Festive Faber
22 December 2022
A different kind of winter jacket.
Colin Gleadell
Colin Gleadell writes on the art market for The Daily Telegraph, Artnet and Art Monthly.
Heaney, Seamus Death of a Naturalist
Faber & Faber, 1966 available at £10,660
This autumn saw the centenary of the publication of The Waste Land, the hugely influential long poem by T.S Eliot by The Criterion Magazine, the literary journal of which he was editor. It was then published in book form in America by Boni and Liveright, and in England by Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press in 1923, followed in 1925 by Faber & Gwyer (later Faber & Faber), the publishers with whom the poet’s name became indelibly associated after he joined forces with them that year as poetry editor. Marking the occasion of the original publication, Toby Faber, grandson of the founder, gave an illustrated talk about the illustrious publishers at the Clapham Picture House organised by Art Society Clapham Common.
The particular appeal to an art lover was the way the talk was illustrated by images, not only of Faber authors, Eliot, Ted Hughes et al., but of the book jackets dating back to the late 1920s starting with cubistic and art deco inspired artwork by Edward McKnight Kauffer. It was McKnight Kauffer’s cover designs for such titles as Journey of the Magi by T.S Eliot (1927) and The Modern Movement in Art by R.H Wilenski (1927) that set the tone for Faber’s public image as the modernist publishers par excellence.
As the company founder, Geoffrey Faber, wrote to the sculptor, Jacob Epstein in 1929: ‘It has been the policy of the firm which bears my name to play a part in the re-formulation of values which is going on at the present day.’ And he goes on to cite Wilenski’s book and the critical writings of Herbert Read (later the author of the ground-breaking Art Now, 1933, whose jacket was also designed by McKnight Kauffer).
T.S Eliot The Waste Land. 1922
Sold at Peter Harrington Rare Books £125,000
In the 1930s, illustrations by Ezra Pound and Gaudier Brzeska popped up on the screen reminding us that the whole angular, energetic aesthetic was not far removed from Pound and Wyndham Lewis’s revolutionary BLAST magazine of 1914. But, as one of the features of modernism is its ability to shift with the times, so we can see Faber book jackets in the thirties, exploring more popular figuration by the likes of Rex Whistler (from 1930), Barnett Freedman (from 1931) and even Eliot himself (the poet/painter) with the cover for Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats in 1939.
Typographical design of course played a huge role, most effectively from the 1940s under the direction of Berthold Wolpe, the originator of the Albertus typeface, who enabled his wife, a student under both Graham Sutherland and Henry Moore, to illustrate a cover for Phillip Larkin poems and others.
During World War II most professional artists got caught up as war artists, and some made associations that were to continue post-war at Faber & Faber. Anthony Gross for instance, fought in the desert alongside Edward Ardizzone and Edward Bawden. All three subsequently became household names designing jacket covers for Faber. Lesser-known artists included Phyllis Bray, part of the now increasingly collectable East London Group.
Durrell, Lawrence The Alexandria Quartet
Faber & Faber 1957-1960 available at £2,345
“There were so many well-known artists who did very good work for F&F”, says Rupert Powell, book specialist for Forum Auctions. “Edward Ardizzone and William Nicholson spring to mind as well as Barnett Freedman.” William Nicholson’s paintings have recently taken off into the £1/2 million range. A scuffed and faded copy of his first illustrated Faber book, Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘Memoirs of a Fox Hunting Man’, 1929, from the author’s family, sold at Woolley & Wallis in May for a triple estimate £600.
Freedman recently had a solo retrospective at Pallant House in Chichester; and a slightly faded example of the Freedman illustrated edition of Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘Memoirs of an Infantry Officer’ (1931) doubled estimates at Forum this month to sell for £1,500. A signed and boxed first edition of the same book also illustrated by Freedman that is in better condition is with Harrington Books for £2,750
Sensing my inclination to judge a book’s value by the jacket’s design, though, Powell corrected me. “I would say value is less to do with the artist of the dust-jacket and more to do with the title/popularity of the book and the presence of the dust-jacket and, above all, its condition,” he said, and listed Faber & Faber’s most sought-after publications (below) with top prices from Forum sales (and elsewhere in brackets):
T.S. Eliot – Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, 1939, jacket illustrated by Eliot. Worn first edition (Abe Books, £1,250)
- The Waste Land. First US edition, Boni and Liveright, plain cover, 1922, (Peter Harrington £125,000.)
- The Waste Land. First English edition, Hogarth Press 1923. Copy dedicated by the author to Geoffrey Faber, soon to be his publisher. (Bonhams 20/9/05 - £32,400)
- The Waste Land. First Faber and Faber 1940 edition., No dust jacket £2,000
William Golding – Lord of the Flies, 1954, illustrated by Anthony Gross. First edition presentation copy sold in 2021, £15,000
Lawrence Durrell – The Alexandria Quartet 1957-60, cover designs by Bernard Wolpe £4,375
William Golding – Lord of the Flies, 1954, illustrated by Anthony Gross
Samuel Beckett – Waiting for Godot, 1956, (signed and inscribed first British edition, AbeBooks, stage set photograph jacket. £10,500 )
Seamus Heaney – Death of a Naturalist, 1966, plain typography jacket. First edition signed - £3,500; (currently advertised on AbeBooks – inscribed and dedicated to his aunt - at £10,660)
P.D. James – Cover her Face. 1962. Jacket designed by Charles Mozley. (Last year Sotheby’s sold a slightly faded and creased first edition of the author’s first book for a mid-estimate £1,386 but a signed example in superior condition in a clamshell box is $15,000 through Raptis Rare Books in Florida)
“All,” says Powell, “are HIGHLY sought-after and extremely expensive if in fine condition. If I had to pick a favourite it would be Lord of the Flies – classic work, great dust-jacket design, hard to find in really nice condition – a real collector’s piece and a must-have for any serious collector of English Literature, esp. 20th century.”
First edition copies of Lord of the Flies have reportedly increased in price by 66% in the last five years.
Sadly, neither Wilenski’s ‘The Modern Movement in Art’ nor Eliot’s Journey of the Maji, both illustrated for Faber by McKnight Kauffer in 1927, appear to have any resale value worth noting.
Conclusion: the design of early Faber book covers were probably of much greater value to the publishers in establishing a brand than they are to book sellers now, whose priorities are the rarity and condition of the original.
