tie-in wraparound for Dennis's Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria.
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| Early version (1953-57) | Special design in 1956 for the 1000th volume |
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| Pictorial jacket (1957-60) | Another variation |
Version 5 Dust Jackets (1953 through mid-1960s)
The transition to the larger crown octavo binding in 1953 obviously necessitated a complete redesign of the dust jackets as well. A script "EL" adorns the spine, and the simple cover has "Everyman's Library" surrounded by scrollwork. Initially only two colors were used: red wrapper and binding for the lower price, and blue wrapper and binding for the higher price. In 1956, the jacket for Aristotle's Metaphysics had a special pictorial color to celebrate the publication of the 1000th volume.
By the end of 1956, Dents saw the need for four pricing levels, color-coded from low to high as red, blue, green, and yellow. In 1957, illustrations begin to appear on the front cover, though not all jackets had them. In 1962, they introduced a fifth lilac-colored wrapper to signify the highest price, with the fourth color being either yellow or brown, and in 1965, a sixth white-colored wrapper was introduced for the highest price. In addition to the color, the inside front flap contained a legend of corresponding price category symbols.
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| Pictorial jackets (1960-70) |
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Version 6 Dust Jackets (1960-70)
Circa 1960, when Dents began commissioning illustrative artwork for the jackets, the jacket format was also changed to a more modern looking design. The title box was removed, and instead of the script "EL" on the spine, a white-on-black anchor and dolphin colophon was used at the foot. The colors and price category symbols continued as before. Some of these jackets continued to be used on the post-1970 Style 5 bindings (plain endpapers), but by that time the price categories no longer applied, and though the front flap price symbol legend was present, it was crossed out.
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| 1971-77 | 1978 |
Version 7 Dust Jackets (1970-78)
About the same time as the introduction of binding Style 5, with its plain endpapers and cheaper construction, the jacket was also redesigned. A smaller anchor and dolphin device was employed, with varying positions of the serial number and the "Everyman's Library" line. By 1978, Dents dispensed with cover artwork altogether.
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Plain cream jacket |
Source: Terry Seymour Clipper ship jacket |
| American Edition (1927-28) |
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| New American Edition (1950-55) Henry James volume (1953). | |
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| Dutton "Modern Dress" Jackets (1931-32) |
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American Edition Dust Jackets
In 1927-28, Dutton released six titles numbered 800A-800F only in the United States in a very different binding and different jackets. One style was the rather soiled cream-color jacket depicted at left, and the other with a sailing ship on the cover.
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The New American Edition comprised 32 titles published by Dutton from 1950 to 1955. Only the Henry James volume (No. 649A) had a dust jacket. The others came in a cellophane wrapper bordered in narrow red tape. The five volume Van Wyck Brooks series Makers and Finders (Nos. 641A, 642A, 645A, 648A, and 650A) was offered as a boxed set.
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Another Dutton experiment was the Everyman's Library in Modern Dress jackets used in the early '30s for a subset of popular titles. Seymour reports eight different designs, in various colors and not matched to sections (Guide 31-2). Since the Guide was published, however, he has discovered a ninth one with an Antelope design, and there may be others. For more examples, see Dutton Modern Dress Jackets.
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| Source: Terry Seymour Outer jacket. |
Source: Terry Seymour Standard inner jacket. |
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| Everyman Anthology, Diamond Jubilee (1966). |
Humorous Verse (1959) standard inner jacket. |
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| Humorous Verse special outer jacket. |
Special Dust Jackets
Everyman's Encyclopedia of Gardening (No. 555) is an early example of Dent's wrapping a volume in two dust jackets, an outer decorative one, and a standard cover on the inside. This volume has a rather involved publishing history at Dent (see Seymour 285).
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The Everyman Anthology (No. 663) jacket was specially designed for the Diamond Jubilee of the Everyman's Library in 1966. The cover is a detail from a still-life by Dutch painter Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750).
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A Century of Humorous Verse (No. 813) is unusual in that it was issued in two dust jackets. The inner one is a standard Version 5 jacket, while the outer wrapper is specially designed and bears the whimsical artwork of Alexander H. Williamson. Seymour suggests this is a "publisher's jest" (Guide 108).
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