THE ART OF THE DUST JACKET

WHEN I visited the John Steinbeck Center in Salinas in January 2024, it was the 75th year since the publication of Grapes of Wrath, the definitive novel on the Great Depression.

- VR FEROSE

WHEN I visited the John Steinbeck Center in Salinas in January 2024, it was the 75th year since the publication of Grapes of Wrath, the definitive novel on the Great Depression.

I was excited to buy the anniversary edition of the book, with the iconic dust jacket, for $30. The original 1939 first edition with a dust jacket in fine condition would have cost $13,500.

One of the most expensive books sold in 2023 was a copy of the classic, The Great Gatsby with a dust jacket for a record $180,000.

So, what makes the dust jacket so special and why do books even have one?

Dust jackets first came into use in the 1800s. They were simple, unadorned paper wrappers, and their original intent was to protect books bound in leather or silk on their way from the printing house to the bookseller or library.

Once the book reached its destination, the jacket was taken off and thrown away.

By the turn of the century, publishers were realizing that these relatively plain wrappers offered plenty of space for advertising.

Blurbs featuring synopses of the book and biographies of the author started to show up around 1910.