Tuesday 24 March 2009

Shorts

The alleged unsaleability of short story collections is much remarked upon (I don't know what they mean: I buy enough of these books to keep a small national economy afloat), so I assume that the logic behind this attractive series of books from Harper Perennial US is to lure people towards new writers via a known quantity.

Each of these six 250-odd-page collections features a bunch of short stories from the author on the cover, along with a bonus story from a contemporary writer with a collection in-print with Perennial. I have mixed feelings about the idea, but the execution of the cover designs is both simple and elegant.








Anything which gets the short fiction of Crane and Cather into wider hands is OK by me (the others too, but I suspect they need less of a push).

I'm not sure who to credit for these covers, but they're really nice. I think (and hope) that they're photos of little cardboard stand-ups, rather than being computer-generated, but either way they're nifty.

UPDATE: Helpful commenter BKLYNmle tells me that these covers are the work of Adam Johnson. And they are photographs of real paper cutouts. Huzzah! The spines also fit together to make a single image...

5 comments:

Levi Stahl said...

Wow, those are some nice designs. And though I agree with you that the concept is a bit strange, it sounds like something that could be promising--does the featured author add an introduction or any such explanation of why he or she is being paired with this particular great?

May have to buy the Stephen Crane one, as all I've read is The Red Badge of Courage.

JRSM said...

As far as I'm aware, the story is just printed at the back, as part of that DVD-extra-style 'PS' thing Perennial do. Very odd.

Fulcanelli Photoblog said...

Now, I'm not sure, but these covers are similar to the work of Damien Poulain (http://www.damienpoulain.com/), so it may be him...

Anonymous said...

I know the designer. Here's his website: cmykadam.com. He did photograph cutouts.

JRSM said...

Great! I'll update the post with that info--thanks!