Henry James’ short gothic novel provides a nice example of book design in this 1949 edition.
Heritage Press; 1949; xiv, 145pp; 255x170x17mm; 0.56kg; bound in cloth; monochrome illustrations throughout.
First published in 1898, Henry James’ gothic horror novella The Turn of the Screw was issued in a limited edition by the Limited Editions Club in 1949. As was standard practice, this was followed by a Heritage Press edition that same year. It’s this this latter, non-limited edition that I’ll be looking at here.
The book is bound in brown cloth embellished on the cover with leaves of silver in a motif suggestive of the thread of a screw. It’s a minimalist but clever design. The bindings is sewn and has red and yellow head and tail bands. Ordinarily, it would have a plain slipcase, but this is missing in my copy.
Inside, we find an ivory coloured paper with a pleasing texture to it (the LEC version has rag paper). The typographical design is due to Saul and Lillian Marks of the Plantin Press. The relative brevity of the novella forces a large 16pt size for the type (which is set in Monotype Bembo). Rather than looking silly, this large text fills the page with good density despite its size. Chapters are headed with numbers inside of bespoke decorative frames, and each chapter begins with an elegant drop cap. Overall, I’d say the typographic design of the book is absolutely first-rate.
This Heritage edition was produced as a photographic reproduction of the LEC original in two colours: black and brown.
This volume is illustrated with pencil drawings by Mariette Lydis. This was the second set of illustrations produced by Lydis for The Turn of the Screw, the first having been made for a private press edition of the book. Of the twelve illustrations, all except the frontispiece are portraits of the novella’s characters. They are well-executed and rendered with a soft, ethereal quality that lends the images a certain too-good-to-be-true creepiness. The frontispiece is an earie old house at the end of an avenue of bare trees. It has a lot of atmosphere and leaves me wishing there were more environmental illustrations.
One note of caution: the illustrations each have a caption that draws from events in the text. But sometimes the illustration appears even in the chapter before the events it depicts. On at least one occasion, this spoils a major plot point in the story.
Regretfully, I must report not having enjoyed reading this particular novella very much. The plot is a good—though not exceptional—gothic horror piece that develops tension fairly well. But I found the characters to be a little lacking in depth or texture: we never learn much about them besides the things we see them do. More importantly, I found James’ writing style to be deeply frustrating. I’m a big fan of elegant, sometimes over-the-top Victorian prose, but I found the text of this book overly wordy, and laced with awkward parenthetical remarks and unusual word orders that constantly interrupted the flow and obfuscated the meaning. ■
Where to buy
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Relevant links
This book was also featured on The George Macy Imagery blog.
The Ubiquitous Book blog 