Joyce Donahue
2026-04-04T18:50:50Z
books

History of dust jackets on books

#books

Some of the earliest book jackets wrapped around the entire book and were sealed with wax. Thus they were more like wrapping paper than a modern, loose wrap-around dust jacket. They were typically plain and typographic, and their main purpose was to protect the book during transit. They were also ideal to protect silk cloth bindings and, gold embossed details and type when mechanized cloth binding took off. But the book jacket’s function quickly evolved from protection to publicity as publishers began to see the dust jacket’s potential for marketing. Examples of illustrated or pictorial book jackets appeared early on but really took off in the 1920s, boosted by recent advances in color printing that drove down the costs of printing in color.

ilovetypography.com/2026/04/03…