{"id":86940,"date":"2015-06-23T14:25:32","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T18:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=86940"},"modified":"2015-06-23T16:45:03","modified_gmt":"2015-06-23T20:45:03","slug":"jacket-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacket Weather"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rostand98\"<\/a>

Edmond Rostand, twenty-nine, at the first performance of Cyrano de Bergerac<\/i>, 1898.<\/p><\/div>\n

At a recent tag sale not far from my parents\u2019 house, I came upon a thin, weathered paperback with a yellowing spine. It stuck out amid the other glossy hardcovers. The cover portrayed a stylized, vaguely Art Nouveau couple embracing passionately; an orange moon winked from behind a tree. This was Art of Love, by a Parisian Casanova<\/em>. And just my luck, I\u2019d found the \u201cunexpurgated\u201d edition.<\/p>\n

Then I noticed, below the illustration, a line of much smaller print: \u201cCyrano de Bergerac<\/em>, by Edmund Rostand.\u201d <\/p>\n

The flyleaf identifies the book\u2019s publication year as 1933, its publisher the Jacket Library of the National Home Library Foundation. The editor\u2019s note, by one Sherman F. Mittell, reads in part,<\/p>\n

\n

The jacket library was established to place before the American people the great books of the world at a nominal sum. To give good literature its largest possible audience at a price within the reach of all, required the fullest cooperative efforts of those who believed in extending our cultural facilities. It further required an eager response on the part of the public.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is dedicated to Eugene O\u2019Neill, \u201cwith esteem and appreciation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Home Library Foundation had only been founded a year before this misleading Cyrano<\/em> saw the light of day. Mittell\u2019s ambitions included not just the dissemination of affordable classics, but also \u201cto urge the reading of good literature through printed announcements, radio broadcasts and newspapers; and to these ends to provide for the delivery and holding of lectures, exhibits, public meetings, classes and conferences, calculated to advance the cause of education and promote the general culture of the nation.\u201d The original trustees listed in the back of the paperback include O\u2019Neill, Havelock Ellis, and Albert Einstein.<\/p>\n

After Mittell\u2019s death in 1942, the NHLF fell into chaos\u2014or, as its current Web site tactfully puts it, \u201cthe Foundation\u2019s substantive program came to a halt and its assets became the subject of protracted litigation.\u201d It didn\u2019t really get going again for another twenty years; today, it\u2019s a nonprofit that awards grants toward literacy. (Interestingly enough, the current president is Lynda Robb, LBJ\u2019s elder daughter.)<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that Penguin didn\u2019t start producing their affordable paperback classics until 1935\u2014so the Jacket Library\u2019s publishers might be forgiven for employing a little marketing sleight of hand, especially during a Depression. And let\u2019s not forget that there\u2019s a whole school of thought that maintains that Cyrano\u2019s injunctions were inspired by Ovid\u2019s Art of Love<\/em>, so. Would the average schoolboy, hoping to score a French seduction manual, know any of this? Probably not. But who knows? Maybe he opened this volume and got some great literature out of it. Because on one score, the cover does not lie: the text is, indeed, complete and unexpurgated.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At a recent tag sale not far from my parents\u2019 house, I came upon a thin, weathered paperback with a yellowing spine. It stuck out amid the other glossy hardcovers. The cover portrayed a stylized, vaguely Art Nouveau couple embracing passionately; an orange moon winked from behind a tree. This was Art of Love, by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[9899,18533,18534,18535,18538,18537,11106,18536,18539,13689],"class_list":["post-86940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-covers","tag-cyrano-de-bergerac","tag-edmund-rostand","tag-jacket-library-of-the-national-home-library-foundation","tag-jackets","tag-national-home-library-foundation","tag-paperbacks","tag-sherman-f-mittell","tag-sleight-of-hand","tag-tag-sales"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Provocative, Misleading Paperbacks of the 1930s<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein makes a curious discovery at a tag sale.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jacket Weather by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 23, 2015 \u2013 At a recent tag sale not far from my parents\u2019 house, I came upon a thin, weathered paperback with a yellowing spine. It stuck out amid the other glossy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-06-23T18:25:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-06-23T20:45:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98-1024x842.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"842\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Jacket Weather\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-06-23T18:25:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-06-23T20:45:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/\"},\"wordCount\":507,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"covers\",\"Cyrano de Bergerac\",\"Edmund Rostand\",\"Jacket Library of the National Home Library Foundation\",\"jackets\",\"National Home Library Foundation\",\"paperbacks\",\"Sherman F. Mittell\",\"sleight of hand\",\"tag sales\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/\",\"name\":\"The Provocative, Misleading Paperbacks of the 1930s\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-06-23T18:25:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-06-23T20:45:03+00:00\",\"description\":\"Sadie Stein makes a curious discovery at a tag sale.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Jacket Weather\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\",\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sadie Stein\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Provocative, Misleading Paperbacks of the 1930s","description":"Sadie Stein makes a curious discovery at a tag sale.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jacket Weather by Sadie Stein","og_description":"June 23, 2015 \u2013 At a recent tag sale not far from my parents\u2019 house, I came upon a thin, weathered paperback with a yellowing spine. It stuck out amid the other glossy","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2015-06-23T18:25:32+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-06-23T20:45:03+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":842,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98-1024x842.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Sadie Stein","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sadie Stein","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/"},"author":{"name":"Sadie Stein","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9"},"headline":"Jacket Weather","datePublished":"2015-06-23T18:25:32+00:00","dateModified":"2015-06-23T20:45:03+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/"},"wordCount":507,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98.jpg","keywords":["covers","Cyrano de Bergerac","Edmund Rostand","Jacket Library of the National Home Library Foundation","jackets","National Home Library Foundation","paperbacks","Sherman F. Mittell","sleight of hand","tag sales"],"articleSection":["Our Daily Correspondent"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/","name":"The Provocative, Misleading Paperbacks of the 1930s","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98.jpg","datePublished":"2015-06-23T18:25:32+00:00","dateModified":"2015-06-23T20:45:03+00:00","description":"Sadie Stein makes a curious discovery at a tag sale.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/rostand98.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/23\/jacket-weather\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jacket Weather"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9","name":"Sadie Stein","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sadie Stein"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86940"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86969,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86940\/revisions\/86969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}