Sarah Wyman Whitman
Sarah Wyman Whitman (1842-1904)
was one of the earliest and best artist-designers working in
book covers. During the last decades of the nineteenth century,
her home in Boston's Beacon Hill was a salon for writers and
artists, many of whom were her good friends. In addition to
her career as book designer, Whitman was a successful painter
and stained glass artist. Her paintings can be found in Boston's
Museum of Fine Arts and her stained glass windows in Boston's
Trinity Church, New York's Grace Church, and Harvard's Memorial
Hall, among other sites. She was a founder of the Boston Society
of Arts and Crafts, a benefactor of Radcliffe College, Howard
University, and Tuskegee Institute, and a generous patron of
the arts.
Beginning in the 1880s, Sarah Wyman
Whitman forged a new approach to book cover design using simple
yet elegant forms, carefully chosen cloths and a distinctive
lettering style. She was responsible for a significant number
of Houghton and Mifflin covers throughout the 1880s-90s.
Possibly in reaction to the rather
overwrought covers that were the norm in the 1870s and 1880s,
Whitman reduced book decoration to the essential. Although she
designed "special" editions in vellum with gold stamping,
the majority of her work for the mass market employed two colors
of cloth and a single color of ink for stamping. The production
costs for Whitman's book covers were probably quite low when
weighed against their effectiveness as advertising tools.
In her Notes of an Informal
Talk on Book Illustration…Given before the Boston
Art Students Association, Feb. 14, 1895, Whitman wrote:
"…You have got to think how to apply elements of design
to these cheaply sold books; to put the touch of art on this
thing that is going to be produced at a level price, which allows
for no handwork, the decoration to be cut with a die, the books
to out by the thousand and to be sold at a low price…"
Quite a few of the books Whitman
designed were written by close personal friends, among them
Sarah Orne Jewett and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Correspondence
between Whitman and publishers testifies to her involvement
in the entire process of bringing a design to the public, as
well as to her desire to faithfully represent the author's vision.Through
her artistry and success, Sarah Wyman Whitman inspired many
young women to enter the field of book design. One hundred years
later, her work continues to stand apart from the field.
Sarah Orne Jewett. A Marsh Island. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1885.
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John
Esten Cooke. My Lady Pokahontas. Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., 1885.
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| Louise
Chandler Moulton. In the Garden of Dreams. Boston:
Roberts Brothers, 1890. |
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| Thomas
Bailey Aldrich. The Sisters' Tragedy. Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin &
Co., 1891. |
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| Henry
David Thoreau. Cape Cod, vol. I. Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., 1896. |
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Henry
David Thoreau. Walden, vol. I. Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., 1897.
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| John
Burroughs. Indoor Studies. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin
& Co., 1898. |
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Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Marble Faun, vol. I. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin
& Co., 1899. |
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Bret Harte. Trent's
Trust. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1903. |
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| Sarah
Orne Jewett. A Native of Winby. Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., 1893. |
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| Oliver
Wendell Holmes. Dorothy Q. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin
& Co., 1893. |
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| Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow. The Hanging of the Crane. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894. |
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| Lafcadio
Hearn. Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan, vol. II. Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894. |
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| James
Russell Lowell. Last Poems. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin
& Co., 1895. |
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1890-1910 /
Margaret Armstrong |
