Cover Design - The most decorative books - An Antique Books Guide

Nearly every book collector will have their own favourite era, style or binding of book regardless of topic.
Some may prefer the classic finely bound leather book whilst others may prefer books from uniform series.

I however prefer highly decorative antique books.Some of my favourite are collected below - maybe these will help you to choose a style or design that you like...

Neo-Classicism

This style echoes the designs of hundreds of years back, usually focusing on columns, statue and mock ancient design.

Art Deco

One of the most famous of design movements, books with art deco design often feature vertical bars and repetitive, bold designs using geometric shapes

Arts and Crafts

This era represents design using simple forms often featuring medieval, romantic or folk styles of decoration.

Art Deco/ Arts and Crafts

Bold black and whites and silhouette designs are often unique as seen below.
They appear bold and stylish in the face of time and can be fairly valuable due to this.

Here is a design of antique book that you will see often.

Featuring gilt detailing and a floral design on the front, these books usually aren't worth much due to a uniformity of design with other books.

Below is what in opinion is a slightly upgraded cover design from the previous one.

This type is also very common among pre 1900 books and will feature the usual heavy gilding and thorough decoration but will also display design relevant to the book's content.

Surrealism

The iconic Jules Verne Serpent cover design is renowned for it's bold style despite its age.
Whilst not true surrealism, this books cover design is quite unique and hard to define as an artistic movement.

Regardless, such books can be worth £20+ just from the cover design

 Celtic Revival (Mock)

The design below represents mock Celtic revival with flowing, knotted lines and intricate weaves.
This could be associated with art nouveau perhaps also.

The book below is quite unique in my experience and holds some value for it's design.

Another classic book design.
This style was popular between 1860 and 1890 and features heavy gilding, floral designs and bold fonts.
These are once more quite valuable for the luxury and beauty of the design.

Modern

It is not just antique or vintage books that carry unique or decorative cover designs.

The book seen below is a modern illustrated edition of The Hobbit featuring a pretty art-nouveau inspired design with the gilt detailing popular in pre 1900's book design.

Art Nouveau

One of the most collected book design eras, Art Nouveau represents flowing, floral designs, heavy use of gilt and unique, twisting fonts.

1910-1930 Decorative

Not necessarily of any era of design but borrowing sometimes heavily from art deco or arts and crafts, these type of covers are bold, stunning and highly decorative.

Here is an assortment of other highly decorative book designs.
The Evangeline is probably my favourite of all covers:

 I hope you have learnt something, even if just that you like a particular design.
I confess that my knowledge of different eras is somewhat lacking so if you have any advice or tips regarding this post please don't hesitate to contact me!

 Thanks for reading