From the timeless Jurassic Park to the highly contested A Clockwork Orange. The books that have entered the history of literature, thanks also to their cinematic representation, are really many. But it was their covers that made them unique examples. Some editions, in fact, boast an artistic collectible cover that well represents the story that the reader is about to read. What’s your favorite
MILAN – Have you ever walked into a bookstore and bought a book simply because you fell in love with the cover
Surely. The cover of a book and its business card and often the image chosen to condition the reader in the purchase. Some can be colorful, others very simple and essential. But the ones we like best are the most iconic ones, that is, the ones that make us understand exactly what we are going to read from the cover image. Some of these covers are truly collectible, and every booklover dreams of having at least one in their library. The Buzzfeed website has proposed a list of the most beautiful, and most iconic covers of all time. We propose some of them again. There’s also your favorite THE GREAT GATSBY by Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1925) –The painting “Celestial Eyes” first appeared in the first edition of this very famous novel. On the cover we find, on the upper part the title and on the lower part the name of the author, both printed in very evident characters and in a rather bright white. At the foot of the cover an explosive funfair is depicted, an allegory of the roaring twenties and all the rest and pervaded by a dark and intense blue like the night. The most obvious symbol is the camouflaged face. This is the face of Dr. TJ Eckelburg who, in the novel, is seen several times on a large advertising billboard placed halfway between New York and West Egg. His eyes loom like a lost but inquiring deity, and in the book these eyes are a true symbol of the loss of the ability to live of one’s myths and the even greater loss of one’s gods. Anyone who has read the Great Gatsby cannot fail to remember Dr. Eckelburg’s eyes.THE YOUNG HOLDEN by JD Salinger (1951) – Michael Mitchell, a famous illustrator of the twentieth century, created the first cover of Salinger’s famous novel, the book most loved by American teenagers. An essential cover on the shades of red, the color of passion. In the center is depicted the horse of a carousel that would seem ready to face any danger, in the background a city. The colors and the subject certainly refer to the passion and character of Holden Caufield, the undisputed protagonist of the novel. In reality JD Salinger proposed a totally blank cover for his novel, a cover that was kept by the Publisher Einaudi: the purpose of this decision was to make readers choose the book for the content and not for the packaging.FAHRENHEIT 451 di Ray Bradbury (1953)– Joe Pernaciaro and Joseph Mugnaini created the cover of the first edition of the science fiction “Fahrenheit 451”. In this dystopian novel from the 1950s, set in an unspecified future after 1960, a dystopian society is described in which reading or owning books is considered an unforgivable crime. To counteract the practice of reading, the government has set up a body of firefighters who, instead of putting out fires, are involved in burning all types of existing books. The novel was born as an extension of a short story entitled “Fireman” and probably the original cover takes its cue from this expedient, in fact, and depicts a desperate man who covers his face with his hand while his printed paper garments catch fire on he.THE HOBBIT by JRR Tolkien (1937) – A copy of this first edition of Tolkien’s classic has recently sold for sixty thousand dollars. An indisputable masterpiece, iconically represented by a tricolor cover. Green pervades the scene to symbolize nature, the vertiginous peaks are colored a black that turns slightly to blue and the sky is white. A cover decidedly consistent with the landscapes evoked by this novel from the Thirties and Forties, which still fascinates thousands of readers today. MECHANICAL ORANGE by Anthony Burgess (1972)David Pelham designed this cover, which has now become a symbol, ten years after the original publication of the book, in 1962. Being Alex DeLarge the protagonist and narrator of his story, he could not fail to be present also in the cover image where we see him wearing the typical black bowler hat and the metallic eye reminiscent of one of the typical gears of analog watches. According to Burgess, man is an orangutan operated by clockwork mechanisms and from this arises the phonetic association between the beast and the fruit (orange); Alex’s eye is a watchful and receptive eye: ready to go wild when needed. THE DARK BEYOND THE HEDGE by Harper Lee (1960)– Shirley Smith’s cover is simple and unforgettable. The translation of the original title of this Pultzer Prize novel is “Killing a Nightingale”. A strongly symbolic title which is often referred to in the book: the nightingale is a harmless animal that eats insects and emits a delicious song for this reason killing it is equivalent to committing a grave sin. A metaphor that compares the killing of a defenseless animal to the death of Tom Robinson, judged equally useless and unjust. In Italian it has been translated “The darkness beyond the hedge” and it is not a casual title, in fact, the protagonist Scout openly says that the darkness beyond the hedge is what is unknown despite being close. A novel that touches on a hot topic in the 1930s in the United States: racism.1984 by George Orwell (1950) – A 1950s masterpiece that has had several famous covers, but the cover that is considered the most iconic of all is the one published in the mid-twentieth century where on a dazzling white background is a glazed and illuminated eye unnaturally. A cover defined as gruesome and disturbing, which well summarizes the sensations experienced by readers while reading “1984”, the dystopian novel par excellence. Anyone who knows “1984” knows that the metaphor of the eye that scrutinizes is able to identify the absolute power that hangs over the citizens in the novel. THE FATHER by Mario Puzo (1969) –The famous cover features the hand of a puppeteer. It was created by S. Neil Fujita and the same drawing is also shown in the posters of the film that was drawn from it. It is not difficult to understand that the hand of the puppeteer represents the hand of the godfather, progenitor of the Italian mafia family protagonist of this novel. JURASSIC PARK by Michael Crichton (1990) – A high contrast cover and that of the first edition of jurassic park. Its creator ,Chip Kidd, who created the covers for authors such as Bret Easton Ellis, David Sedaris, Haruki Marukami and others, came up with a basic cover featuring a dinosaur skull on a white background. Strongly essential and at the same time symbolic since the dinosaurs pervade the pages of this science fiction novel, which raises important scientific questions such as cloning and genetic engineering and presents them as elements of such vast power as to be ungovernable for man. THE GLASS BELL by Sylvia Plath (1978)– The only novel published by this author who committed suicide at the age of thirty-one. A tragic book whose original cover presents the title written in gothic characters which, probably, in its desperation, captures the mood of this novel. The story contained in these pages and the summary of many experiences lived in first person by the author, certainly tragic experiences that led her to put an end to her life with her own hands; all contained and represented by an ancient and worn paper cover, with heavy black writing and with a now withered rose that looks like a stain of the past. Martina Brunetti 26 May 2014
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