Sunday 20 December 2009

Twenty Thousand Streets, One Cover Image

One of my favourite books by one of my favourite writers, the Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky trilogy by the great Patrick Hamilton, has recently been rejigged in the cover department by Vintage UK. Unfortunately, it's been rejigged to look the same as a couple of other books that already exist.

 
 
 

Before the update, it featured possibly the least prepossessing barmaid in history...




This is from a Bill Brandt photo, 'Barmaid at the Crooked Billet, Tower Hill 1939'.



And before that, it looked like this...


And way back in the misty past, like this (an edition which now will set you back between $2000 and $5000, depending on condition).


This is as good a place as any to have a small whinge: Hamilton's much-praised first novel, Monday Morning, remains out of print and also completely unavailable, both second-hand and in libraries. Two different publishers have assured me over the last couple of years that they were going to reprint it in the very near future (at one point it was meant to be a Faber Find). No luck. Somebody needs to publish that book NOW, or my wrath will be terrible indeed.

UPDATE: John Self points out what I had forgotten--that NYRB also publishes Twenty Thousand Streets..., with a rather nice cover (designed by Katy Homans) using 'The Long House (red Bathroom/Blue Figure)' by Laurie Simmons.


5 comments:

Deb said...

Those have got to be the suckiest bunch of covers ever for a really great book. Perhaps that could be a new catagory: Great books that never got the great covers they deserved.

Re the barmaid: Someone sent me that picture once with "Knees up, Mother Brown" written on the back. It certainly gave a chuckle to the English amongst us.

Brian Busby said...

All these years I've thought that the barmaid was actually a man who served up drinks at some transvestite club in Weimar Berlin.

Somehow, knowing the truth actually makes the image seem more frightening.

John Self said...

The NYRB Classics one isn't bad, though it doesn't entirely sum up the book either.

JRSM said...

I can't believe I forgot about that edition.

JRSM said...

Right, now it's added.