Carousel to Calligraphy

CAROUSEL TO CALLIGRAPHY a cover story a. g. salazar

CAROUSEL TO CALLIGRAPHY a cover story

CAROUSEL TO CALLIGRAPHY a cover story

a. g. salazar

Just Another Phony Cover

By the time I was assigned The Catcher in the Rye

as summer reading in 2001, that watershed work of American literature had already enjoyed 50 years of both success and censure. I inherited my copy of Catcher from my brother Aaron, I’ll always think of it as a cherished companion during an otherwise uneventful trip to Alaska. In high school I never really paid attention to book covers, but I do remember how much Catcher seemed to stand out from the other books on my shelves.

What was remarkable about this cover was that it wasn’t remarkable at all: a small paperback with simple black lettering to denote title and author, with only 7 bars of color adorning its cover in the top-left corner. It struck me that something of such great cultural significance could have a cover that did little (in my sixteen-year-old mind) to echo its content or attempt to distinguish itself among other works of important literature. But of course I see now that this minimal cover does much to complement the novel’s content, but that is a subject to be covered later in this paper. .

Though I came across this book half a century after it was published, it’s intriguing to know that my copy of this work and its design is one of numerous [5]

iterations over the decades, and were, as I recently discovered, a source of great contention for the author and publishers involved.

J.D. Salinger obviously never heard the phrase “never judge a book by its cover.�

{Fig 1. Little, Brown hardcover edition 1951 with E. Michael Mitchell illustration}

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An Illustrated Beginning

Little, Brown, & Co. first published The Catcher

in the Rye by J.D. Salinger in the United States in 1951. This original hardcover edition was an immediate success upon publication, and went into numerous printings in the initial months after publication. This version included a photograph of Salinger by photographer Lotte Jacobi on the back cover. This image took up the entire back cover, and Salinger apparently was so displeased with it that he demanded that it be removed immediately. It was removed by the third printing of the hardcover edition and has never appeared on a subsequent edition of the work (Ferry).

The illustration that graced the first cover of Catcher in 1951 (Fig. 1) was by artist and friend of Salinger E. Michael Mitchell. Mitchell’s illustration on the cover depicts a pen-drawn carousel horse colored in red below the yellow title text. Below the horse is a small sketch of the New York skyline in the lower-left corner. As a graphic representation of the book’s contents, this cover does a pretty straightforward job. The carousel horse is seen in one of the more striking scenes in the book, where Holden watches his younger sister Phoebe ride it around and around. With Caulfield’s overall dissatisfaction with [7]

{Fig 2. UK Havish Hamilton edition with Fritz Wegner illustration}

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the world a prevalent theme throughout the work, this scene where he finds happiness simply watching his sister enjoy this simple activity is a precious one.

The horse’s coloring can also be viewed as an attempt to illustrate the book’s tone and content. The red that fills the interior of the black outline of the horse is only partially contained. It bleeds off of the horse’s extremities to make a very raw look. This jagged appearance connects with Holden’s passion at this moment in the novel, as well as his unbalanced and fierce emotional state that he expresses throughout the novel. The small illustration of the Manhattan skyline in the bottom left corner does an adequate job to ground the cover in the setting of the book. Typography of the title should also be noting for deliberately calling a viewers attention to the two capitalized words “CATCHER” and “RYE.” Both words are set in capital letters while the “the,” “in,” and “the” are set in lower case letters. The fat serif font chosen for the title immediately draws the eyes to the words, but keeps them simple enough as to not distract from the illustration.

At the same time as the publication of the American edition, the European rights for Catcher were sold to British publisher Hamish Hamilton (later to be purchased by Penguin) and publication of a UK edition occurred also in 1951 (Ferry). This hardcover edition featured a drawing by artist Fritz Wegner (Fig. 2) and was more illustrative and less abstract than Mitchell’s cover. The drawing refers to the same scene depicted in the Mitchell cover, but does a more thorough job of illustrating it. The image depicts a fairly straightforward scene of Holden watching as [9]

{Fig 3. Signet paperback edition 1953 cover. Art by James Avati}

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his sister runs gaily to the carousel. The cityscape in the background and carousel environs are light and placid, and Phoebe is highlighted in the middle ground of the image by her deep blue dress. She looks back at Holden, who wears a cast down expression of introspection. He is colored much more dark than the other components of the image, his red hat covering a darkly shaded face. The contrast of Holden’s darkness and Phoebe and the surrounding’s lightness is a simple and effective illustration of the plot and themes.

Holden’s anger and sullenness throughout is only lifted when he thinks of his sister and fantasy role of protecting children from losing their innocence in the analogy of the rye field. The drawing makes Holden look completely out of place, as if a dark cloud is perpetually hanging over his head.

In 1953 the paperback rights for Catcher were sold to New American Library (Hayden). Under their Signet imprint, New American Library held the American paperback rights for the work from 1953 until 1963. The cover of this edition was illustrated by popular book cover designer James Avati (Fig 3).

