The academic treatise on book jackets we’ve all been waiting for

“For the first time, the dust jacket has been given its due status: in the rich density of his footnotes, the splendour of his eight indexes, Tanselle is nothing less than magisterial.”

I kind of hate book jackets, as superfluous, distracting, and disproportionately overvalued in the book marketing effort. I see them, grudgingly, as a necessary evil, even though I recognize the brilliance of so many jacket designers. But that’s how I feel. Maybe you like book jackets. This post’s for you.