Essential Penguins Return

Every now and then Penguin fire out a burst of Essentials, a series that usually consists of books from the Modern Classics line, rebranded as smaller paperbacks with eye-catching covers. The thinking is that these will appeal to the sort of people who would not pick up a classic. Who are these mad people? Can we give them a good pummeling?

After a long period of quiet, a new batch of 10 have just been released, with cover designs by a range of contemporary artists. Click for bigger versions.

Design by Joe Cruz

A typically violent Cleon Peterson design

One of my favourites in this series, by JP King

Design by Camilla Perkins; I'm not sure that this quite hits the spot: see this post for numerous other takes on the Triffid

Design by Mr Foxx

Another favourite, by Australian typographer and illustrator Georgia Hill: she painted the lettering on glass and then took a hammer to it for the final photograph 

The third of my favourites, a creepy work by Karl Kwasny

Design by illustrator and comics artist Jon McNaught

Design by illustrator and children's book artist Carson Ellis

Design by Emily Sutton