Hogarth Press first edition book jacket designs
Maurice Dobb, Russia Today and Tomorrow (1930) Hogarth Day to Day pamphlets, Number 1.
The colophon design was by the American artist E.McKnight Kauffer. It was used on many other Hogarth publications as an alternative to the original dog’s head design by Vanessa Bell. Price 1s. 6d.
“Reporting on his second trip to Russia in 1929, Dobb provided in six chapters a perceptive, generally approving, but not uncritical survey of Soviet history, politics, economics, industrial development, and cultural revolution. His visit came just after the relaxed and stimulating New Economic Policy period (1921—28) had been controverted by the Five Year Plan and the Russian Association of Proletarian writers. While Dobb recognised the increasing pressure for conformity to Marxist ideology, he still reported finding tolerance for experimentation in the arts.”
J.H. Willis Jr, Leonard and Virginia Woolf as Publishers: The Hogarth Press 1917-1941
Hogarth Press studies
Woolf’s-head Publishing is a wonderful collection of cover designs, book jackets, and illustrations – but also a beautiful example of book production in its own right. It was produced as an exhibition catalogue and has quite rightly gone on to enjoy an independent life of its own. This book is a genuine collector’s item, and only months after its first publication it started to win awards for its design and production values. Anyone with the slightest interest in book production, graphic design, typography, or Bloomsbury will want to own a copy the minute they clap eyes on it.
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Leonard and Virginia Woolf as Publishers: Hogarth Press, 1917-41 John Willis brings the remarkable story of Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s success as publishers to life. He generates interesting thumbnail sketches of all the Hogarth Press authors, which brings both them and the books they wrote into sharp focus. He also follows the development of many of its best-selling titles, and there’s a full account of the social and cultural development of the press. This is a scholarly work with extensive footnotes, bibliographies, and suggestions for further reading – but most of all it is a very readable study in cultural history.
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© Roy Johnson 2005