Favorite book covers
Frankenstein
This is the Penguins Classic 2003 edition
cover featuring “The Wounded Philoctetes” by Nicolai Abildgaard. When I first read Frankenstein in high school, this is the cover that greeted me.
Already apprehensive about the book, a wounded naked man glaring up at
something didn’t assuage my fears that I would be miserable while reading the
book. However, after finishing the book, I still hated it, but was relieved
that I would never have to think about Frankenstein or his monster ever again.
Except it wasn’t that simple. For some
weird reason, I couldn’t get the book out of my head. Actually, I knew what it
was: Frankenstein was the first book,
where the author made a compelling case both for the protagonist, Dr.
Frankenstein, and the antagonist, the creature. With previous books with
classic moral dilemmas, like Billy Budd and
Macbeth, I had not had any difficulty
in making up my mind in who was correct and who was in the wrong. However, Dr.
Frankenstein didn’t want to create a race of potential monsters and the
creature didn’t want to be alone. I could go on and on about this book, but
this post is about the cover.
The cover captures the creature’s
emotional anguish perfectly. The man in the painting is wounded as he is
clutching his knee, vulnerable, due to his complete nakedness, and enraged that
someone took advantage of a mistake. It is as though the artist managed to
capture the exact moment before he whirls around to spring at his aggressor.
Every muscle is tensed as he transforms from crouched victim to attacker. There
is redness about his face whether from embarrassment that he would let himself
be this foolish or rage that someone would be this malevolent. Specifically, I
think this cover captures the moment, when the creature as the creature is
befriending the blind man and the rest of the family comes in only to run away
at his hideous form. Inside the creature’s mind, this is his posture. He was
just incredibly vulnerable in attempting to make a friend and he was only
wounded from it. Shortly after this point, the author, Mary Shelley, stops
referring to him as a creature and starts referring to him as a monster. He
lost his humanity and the cover captures the moment it happens.
A Wind in the Door
Of books with odd covers, Madeline
L’Engle’s book series A Wrinkle in Time takes the cake. Each book depicts an
odd scene. From a centaur soaring in the clouds on the first book to a flaming
shimmering horse on the third book, all of these covers are simultaneously very
striking and odd. However, the second book in the series, A Wind in the Door, is the oddest of the bunch. Descending down
into a forest of pine trees at nighttime, a fiery orb with large white wings
covered in eyes takes up most of the cover. The main characters, Meg and
Charles Wallace, meet this creature, a cherubim named Proginoskes, near the
beginning of the book.
This striking and certainly frightening
creature would definitely catch your eye if the book were sitting on a
bookstore’s shelf. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem menacing; intimidating yes,
but not menacing. Even when I first saw the book as a very skittish 11 year
old, or however old I was exactly, I knew the thing with eyes wasn’t evil.
Maybe it was supposed to scare the main characters away from the mission or
something like that, but it wasn’t evil. Despite intimidating them at first,
Progo guides Charles Wallace and Meg throughout the book and (spoiler) ends up
sacrificing himself in order to save Charles Wallace. It is fitting, therefore,
that Progo should inhabit the cover of the book in all his stunning splendor.
Wolves of Willoughby Chase
Of all of the books in this post,
I was the youngest when I first read, or more accurately my mom read to me,
this book as compared to the others. It is also probably the book I remember as
the darkest. While Frankenstein
involves murder, in this book the children are abused by their new guardians
after the parents of the main character, Bonnie, die in a shipwreck.
Imaginatively, the cover represents how
alone the two main characters are in the world by placing them atop a hill
stranded amongst a red sky. As they are wrapped in grey woolen winter garments
to keep out the cold, the girls stand out even more. Below them are three black
wolves with bloodthirsty eyes that match the sky with menacing teeth. The only
light is coming from the snow-covered ground the girls are standing on, as if
their very presence is keeping the dark world at bay. Even the clouds overhead
are black as they streak across the sky. The cover is very simple in color
scheme; it only has red, black, white, and gray.
Nevertheless, the cover conveys some
small glimmers of hope. While the wolves are lurking, they seem unable to reach
the gills atop the hill. Although the clouds overhead are black, given the way
the wind is blowing from one of the girls skirts, the clouds are on their way
out. Finally, though it is certainly cold, the girls are wrapped in warm
clothes and facing the sun. Even though nary a single page has been turned, There
is already danger, adventure, and hope set up for the story, despite the fact
that not even a single page has been turned.
Sources:
Image Credit:
Detail from The Wounded Philoctetes (1775) by Nicolai Abildgaard. 1992 Edition Penguin Classics.
Cover Illustration by Cliff Nielsen. March 1976 Edition Bantam Books.
Cover art 1962 by Edward Gorey. June 2001 Edition Random House Children's Books.
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