Books were often produced using paste-up and phototypesetting. If the original photograph or illustration was lost, damaged, or poorly sourced before the final paste-up, the printer would leave a placeholder box with text like “Figure intentionally omitted” or simply skip it.
In art: A blank space becomes a statement on the ephemeral nature of digital media. Collector Value: Is Your 1987 Copy Worth Anything? picture is not shown book 1987
Small authors and publishers using WordPerfect 4.2 or early Pagemaker would type “[picture not shown]” as a placeholder. With no WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) screens, they couldn’t see the final layout until the book was printed. Collector Value: Is Your 1987 Copy Worth Anything
One of the most common reasons for search queries involving dates and dystopia is a conflation of years. Searchers looking for "picture is not shown book 1987" are often recalling the seminal George Orwell novel, 1984 . One of the most common reasons for search
Do you have a specific 1987 book title in mind? If you provide the name, I can offer more targeted information about its missing illustrations.