Utopia
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Utopia, first published by Thomas More in 1516 has had four covers in five-hundred years consisting of a rendition of the original woodcut map/leather bound/Utopian alphabet,etc, buildings that look somewhat like a fusion between Etruscan and Greco-Roman ruins, early modern geometric patterns, or Sir Thomas More himself (close-up of stubble or full-length Holbein portrait).
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¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 It would seem that for the first four-hundred years of the publication history- it has consistently been in publication since the first edition was made available- was of leather-bound volumes with either gold letters or both fancy letters and early-modern geometrical patterns. Obviously mass-market versions that feature More’s face, a color rendering of the map, or architectural ruins, wouldn’t have existed prior to the first paperbacks rolling off the presses in 1936. After this date, the book covers were not bound by societal trends as there is an extensive variation in covers published in the same decade. The mass-market paperback consists of variations on the aforementioned images plus either arial or a cursive font depending on whether the image is map,person, cityscape, or pattern.
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¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 1 This is surprising to me since so many academics have written about Utopia and speculated on More’s motivations for writing it, etc. Much like all of the other books listed in this blog, it is quite surprising that the covers –mass market though they may be- have not been updated to reflect what scholars have argued over the years. Although I cannot make this book cover with anything that is copyrighted, etc, I want to change that. Since I’m arguing in my thesis –a chapter of it anyway- that More got his inspiration for the text from the three years he spent in the Carthusian’s London Charterhouse (think monastery and multiply the solitude and self-deprivation/ascetic practices by 1000), I would like to try my best get something that resembles a visual and visceral representation of my thesis statement. Perhaps a Charterhouse and Dom (name for a Carthusian who has successfully completed the five year novitiate) being morphed into Raphael and a layout of Utopia with More’s face as the primary semi-transparent background if such a thing is possible.
Re: paperbacks
Yes, paperback books were not widely available until the 1930s, but paperbacks themselves did not, at that time, constitute a wholesale innovation in publishing techniques. Paperbacks are essentially “unbound” books; prior to the early 20th c., the vast majority of books were sold in the “unbound” text block format, and then the buyer would purchase or commission the binding to be made separately. And, beginning in the late 19th c. (1870s or so), those unbound text blocks would, often, feature some sort of paper cover or wrapper that included cover art.
What all this means, essentially, is that the paperback designs that you are reviewing might, in fact, have had some earlier antecedents, contrary to your point that “Obviously, mass-market versions that feature More’s face … wouldn’t have existed prior to the first paperbacks.”