What about judging the cover by the book? (Ever judge a book by it's cover?)

Member Name: Celandine

Product:	Ever judge a book by it's cover?
Date:	08/06/01 (104 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: please see opinion

Disadvantages: please see opinion

I've a book printed in 1942. It's a Penguin, with a plain blue cover, and it's printed on wafer-thin, yellowing paper. It's a lit-crit book of some sort and I'm not sure that I've really read it, but it's still fascinating. There's a little discalaimer in it, apologising for it's poor quality, and of course, the poor quality is due to the paper shortages of the second world war.

I find that slim paperback brings me closer to the realities of 'war shortages' than many dense textbooks. And it's the book as a thing, that interests me here, rather than the text inside it. Strange, really, when you think about it? I wonder what Caxton would have thought?

I was at doing my A levels when I first noticed the pale green 'Penguin modern classics'. The best one I found for posing on trains was surely Jack Kerouac. I had a black polo-neck jumper, and I had "On the Road" with its enigmatic black and white 1950's photo on the front. I wanted to be a Beatnik, too. From that I progressed to reading Naked Lunch, but the film had just come out, and so rather than a nice enigmatic cover, I had to endure reading a book with a big film still on the front. I hate those, but I'll talk about them later. I want to talk about those lovely Penguins first.

Fine Art was reproduced on the front of writers like James and Forster, although I found the choice of art sometimes bewildering. Why is Forster represented by Monet? What on earth do they have in common? But it didn't really bother me. Buying one of those pale green spines was a lovely adventure, made more so as I was stony broke, and bought most of my books from secondhand shops.

Hay on Wye. Sorry, I'm just going to digress like crazy, here. I love Hay. Row upon row of secondhand books, all jostling for attention. Most of my 'modern classics' have been bought here. Orange and White Penguins. I've loads of thes
e. Some are annotated, and some pristine ( I don't think the previous owner ever liked DH Lawrence). I'll bet that if you were at uni in the 1960's you'll have the same feeling about these orange spines as I do about the green ones. I'm keen on them, anyway. I reckon it shows a depth of character if you're reading a tatty orange and white copy of 'Zuleika Dobson' or something, on the bus.

Of course, there are the newer orange and white Penguin Modern Classics, too. I think they came before the pale green ones, and I never liked them. They seem to lack the muted charm of the older books, and although the illustrations are often the same as those on the green ones, they just don't look so good.

What about all those Black Penguin Classics -those ones with the little coloured stripe at the top, which must signify something, but I'm not sure what. I've grim rows of these on my bookshelves, all telling me that I'm a really serious, intense person, thank you. The facade only drops when you realise that most of mine are Jane Austen.

Oh......must mention those bright green Virago's here, too. I've loads of these that I bought secondhand. I think, I really do, that people bought these because they were fashionable for a time, not to actually read them. That's where secondhand bookshops come in to their own. I've read a lot of quite obscure twentieth century feminist authors quite simply because I couldn't afford anything else. The covers? I'd say they are mainly fine art of a modernist ilk.

That brings me neatly to Dover Press, and Wordsworth classics. 99p per book. I was a very happy bunny. It was cheaper to buy one of these than get a return fare to the library. Yes, I was that person ploughing gamely through pages of Dickens during my lunchbreak, closely followed by Wilkie Collins and Conan Doyle. Covers? Well, I guess reading Dover said that you were broke, but wan
ted to extend your mind, or something. And the cover pictures are often very pretty, all those patterns in particular. Any company who puts a William Morris textile print on the cover of a classic gets the 'laughing her socks off' vote from me. More Fine art on the Wordsworth ones, often of the gloomy oil painting variety. I'm serious, but I don't have enough money to buy Penguin Classics. That's what Wordsworth were all about, I reckon.

Photo-montage. I know the first book I bought with a photo-montage cover. it was 'Possession' by A.S Byatt. It was the first purchase in a spate of books with muted photo-montage on the front. Symbols often featured were clocks, a pretty woman's head, and maybe a leaf or two. I loved these covers at the time, but I'm not so sure now. I think they've been done to death, and there are only so many times that I want to see a disembodied dog next to a watering can, or something equally disorientating on the front of my latest read. Are they waning now? I hope so. They're a close cousin to all those fine line drawings of architectural features that littered book covers in the early 1990's. I've only one book where this style seems at all relevant, and this is " Hawksmoor".

I'm digressing again, on to 'Big Books'. By this, I mean the paperbacks as big as suitcases. These embrace several categories, from the thrillers, through Horror, to the Jilly Coopers and Judith Kranz's of this world. I guess Umberto Eco should join this literary smorgasbord, too. The covers? Oozing big gold, or bright red embossed titles, these shout at you from the bookshelves. What else is on the cover? Maybe a tiny picture, or a photograph, hidden under those huge letters. Loud books. If the letters that proclaim the author are larger than the letters of the title, then I tend to be wary. What do these covers say? Well, I think they yell "Read me......I'm by ooj
amaflip". Hmmmm. It puts me off, as does the sheer bulk of these things. How am I meant to get them in my handbag? I don't want to have to buy a shopping trolley to cart around my latest read.

They're not as bad as the books that have a picture from the latest film version on the front, though. These really bug me. I find myself looking at these real people, and inwardly complaining " But you're not Bathsheba Evardene" or whoever it is. I hate this tampering with my reading pleasure, and it dates from my childhood. I'd usually read a book several times from a library before I was bought a copy, and so I'd already have mental pictures of what all my favorite characters looked like. I waited patiently for my birthday book, then.....wham....a TV series had come out, and the Oswald Bastable on the front cover just wasn't the Oswald I knew and loved in my head. It made a difference to my reading, it really did.

In that way it's often safer to buy a secondhand copy of a book. It does depend on the copy, though. I love the prettiness of the old Everyman hardbacks, with their art nouveau flyleafs and embossed spines. Unfortunatly, their insides can often be unreadable. The paper is flimsy, and I worry about marking the book. I like to read books, not cosset them, but I still buy these when I find them. They're just so pretty.

I have got two really cosseted books in my house. These are an early hardback edition of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with illustrations by Arthur Rackam, and a facsimile edition of "Le Morte D'Arthur" with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley. I know that illustrations don't really count as 'covers' but I have to mention them briefly. I feel, really strongly, that good illustration can enhance any book, giving it another perspective. just think about Blake, and his illustrations for: "Songs of Innocence and Experience".

I&#
39;ve nearly finished now. The last thing I've got to say is answer the question this category asks. Do I judge a book by it's cover? Well, I think I probably judge the book covers, but I judge a book by its content. After all, that's why I buy a book.

I like book covers, and find them interesting, but one thing that saddens me is all the Classic Fine Art that often adorns them. I know it's because Classic Fine Art is out of copyright, but I like contempory fine art, and would love to see more of this used. I like the fact that the Arden Shakespeare's have work by the 'Brotherhood of Ruralists' on their covers. I don't, honestly know whether I'd be quite so tempted to buy them, as opposed to a secondhand paperback, if they didn't. Oh well....I can probably find them as a secondhand paperback anyway, next time I go to Hay. I'd better take a shopping trolley, too.

Summary: