[ModLib] question about Out of Africa Dust Jacket

[Gordon Neavill]

The ML jacket is different from that of the 1938 Random House edition. I'm sure it was commissioned specifically for the ML edition, but I've never seen anything in the Random House archives or elsewhere that identifies the designer. The jacket is signed "K" in the lower right hand corner, just below the lion's head. The first printing of the jacket cuts off the lower part of the "K" but it shows fully in at least some later printings of the jacket. 

I'm fairly sure the jacket was designed by Fritz Kredel, who also did jackets for the ML editions of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson (1952) and Morier's Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1954). Both of these are signed "F.K."  The "K" on the Dinesen jacket is the same as that on the other two jackets. I assign all three jackets to Kredel in the index of jacket designers in my (hopefully) forthcoming ML bibliography. Kredel had previously done work for the Illustrated Modern Library -- he illustrated The Holy Bible (1943) and the Comedies of Shakespeare (1944) and colored the Tenniel illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1947/48).

I'll try to confirm that the jacket is Kredel's work in May when I'll be in New York for a few days. While I'm there I hope to see Jeanyee Wong, whom I met in New York last October. She illustrated and designed one of the finest books in the Illustrated Modern Library, The Wisdom of Confucius (1943). She had been a student of Kredel's at Cooper Union and later worked as his apprentice. It was Kredel who recommended her to Harry Abrams when Abrams was looking for an artist to illustrate the Confucius.

Barry


---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 21:24:44 -0700
>From: "jolie" <jlbraun at ucdavis.edu>  
>Subject: [ModLib] question about Out of Africa Dust Jacket  
>To: <modlib at owu.edu>
>
>   Hello,
>    
>   I was wondering if anyone has information about the
>   first edition dust jacket of Isak Dinesen's Out of
>   Africa -- I'm interested in finding out who the
>   designer is and/or where this illustration is from.
>   I was sort of surprised to find that there seems to
>   be no indication of the source on the jacket or in
>   the book, and after doing an extensive search on the
>   internet, I'm at a loss as to how to get to the
>   bottom of this! Any insight or advice would be
>   greatly appreciated.
>    
>   Thank you!
>    
>   Jolie
>________________
>_______________________________________________
>ModLib mailing list
>ModLib at owu.edu
>http://thuban.owu.edu/mailman/listinfo/modlib
-----------------------------------------
Gordon B. Neavill
Associate Professor
Library and Information Science Program
106 Kresge Library
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48202
313-577-0507 (tel); 313-577-7563 (fax)
aa3401 at wayne.edu