Happily, Penguin have commissioned Magnum photographer Harry Gruyeart to produce new images for each of the books. His photograph for the first book is especially appealing, with a man who could be Maigret wandering along a seafront in end-of-the-world light.
The next five covers are these...
..the last of which nicely echoes this frame from the 1932 Renoir movie of the book.
As yet another example of why stock photos can be a problem, have a look at these books. In each case the image is well chosen and nicely used, but they've ended up looking the same.
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| A "funky for young persons" edition of the Bible |
It's also been on a CD:
There's more Simenon cover coverage in these posts.
7 comments:
It is indeed an admirable project - one that will see me spending a lot of money - but I do wish they'd do some of his non-Maigret ones (too). NYRB has a handful, but otherwise they're really hard to track down.
I've been trying to collect all the silver Penguin Modern Classics editions of the Maigrets recently - 14 in total, I think they did. They had such wonderful covers...
They were beautiful, with the peeling posters.
Some of the non-Maigrets are probably his best work: NYRB has cherry-picked some good ones, but there are plenty of others, most of which I have as old, orange-spined Penguins.
I've been looking through other Maigrets I've collected over the years, to work out which ones I own, since some of these new translations have different (and more accurate) titles, and there's a big risk of doubling up.
Even without the different titles there's the risk of doubling up - I have recently ordered two separate copies of 'Maigret in Court', curse my stupidity...
And yes, while the Maigrets are good, quick fun, the 'hard novels' are my preference. Any publisher that started a serious reprinting series of those would have my heart. NYRB's rights are in the process of elapsing on those, I think, so maybe someone else can swoop in & pick the whole lot up?
Having recently finished the French original of Penguin's first Maigret release, I'd say the cover is perfect. I hope the translation is as good.
In the US, I know Melville House has also published a few of Simenon's non-Maigret books, The Train and The President. Not sure if more are forthcoming.
Matt - good one. I forgot those the other day, but I do have them. 'The Train' in particular is excellent.
David, Ii don't know any French so I can't say for sure, but the translator is David Bellos, and he knows his stuff.
The Melville House titles are very well chosen.
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