Love Finds the Way

Love Finds the Way

Paul L. Ford, book's author

Illustrated by Harrison Fisher & Margaret Armstrong

New York: Dodd Mead and Co.

1904

2nd edition

Katherine Owens researched and wrote the event description in 2018.

For a description of the book, please click on the image of the event label/description or scroll to the bottom of the page for the section entitled "Text" for a transcription of the attached document.

Literature

SPECIAL PS1692 .L60 1904

English, book's contents
English, event description

This book has another record in the "Beautiful Books" Lobby Display Collection.
To see this book on November 15, 2018 in the "Event Photographs" Collection, please go here [Photograph of Books] 05455.

Transcript of event description:

LOVE FINDS THE WAY | PAUL L. FORD; HARRISON FISHER & MARGARET ARMSTRONG, ILLUS. | NEW YORK: DODD MEAD AND CO. | 1904 | 2ND EDITION

Look closely! This is one of only two known signed bindings in Special Collections. Look in the vines above the “R” in Ford to find the signature. The other signed book is Aunt Amity’s Silver Wedding. The study of bindings as an art form dates back no more than 100 years. Within that narrow field, the study of signed bindings is a special niche. The reason is that for hundreds of years the person who designed or created bookbindings was considered a tradesman, not an artist. As such, men and women plied their trade in relative obscurity. Around the turn of the 20th century this changed as the designers or binders of book covers were being appreciated as artisans and they began to include initials or a specially developed symbol within their designs. But, still, they did not sign all of their works.

In spite of the water, paint, and insect damage, Love Finds the Way is a famous binding by one of the most famous early 20th century book cover designers, Margaret Armstrong. Her books are very desirable and in 1991 a book was published listing 314 known designs, but she is believed to have designed more. We suspect that we have another of her bindings, unsigned. Armstrong’s father was a stained glass artist who worked for Tiffany, so design and art ran in her family. She started designing covers in 1890 and eventually designed covers for all of the major New York publishing houses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By 1913 she worked on covers only for books written by family members and switched her focus to creating illustrations. Her use of color, bold design, and strong influence by and on Art Nouveau is unmistakable. Some of her covers look like Tiffany glass implying a fatherly influence.

The illustrator and decorator for the interior of the book are given credit on the title page, and indeed, this book is over the top beautiful if you like books where every page is decorated with designs and color; in the case of this book – watercolor flowers. The glossy paper used has held the vibrant colors very well over the years. Interestingly, unlike in most books where the plates are colorized and the other illustrations are black and white, in this book the decorations are in color and the plates are black and white, possibly chalk style lithographs. Additionally, the illustrator (of the plates) and the decorator (of the pages) were clearly schooled in two different forms of art. This is a startling contrast.

Book / Unpublished Print Document