“Could you make it rather more of a He and She picture”: Queer Texts and Dust Jackets in Mid-Twentieth Century British Fiction

Abstract

S G. Thomas Tanselle published his 1971 essay “Book-Jackets, Blurbs, and Bibliographers,” dust jackets have gained increasing scholarly attention as the “rawmaterial of publishing history.” Tracing early examples from the 1830s through the (then) present day, Tanselle concludes that dust jackets are an “important class of primary material” and provide publishing historians with information ranging from price and impression figures to biographical information about authors. In his follow-up article, “Dust-Jackets, Dealers, and Documentation,” Tanselle develops his understanding of dust jackets, arguing that not only do they “display the work of interesting or significant designers and illustrators” but that, for publishing historians, they show “something of the publisher’s taste