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book (design) story #476

lin yutang:
peking / blatt im sturm

büchergilde gutenberg, zürich, 1943
printer: unionsdruckerei bern
size: 22 x 13 cm
designer: richard paul lohse

chinese writer lin yutang (1875-1966) who had lived in the usa after 1928 enjoyed a huge success with his historical novel "moment in peking" (1939). in 1943 the zürich büchergilde published this german translation in two volumes, alongside "a leaf in the storm" (1940) in the same book design by richard paul lohse (1902-1988).

lohse aimed to create a chinese atmosphere with a pictorial montage of antique drawings showing a lady and a bird on the jackets, yellow covers with earthy reddish brown titles – an "oriental" colour scheme also used by jan tschichold for the books 11 and 71, ...

... and again striking negative reproductions of chinese drawings on the endpapers, with different vignettes on the flyleaf of each volume.

for the cover and title spreads he used bold bodoni.

i have no idea what the chinese letters actually say ...