Tales of Two Countries

Alice Cordelia Morse|Alexander Lange Kielland|Harper & Brothers

1891 · Dark blue cloth covered boards with silver and gold decoration · Drawings and Prints

A leading New York book-cover designer in the late nineteenth century, Morse studied at the Woman’s Art School of the Cooper Union, then under John La Farge before working for Louis C. Tiffany as a painter and designer of stained glass. In 1887 she began to concentrate on book-covers, fufilling eighty-three commissions for New York commercial publishers by 1905. Complementing the text, she chose imagery ranging from classical, to Renaissance, Celtic, Arabic, Gothic, Rococo, Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau. Morse first designed this cover for Harper's, the first title by Guy de Maupassant in "The Odd Number series," published between 1889 and 1899. All are bound in dark blue plain-weave cloth with silver and gold stamping.

Artist

Alice Cordelia Morse|Alexander Lange Kielland|Harper & Brothers

Date

1891

Medium

Dark blue cloth covered boards with silver and gold decoration

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Gift of Alice C. Morse, 1923, transferred from the Library