Case 6 - Illustration
Illustration accompanying text has long been a staple of literature, even pre-dating the printing press. As reading for pleasure increased in popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, illustrated editions of novels became more commonplace and more desirable to the public. Frontispiece illustrations, for example, accompanied many works during this period. Moreover, as the publishing industry evolved and grew, and edition bindings began to replace fine bindings commissioned by book buyers, cover art and dust jacket design became an increasingly important means to attract the reading public. This case explores how illustration has enhanced the work of some of this country’s finest writers, both within texts and on the covers of published books.
Charles Pachter and The Journals of Susanna Moodie.
Designing Robertson Davies' Tempest-Tost. Robertson Davies’s first novel Tempest-Tost (1951) is also the first novel in the Salterton Trilogy, which also includes Leaven of Malice (1954) and A Mixture of Frailties (1958). The novels revolve around residents in an imaginary Ontario university town called Salterton. He would return to the three-book formula twice more in both the Deptford trilogy (in the 1970s) and the Cornish trilogy (1980s). To better emphasize and enhance the connections among the books that comprise these trilogies, Penguin commissioned dust jacket designs and woodcut illustrations by American artist, Bascove. Seen here are some of the iconic Bascove cover designs, along with a book binding of the same Davies' title by Canadian book artist Robert Wu. Wu has donated the archival material associated with many of his commissioned book covers, including Tempest-Tost, allowing us to see his process when creating a custom binding.
Alan Stein and P.K. Page. Poetry has been long served as inspirational fodder for illustrators. Alan Stein, a painter and printmaker who has his own letterpress imprint Church Street Press, is one artist who has looked toward poets, particularly Canadian writers, for inspiration and publication. For this collaboration, The Golden Lilies: Eight New Glosas (2009) with the celebrated poet P.K. Page, he approached the poet with the idea of illustrating some of her previously published poetry. Instead, she suggested some new work: a series of glosas, a form of poetry for which she was already well known. Page supplied the completed poems to Stein, after which he sketched out illustrations, typically charcoal on paper, followed by larger sketches, and then eventually wood engravings. He did not show any of the sketches to or share his ideas with Page, but instead would work entirely according to his own vision and interpretation. Seen here are a proof sheet and the wood block that accompanied Page’s "How to Write a Poem."
Raymond Souster/John Holmes Book Cover Art Work. It is not only the large publishing firms that put considerable effort into dust jacket design. Small publishers know the impact a well-designed cover can have on sales, especially when the writer is not particularly well known or publishes under a pseudonym. John Holmes was a pseudonym of Raymond Souster, and his book On Target was published with the Village Book Store Press, an offshoot of the Toronto bookshop owned by Martin Ahvenus. The Souster Papers at Fisher consist of the original art work and book jacket design for On Target – essentially the “nuts and bolts” of how a cover was designed and laid out for eventual printing prior to computer graphic design. Sadly, there is no indication as to the creator of the art work.