(Click to enlarge.)
I found a nice picture of these at Ebay today. Believe it or not, I had never seen the original 1st edition books with their original dust jackets. I really like these. Dust jackets today are so darn busy and flashy, but I find these to be very warm and inviting. They look the way books did when I was a kid going to the library. Simple and understated is better I think.
However, having said that, note that in the upper left corner of Out of the Silent Planet there's a drawing of a planet with a ring around it. The trip in that book was from Earth to Mars and back. Mars has no rings! In fact, only Mars, Earth, and Venus were featured in the three books. No rings around any of them. I bet Lewis wasn't too crazy about that dust jacket design to say the least!
Perelandra shows a drawing of huge castle-like ocean front house. I don't remember there being any houses at all on Venus mentioned in the story except maybe huts, and that's where the ocean was. It was a very primative land on Venus where a new Adam and Eve lived. There was a large country house on Earth toward the beginning of the story, but it wasn't near an ocean. What were the people who designed these dust jackets thinking?
Did I mention that the guy selling these books is asking $3,400 for the lot? I'll never understand the minds of collectors.
Amazing. Nice to see what these originals looked like. For some collectors the price is a bargain. Go figure.
ReplyDeleteThere was another guy selling the same three books for $1,500 that just had a tad more wear on them. Hideous Strength though, had a pretty good scratch across the front. Apparently it was enough to knock the price down that much. It's a nutty world collectors live in.
ReplyDeleteSome years ago while going through the shelves of the 'Bookworm' I found a paperback set with some pretty fine covers. I'll see if I can wrench them out of my sons grip for a bit and photograph them.
ReplyDeleteThe Dark Tower was one I read immediately after these and though some say it wasn't written by Lewis, I still enjoyed the imagery.