orbiting cat: it varies over the centuries, as well as with publisher, printer and place, but the fully-illustrated front (& back)-boarded hardcover book is really very recent; the cloth-covered front & back-boarded hardcover that might or might not bear title & author (or editor, of an anthology), and possibly some form of typographical or other decoration upon the front board's cloth, and perhaps the publisher's name, plus - probably - title, author/editor & publisher upon the cloth over the spine, a lot older - current for a fair few centuries; with decorated (printed) paper dust-jacket, frequently printed in monochrome or restricted palette, much more recent; and both earlier than that, and concurrent with it, some publisher, art director or person from porlock might determine that, since the essential information was printed, or blocked in gold leaf (or whatever) upon the cloth, it need not be repeated upon the dust-jacket - or vice-versa. . .
(- and as to whether books whose pages are not properly sewn into signatures which are themselves sewn together onto a flexible cloth backing-strip, and this carcass glued by sewn-on tapes to the cloth (or other material)-covered boards, to produce a durable yet flexible binding that will stand up well to several generations' lifetimes repeated readings, but are instead simply glued edge-on onto a card or paper strip, in turn simply glued between board or card covers, producing what is effectively a front & rear boarded paperback-bound "hardcover", not worthy of the title - or one's cash - and its partner-in-shame, the hardcover-sized "yuppieback"°. . .
- as i was about to enquire, before the enormity of the deception being perpetrated upon the public above-recounted ran away with yr hmbl srppint.'s concentration upon the question, whether the "yuppieback between boards" should be accorded the honourable status of being accounted a hardcover at all, is a point perhaps yet to be mooted:
- but certainly, warning should explicitly be given where an apparent hardcover is not in fact properly bound, to last the buyer's lifetime and beyond, but will break within the first three or four readings.)
° - or sometimes, "the c-format paperback", though this truly merely signifies that a particular large p/b is neither a-, standard penguin, nor b-, standard slightly taller, a little wider, "picador/paladin" format; whereas the yp/b - the yuppieback - is necessarily just slightly smaller than the boards of the hardcover - or alleged hardcover - from whose signatures or carcass it is produced
I think so personally. On reflection, I also think we ought to keep the plain hard cover as an image, irrespective of whether we have a dust jacket. I guess this is one for the forum really.
OK Terry, I agree. But what if you don't have a dust jacket (and I nicked this image so we shouldn't really use it!)? Should the title page be the main image until a dust jacket turns up?
So I guess we promote the dust jacket image to primary - but do we need to keep the image of the actual cover? As a general rule, I'd think not, unless it somehow mattered (say, some were blue and some were red).
Many of the pre-1950s music related books I have are like this. Maybe they've lost their dust jackets, but that's how most of these covers are - plain cloth.
Does anyone know if books like this always had printed dust covers? If so, I vote for waiting. But it does throw up a point to consider - I have sets of books (eg a complete set of Dickens) which all have plain hardback covers, with matching spines. Nice on the shelf but not very appealing for the site when viewed as individual front covers.