Arbor House
Book Club edition, 1983
cover design
by Antler & Baldwin Inc
A great
classic. |
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Penguin Audiobooks, read by the
author. This cover also seems the most common for both
paperback and hardcover books.
Jacket design by Todd Radom,
Jacket art by Doug Henry
here's a detail of the
illustration
I'd say the frame is too busy. |
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My paperback copy,
details to follow (when I find it). Well, actually I had to buy another and
after all that there is no credit for the designer. It is a Pocket Books
edition, a division of Simon & Schuster.
I'm guessing the
designer has not read the book, but maybe I am being too literal and
precious. Perhaps a book jacket illustrator just interprets the title, while
leaving enough spaces to include the wordage.
(30th
July 2002)
A glance at some of the other titles in the series shows where the artist is
coming from on these:
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(18th
May 2002) UK
Hardback first edition 1984, published by Victor Gollancz.
Unfortunately, there is no
mention of the jacket designer.
Pretty poor, I'd say.
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(22nd May 2002)
Large print version, complete
with the Significant Paw Prints.
Published 1999. No indication
of who designed the cover |
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(26th May 2002)
No Exit Press, published
2002.
I'll have to think about
this one.
Having looked at the next couple of titles due out later, there seems to be a
skyline and keys motif running throughout the new editions, see "Ted Williams"
and "Choosers" below: 
There is a vague similarity to
this homage |
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(20th Jan 2003)
This yellow version is the UK
edition. |
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(29th May 2002)
This was No Exit's previous offering, so the
above is a distinct improvement on that. |
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(18thJune 2005) A new one on
Amazon from HarperTorch, 2005, perhaps the most inappropriate yet. Green?
Who are these people?
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(28 May 2002)
A disappointingly minimalist and un-mondrianesque
French offering.
They could at least have
tried some colour variations in the title.
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(20th Jul 2002)
The next three are from the collection of Mr Block himself. Thanks to
Lawrence for digging them out and to Maggie for sending them (twice).
Descriptions from LB in
italics:
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The first is Brazillian,
Cover design: Ettore Bottini
Cover photo: Heloisa Mesquita
Publisher: Companhia Das Letras
Date: 1999
The painting on the
cover of the Brazilian edition actually looks like a Mondrian, although the
whole cover's in black-and-white. And for some curious reason they've
retained the hat that appears on the No Exit UK edition. (No Exit selects
their covers from Clip Art, paying no attention to relevance but trying to
get the effect of the book. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't, but
it never costs them much.)
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Spanish
Cover design: Joan Batalle
Cover photo: Fototeca Stone
Publisher: Plaza Janes
Date: 1998
The other's the Spanish
edition which shows the sky reflected in the side of a modern office
building, with a grid effect. You can sort of see what the art director was
trying for.
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and Japanese
Publisher: Hayakawa
Date: 1998
Designer uncertain, but the name Picaro Taro is under the large light blue
rectangle and a Google scan suggests this person is a designer..
I also have a Japanese
edition, published by Hayakawa, that is loopy enough to be interesting---a
cat's head, and a batch of rectangles, all in various primary colors, sort
of floating in the air.
I also have the Greek edition, but don't think it would interest you---it
copies the No Exit cover, with the floating hat and nothing at all
Mondrianesque anywhere.
(13th Aug 2002)
I now have a copy of this thanks to a friendly Japanese second-hand
bookseller in Cardiff who ordered it from Amazon Japan for me.
Signed by the author in London a while later. |
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24th September 2005 A remarkably
incongruous contribution from Germany, offered on eBay.
Published 1992. |
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