William Addison Dwiggins

From mid-1918 to the spring of 1919 Dwiggins had served as acting director of the Harvard University Press. The brief experience was disheartening, prompting him and his cousin L.B. Siegfried to publish Extracts from an Investigation into the Physical Properties of Books as They Are at Present Published, a withering (and hilarious) critique of contemporary book production. An opportunity to make better books came in 1924 when Elmer Adler of Pynson Printers asked him if he wanted to design books for Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Dwiggins was favorably inclined but balked at the low fees. His first book for Knopf, the deluxe edition of My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather, was done in 1926. It marked the start of a close association with the New York publisher that lasted the remainder of his life.

Over the course of thirty years Dwiggins worked on a total of 329 books for Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., seventeen of which were AIGA selections. At first he was called upon primarily to design bindings and jackets for Knopf. It was not until 1934 that he became the firm’s principal book designer. Although he preferred designing the interiors of books, he is celebrated for his jackets and bindings. His best jackets, such as those for Serenade by James Cain and Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter, are astonishing mixes of abstract ornament and bold lettering rendered in wild and savage colors. His bindings are characterized by stencil-derived abstract ornament and idiosyncratically lettered spines. Dwiggins but he disliked doing jackets, viewing them as ‘traps to tempt people to buy books’. Bindings, on the other hand, fascinated him and he spent much of his time searching for ways to make them more modern and less expensive.



Fig. 1: Mail Pouch poster c. 1900. Designed by William Addison Dwiggins in the style of the Beggarstaff Brothers. This was probably a student project.
Fig. 2: In American by John V. A. Weaver (Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1939). Binding design by William Addison Dwiggins.
Fig. 3: Moving announcement 1910.
Fig. 4: Charles Hovey Pepper, North Country Exhibition at Doll & Richards (Boston) 11–23 March 1929. Announcement design by William Addison Dwiggins.