This book is interesting for me because its cover is both pretty and apposite—and very few of the covers in this exhibition have those qualities!

The architect who erects a public institution tries to suggest, by the decoration and construction of the outside of the building, what kind of institution it is. We can tell, by looking at a palace of amusement, whether the amusement inside consists of movies or the drama. Why then, when a designer produces a book, does he not tell us on the cover what kind of book the publisher is inviting us to read? It is a rhetorical question; I don’t know the answer. If you look through the books in this collection, you will find that all too seldom does the cover give you an idea of the contents.

The cover of this book does. The soft red and the soft blue inks, printed on a tan linen, immediately give you the impression that there is something Indian about this book; and that impression is intensified by the stylized drawing of an Indian warrior on his horse. The decorative use of bows-and-arrows, and of rifles, tells you that there is warfare in the book.

When a cover can be made so pretty and so apposite, I think we must all wonder that most covers of books are barren of suggestive ideas.

George Macy