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Books > Arts & Architecture > Industrial / commercial art & design > Product design
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Beauty and the Book - Fine Editions and Cultural Distinction in America (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,338
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Beauty and the Book - Fine Editions and Cultural Distinction in America (Paperback)
Series: Henry McBride Series in Modernism and Modernity
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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In post-World War I America-a world teeming with magazines,
newspapers, radio broadcasts, and movies-many feared that the
survival of traditional, serious books was in peril. This concern
led to a publishing boom in fine editions-books valued primarily
for their beauty, craftsmanship, extravagance, status, or scarcity.
Beauty and the Book is a lively cultural history of the explosion
in demand for these deluxe books during the 1920s and 1930s. Megan
L. Benton argues that the clamor to own fine books reflected the
anxieties and desires of those who mourned the rise of a modern
mass culture. For them, such volumes not only affirmed a
preindustrial ideal but also imparted social distinction and
cultural superiority. Benton combines new archival research with a
close examination of three hundred fine editions of the period. In
theory, fine bookmakers were devoted to beauty and quality and were
unwilling to compromise with machinery, popular taste, or concern
for profit. But such ideal standards were nearly impossible to
maintain. Paradoxically, fine publishers' ostensible indifference
to commercial considerations was one of their most prized and
lucrative products for sale. This book illuminates the interplay
between the ideal and real nature of fine publishing as well as the
complex nature of American cultural ambitions during this pivotal
era.
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