More Blood-Curdling Shenanigans

A couple of months ago I looked at the available covers for the upcoming series of horror classics from Penguin. Two titles at that point were without cover designs: The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins, and The Virgin of the Seven Daggers by Vernon Lee, which was also the only book in the series I hadn't read in some other edition, and knew nothing about.

Well, here are those two covers, which are a lurid match with the rest of the set.



And here's the blurb for Virgin...: "The brutal Don Juan – an unrepentant sinner – makes a pact with the Virgin of the Seven Daggers. He promises to forever proclaim her supreme beauty and asks that in return she save him from damnation. Emboldened by the deal and driven by insatiable greed, he embarks on a necromantic journey to an enchanted palace beneath the Alhambra. In an orgy of beasts, demons and slumbering infantas Don Juan is called upon to uphold his side of the bargain and in doing so lose everything his lustful heart desires."

So, yes, I'll be getting that.

UPDATE: The most excellent Coralie Bickford-Smith informs me that she is responsible for these brilliant covers. She says that "[t]he process I used was inspired by Romek Marber, a freelance designer noted for his work on Penguin crime books in the 1960s. Like Marber I have used light sensitive paper to produce stark graphic images."

I also find that Coralie did the covers for the Penguin Red Classics adventure books I discussed in an earlier post. For more about Romek Marber, see my Simenon Retro post.