Melville House Books

The 1830 dust jacket of Friendship's Offering

“A librarian at Oxford’s Bodleian Library has unearthed the earliest-known book dust jacket,” reports Michelle Pauli in a story for The Guardian. She says the jacket dates to 1830 and protected a book called Friendship’s Offering. The dust jacket had apparently lain unknown in the Bodleian’s collection for over a hundred years, since the library had acquired it in an estate sale in 1892.

However it is not exactly what we think of today as a dust jacket: “Unlike today’s dust jackets, wrappers of the early 19th century were used to enfold the book completely, like a parcel. Traces of sealing wax where the paper was secured can still be seen on the Bodleian’s discovery, along with pointed creases at the edges where the paper had been folded, showing the shape of the book it had enclosed.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.