The Splendid E book Design of the 1946 Version of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

In 1929, the e-book pub­lish­er George Macy discovered­ed The Lim­it­ed Edi­tions Membership (LEC), an imprint tasked with pub­lish­ing positive­ly illus­trat­ed lim­it­ed edi­tions of clas­sic books. In the years to return, Macy labored with artists like Matisse and Picas­so, and pho­tog­ra­phers like Edward West­on, to professional­duce books with artis­tic illus­tra­tions on their inside pages. And a few­occasions The Lim­it­ed Edi­tions Membership even turned its design focus to oth­er components of the e-book. Take for examination­ple this 1946 edi­tion of Edward Gib­bon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and its pret­ty amaz­ing backbone design.

Cre­at­ed by Clarence P. Hor­nung, the design cap­tures the essence of Gib­bon’s clas­sic, present­ing Roman pil­lars professional­gres­sive­ly crum­bling as your eyes transfer from Vol­ume 1 to Vol­ume 7. George Macy lat­er referred to as the col­lec­tion, which additionally fea­tures illus­tra­tions by the good 18th-cen­tu­ry print­mak­er Gio­van­ni Bat­tista Pirane­si, “probably the most her­culean labor of our profession.”

Discover extra infor­ma­tion about this 1946 edi­tion here. Or, when you’ve got deep pock­ets, pur­chase a copy here.

Word: an ear­li­er ver­sion of this submit appeared on our web site in June 2015.

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