He gets the point across about what good book design does by giving examples of bad book design:
Books bound in alligator, and in sealskin, for example, are to be found in many leading bookstores, not always appropriately clad, I regret to remark. There is a hideous incongruity, for instance, in sheathing the wisdom of Emerson in alligator-hide, fit as this scaly substance might be for the weird tales of Poe. Equally horrible is a prayer-book covered with snakeskin; and both of these bibliopegic freaks have been offered to me by tradesmen more enterprising than artistic.
(Quoted from page 22 of Aesthetic Tracts: Innovation in Late-Nineteenth-Century Book Design, by Ellen Mazur Thomson. Oak Knoll Press, 2015.)
For a brief biography of Brander Matthews, click here. For images of or relating to Brander Matthews, click here.
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