Two Years in the French West Indies
Designer Alice Cordelia Morse American
Author Lafcadio Hearn Irish
Publisher Harper & Brothers American
Not on view
A leading New York late nineteenth century book-cover designer, Morse studied at the Woman’s Art School of the Cooper Union, then under John La Farge before working for Louis C. Tiffany as a painter and designer of stained glass. In 1887 she began to concentrate on book-covers, fufilling eighty-three commissions for New York commercial publishers by 1905. Complementing the text, she chose imagery ranging from classical, to Renaissance, Celtic, Arabic, Gothic, Rococo, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. This commercial book-cover design, inspired by a French strapwork binding of the sixteenth century, is covered in olive green diagonal-rib cloth, stamped in orange, gold, and three tones of green.
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