The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Holt, Rinehart and Winston)
The first edition of the first book by Toni Morrison is a superb example for our tag “text on cover”. The dust jacket for The Bluest Eyes was designed by Herb Lubalin and Jay Tribich. Lubalin had shown a preference for text-heavy covers already in his work for Fact magazine in 1964. Here, the novel starts right on the jacket. I wonder whether German designer Hannes Jähn had seen this before he conceived the covers for the “Sammlung Luchterhand” paperback series.
Morrison, who was the first African-American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, passed away on 5 August 2019 at the age of 88.
The novel, which takes place in Lorain, Ohio, tells the life of a young African-American girl named Pecola who grows up during the years following the Great Depression. Set in 1941, the story reveals that due to her mannerisms and dark skin, she is consistently regarded as “ugly”. As a result, she develops an inferiority complex, which fuels her desire for the blue eyes she equates with “whiteness”. […] Due to controversial topics of racism, incest, and child molestation, there have been numerous attempts to ban the novel from schools and libraries. — Wikipedia
3 Comments on “The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (Holt, Rinehart and Winston)”
Found a better image of the cover on this auction website. It shows that all the tittles on the lowercase i are the same blue as the top line.
Oh, that’s great! A good reminder why looking at original objects is always superior to digital images (and why physical archives are indispensable).