Der Monddiamant by Wilkie Collins, Deutscher Bücherbund
The Moonstone, an early example of the modern detective novel, was written by Wilkie Collins in 1868. It tells the complex story of the theft and recovery of an Indian diamond in colonial England and takes a critical look at social and political issues. An authorized German translation by Emil Lehmann was published as Der Mondstein as early as 1869. Another one titled Der Monddiamant appeared after the copyright expired in 1949, when Hera-Verlag published a “free adaptation” by Siegfried H. Engel.
This jacket is for a book club edition published by Deutscher Bücherbund in 1974. The title is in the Demi weight of ITC Souvenir, stacked and interlocked, with a lowered i dot and a swash initial D. The pre-digital ITC Souvenir came with a number of swash alts, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a D. Did the designer repurpose the swash of a different glyph and graft it onto the D?
The setting of the author’s name is interesting, too: it’s Letraset’s adaptation of Desdemona which is distinguished from the foundry versions by various details, including the W without crossing diagonals. Apart from an alternate S, it didn’t come with any extras. This suggests that the smaller, raised O and the nested double L are customizations.
