When Things of the Spirit Come First by Simone de Beauvoir (André Deutsch)

Published May 18, 2024
Contributed by D Jones


Source: www.abebooks.com Windhover Books. License: All Rights Reserved.


I really love this jacket, the colour combination, the title ragged with a waterfall-like slope on the right, and the well-matched ornaments.

I didn't recognise the font (I wasn’t even sure it was one), but it turns out to be Richard Bradley’s Bible Script. Although written in 1937, the collection of short stories didn’t find a publisher until 1979, which happens to also be the year that Bible Script was released (although this jacket, being from an English edition, comes after that).

From Wikipedia:

When Things of the Spirit Come First is Simone de Beauvoir's first work of fiction. It consists of five short stories woven together in a way that is structurally similar to a more traditional novel.

Beauvoir submitted this collection of interlinked stories to a publisher in 1937. But it was turned down by both Gallimard and Grasset. Gallimard eventually published it in 1979. The first English translation came out from Pantheon in 1982.

Looks like the jacket makes use of the alts and ligatures available in the font. I checked a few, but not all of them.

This edition was translated by Patrick O’Brian and published by André Deutsch and Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Make sure to also check out the jacket of the U.S. edition by Pantheon Books, designed by Louise Fili with lettering by Craig DeCamps.



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