The Book Blinders

<p class=ql-align-justify>The first known dust-jacket to appear on a book in the UK dates from 1819.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong> </strong></p><p>Sadly almost none of these jackets have survived. The one institution primarily responsible for this vandalism is the British Library which removed dust-jackets from every book it accessioned and destroyed almost all of them. As a result almost no hardbound book accessioned by the Library after the middle of the nineteenth century was in fact presentable in a visual context: no dust-jacket artwork survived to brighten the theatre of the book; no flap copy to articulate the rituals of expectation and entry that coded successive unveilings of this transgressive literature.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong> </strong></p><p class=ql-align-justify>In <em>The Book Blinders</em> distinguished critic editor and novelist John Clute looks at 115 books whose jackets have survived out here in the real world. They escaped the burning. Each has a story to tell.</p><p><br></p>