Book Description
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1927. FIRST EDITION. Frontispiece and 56 plates, some in color, by Covarrubias. Unpaginated. Hardcover. Large 8vo size. Brown Modern art binding: full, polished morocco; front and back covers each has a stylized African-American head outlined in gilt. Top edge gilt. A few spots of foxing on the front fly-leaf and the margins of the final plate, still a beautiful copy. Near fine/No dust jacket. (Insurance required to ship this item).
Not sure what some of these terms mean? Look it up in our glossary.
dust jacket : A protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps around the binding of a book.
top edge gilt : The top of the text block (the edges the pages that are visible when looking directly down at the top of a closed book) has been decorated with a gold-like finish.
gilt : The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book. The edges of the text block, or an inlay in the front cover of the boards, for example.
frontispiece : A portrait or illustration on the page opposing the title page.
plates : Full page illustrations or photographs. Plates are printed separately from the text of the book, and bound in at production. I.e., they are not sewn as parts of gatherings.
8vo : Short for Octavo, A book whose page size is approximately 8-10 inches tall. The size is based on a sheet of paper 25 inches by 38 inches, the size of paper traditionally used by book printers, which has been folded and cut into 16 pages..
Unfortunately often misunderstood to mean 8 volumes.
plate : Full page illustration or photograph. Plates are printed separately from the text of the book, and bound in at production. I.e., they are not sewn as parts of gatherings.
