While browsing the internet last night I came across the above Rea Irvin book cover art. Turns out that Wallace Irwin, the book’s author has a claim to fame, and that the book itself (with its dust jacket) is not your everyday somewhat obscure eighty-eight year old book you can pick up for a song on AbeBooks. According to a number of internet sources, Irwin’s The Julius Caesar Murder Case “can rightly be considered the first practitioner of the Ancient Roman Mystery genre.”
As for the price, it’s possible to buy a copy sans dust jacket for around $30.00, but if you want a copy with Rea Irvin’s wrapper art, you’ll have to fork over at least $300.00. There are other copies for more (including one at $875.00).
Here’s what Rea Irvin’s art looks like on the hardcover of the book itself:
Here’s Rea Irvin’s A-Z Spill entry:
Rea Irvin (pictured above. Self portrait above from Meet the Artist) *Born, San Francisco, 1881; died in the Virgin Islands,1972. Irvin was the cover artist for the New Yorker’s first issue, February 21, 1925. He was the magazine’s first art and only art supervisor (some refer to him as its first art editor) holding the position from 1925 until 1939 when James Geraghty assumed the title of art editor. Irvin then became art director and remained in that position until William Shawn officially succeeded Harold Ross in early 1952. Irvin’s last original work for the magazine was the magazine’s cover of July 12, 1958. The February 21, 1925 Eustace Tilley cover had been reproduced every year on the magazine’s anniversary until 1994, when R. Crumb’s Tilley-inspired cover appeared. Tilley has since reappeared, with other artists substituting from time-to-time. Number of New Yorker covers (not including the repeat appearances of the first cover every anniversary up to 1991): 163. Number of cartoons contributed: 261.