This would be the final illustration to grace the cover of The Catcher in the Rye (Schwendener). Avati’s illustration is drawn in a style reminiscent of the pulp covers of previous decades. The scene rather blandly includes a rather unremarkable Holden Caulfield carrying a suitcase walking down a nondescript urban street. Two other bland figures occupy the background. Salinger was so displeased with this cover that he worked into his contract to never again permit illustrations or pull quotes to appear of future editions. [ 11 ]

{Fig 4. Bantam paperback edition, 1964. Designer unknown, possibly J.D. Salinger}

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Type A

After New American Library’s paperback rights

lapsed in 1963, Salinger then turned to Modern Library and its Bantam imprint to handle future paperbacks. Intensely dissatisfied with the previous illustrated cover of Catcher, Salinger designed this cover itself. First issued in April 1964 the maroon background and yellow lettering would be the dominant edition in the United States for nearly thirty years (Ferry).

The cover’s simplicity shows how stable sales of this book must have been (Fig 4). Just the title and author name, both set in the utilitarian Times New Roman, appear in a very bland yellow color. With over ten years of financial success, Catcher was in no danger of losing sales due to an unremarkable cover. The typeonly cover does reflect the book’s status as a watershed work of literature. It relies on nothing but its name and the content already injected into popular consciousness to ensure its success. One could also argue that the simplicity of this cover does much to connect with the content. The chronicle of Holden’s day is one of everyday teenage angst and adolescent existential crises. His quiet and dissatisfied personality hides a fiercely passionate soul, as the cover’s placidity hides the novel’s universally appealing and powerful story. [ 13 ]

{Fig 5. Little, Brown paperback edition, 1991. Designer unknown}

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The 1991 mass-market paperback edition of The Catcher in the Rye (Fig 5) published by Little, Brown, & Co. took Salinger’s typography-only covers to another level. The white cover adorned with 7 lines of color has the author name and title set in the typeface Baskerville (Archive). When this cover was released in 1991, the publisher simultaneously released the three other books by J.D. Salinger with the exact same cover and interior design. Nine Stories, Franny & Zooey, and Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction all had designs that mimicked Catcher in every way. This design aesthetic was an attempt to apply a look to the Salinger brand. Having an identical look to all the published works by a single author is indeed useful. Now, instead of thinking of an individual book when someone mentions “plain white cover with rainbow stripes in the corner” we now instantly associate it with J.D. Salinger.

This design is a very striking example of how simplicity and minimal design can make a cover extremely powerful. The easily read Baskerville typeface paired with a solid color (or lack of color in this case) echoes the previous paperback version with the attention being called to the title only. The 7 bands of color in the upper-left corner are a sweet affect for the design.

They serve to wrap the package of Salinger’s work with a slight “bow” of color, the rainbow suggesting harmony and a pleasance found within. I find this cover to be the most respectful of all the versions in print.

The latest design for The Catcher in the Rye has been seen in the past two years from Penguin UK, which handles European sales of Salinger’s work. Type designer Seb Lester was commissioned by Hamish [ 15 ]

{Fig 6. Penguin paperback edition, 2010. Designed by Seb Lester}

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Hamilton (acquired by Penguin in the 1980s) to design a typographic style to be used on the covers of all four of Salinger’s books to be published in Europe (Lucas). The style Lester ultimately chose (referred to internally at Hamish Hamilton as ‘the Salinger’) is fairly conservative and contained, with the exception of flourishes encasing the type ( Fig 6). Of the design, Lester says “The direction chosen, which I prefer for both aesthetic and functional reasons, has a timeless and classical beauty about it – I hope” (Lucas). All of the covers completed by Lester for Penguin were approved by J.D. Salinger before his death in January 2010 and were published in March of that same year.

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Works Cited Heller, Steven. “The Catcher: The Cover.” Print Magazine. February 1, 2010. Accessed 3/10/2013. http:// www.printmag.com/Article/catcher-the-cover Staples, Beth. “Cover Lover – The Catcher in the Rye.” Hayden’s Ferry Review. July 2008. Accessed 3/10/2013 http://haydensferryreview.blogspot.com/2008/07/cover-lover-j-d-salinger.html Schwendener, Matha. “Judging a Paperback’s Cover by Its Painter.” New York Times, August 19, 2011. Accessed 3/10/2013.http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/nyregion/the-painting-world-of-james-avati-at-the-monmouth-museum-review.html?_r=0 Lucas, Gavin. “Seb Lester’s new JD Salinger book jacket designs.” Creative Review. February 11, 2010.

Accessed 3/10/2013.http://www.creativereview.co.uk/ cr-blog/2010/february/seb-lesters-new-jd-salingerbook-jacket-designs Book Cover Archive. Catcher in the Rye. Accessed 3/10/2013.http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/the_ catcher_in_the_rye

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Figure Credits Figure 1 Mitchell, E. Michael. 1951. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little, Brown & Co. Figure 2 Wegner, Fritz. 1951. The Catcher in the Rye. London: Havish Hamilton.

Figure 3 Avati, James. 1953. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: New American Library.

Figure 4 Designer unknown, possibly J.D. Salinger.

1964. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Modern Library.

Figure 5 Designer unknown. 1991. The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little, Brown & Co. Figure 6 Designed by Seb Lester. 2010. The Catcher in the Rye. London: Penguin UK.

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“Give me two hours in the dentist chair before I’ll spend another minute in a publisher’s office.”

—J.D. Salinger

Adam Salazar Book Design & Production Winter 2013