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Friday, March 28, 2008

His Illegal Self -- US and UK editions

On top, the US edition. The UK edition is below.

Interesting what cropping and type can do: glancing at these very quickly (and conveniently ignoring the title), the US edition clearly registers as fiction to me, while the UK version could very well be a non-fiction book about raising earnest kids.

(A reader says: The chronology of these covers is that Barbara deWilde took the existing UK cover and reworked it for Knopf. Thanks for the info.)



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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

What? A US cover that's *better* than the UK cover? ZOMG!

Let me bask in the glory of this moment for just a minute. Ahh...

Annastacia said...

A very good point. Such a subtle difference, but a very poignant one.

Anonymous said...

Love the US cover. The UK version reminds me of the cover of A.M. Homes' book The Mistress's Daughter--the full-on face shot and the blue eyes.

Anonymous said...

It's bizarre how similar the covers are and yet the UK one just looks so dull. A shame, because I went to a talk/reading by Carey t'other week and he's such an amazingly fun and interesting guy and the book sounds like a great read. I'd love it, Mr BDR, if you did a comparison of the UK/US latest Julian Barnes. The UK version is really typical and dull (compared with Arthur & George) but the US cover, with its Death tarot card, is pretty cool. Thanks!

MrSneeze

Anonymous said...

The chronology of these covers is that Barbara deWilde took the existing UK cover and reworked it for Knopf.

Joseph said...

Thanks, anon!

Anonymous said...

Call me boring, but I like the UK cover - are the boy's eyes different colors?

Anonymous said...

The mention of the Booker Prize might also help categorizing the book as fiction ;)

Peter Cooper said...

I'm surprised at the comments here :) I'm British, but I find US covers to be generally significantly better than their UK counterparts (Penguin excepted ;-)). I'm not sure why the US gets the more powerful covers, but there you go.

(That said, I much prefer browsing in US book stores than their UK equivalents too, so perhaps this all says more about my Americentrism than anything else!)

roguescholar said...

Not sure why, but I HATE when the author's name is larger than the title...more so than the phrase "a novel"