[GeoffR]

The fact that you have the "no-margin" problem if you don't add a cover means that you must be loading the book as a KePub (this problem is caused by the KePub reader treating the first file as a cover image and displaying it full-screen.)

However the book (like most Gutenberg books) also has a TOC structure that will cause navigation problems in the KePub reader -- specifically it has 12 ncx entries but only 3 spine entries.

I think books with this sort of problem work better if you load them as ordinary ePubs, rather than as KePubs.

(Edit: Also, adding a cover to a book that doesn't have one, or converting a book with this sort of TOC structure using Calibre will change the internal file structure, so be sure to delete any old version of the book from the device using the device menus before loading the new version. Using Calibre to load a new version over top of old version can cause the sort of problems you describe.)