Wednesday, 25 June 2008

Quentin Blake's Other Covers

Quentin Blake, born 1932, is deservedly well-known for his wonderful illustrations to his own and others' children's books: Roald Dahl, Russel Hoban, William Steig, Joan Aiken, JP Martin's Uncle books, and the wonderful Beatrice and Vanessa by John Yeoman, to name a few.

What is less known is his extensive background in providing covers for adult books, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. Usually using monochrome or limited colour schemes, his sketchy, appealing cartoons adorned a huge number of works.

Here, for example, are some of his Penguin covers for Evelyn Waugh (as always, click on the images for more detail)...




..and for Kingsley Amis (including Lucky Jim, one of my favourite books ever, so good it made the rest of Amis's fiction a significant disappointment)...



..as well as hardback dustjackets for Margaret Drabble...



..and lovely covers for the Folio Society editions of Orwell's Animal Farm, Gibbons's Cold Fomfort Farm, and Cervantes' Don Quixote.



Here are more of his numerous covers.



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4 comments:

  1. Juliet26 June 2008 at 02:35

    Fantastic collection - well worth highlighting. These have brightened my morning. Thanks!

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  2. JRSM26 June 2008 at 02:56

    Thank you: I've been meaning to write about him for a while.

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  3. Steerforth26 June 2008 at 04:25

    Brilliant!

    Where did you get all of these covers from?

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  4. JRSM26 June 2008 at 16:02

    Some of them--the Bradbury, Amis, Longrigg, a couple of the Waughs--I have. The others I tracked down through cunning ABE, Google Image and suchlike searches.

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