Page "Dust jacket" Paragraph 10

Throughout the nineteenth century, nearly all dust jackets were discarded at or soon after purchase.

Many were probably discarded in bookstores as the books were put out for display, or when they were sold ; there is evidence that this was common practice in England until World War I.

The period from the 1820s to 1900 was a golden age for publishers ' decorative bookbinding, and most dust jackets were much plainer than the books they covered, often simply repeating the main elements of the binding decoration in black on cream or brown paper.

For this reason, most people preferred to display their books in their bindings, much as earlier generations had displayed their library books in their gold-tooled individual bindings, usually in leather or vellum.

Even late in the nineteenth century there were still some publishers who were not using dust jackets at all ( the English publisher Methuen is one example ).

Some firms, such as subscription houses which sold millions of cheap books door-to-door, probably never used them.