Four Corners

Just when you think there's surely no gap in the classics literature market for another publisher, along come Four Corners Books and their 'Familiars' series. They take classic, "familiar" texts and present them anew in strange, unfamiliar guises (while leaving the actual text intact, I hasten to add: these are respectful as well as playful publications).

The first Four Corners Familiar is Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. Designed by John Morgan and artist Gareth Jones, it presents the book in the form of a 1970s fashion magazine, complete with period ads and photographs.



In another break from tradition, the cover features neither author nor book title, just an appropriate quote from the text.



The second Familiar is Bram Stoker's Dracula. A plain, boldly coloured hardcover, it contains atmospheric drawings by James Pyman, and uses a welter of appropriate typefaces for all of the different voices and sources which make up the novel (newspaper articles, diary entries, wax cylinder recordings, letters, etc).




The most recent Familiar is an unfinished Kafka novella, Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor, about a man who comes home to find that two bouncing plastic balls have invaded his home. The illustrations by David Musgrave are "a series of pencil drawings of curious artefacts and archaeological fragments invented by the artist".




There are more books to come in this series, and given that each of them only costs the same as a standard trade paperback I suspect Four Corners are onto a winner. They're currently accepting proposals from artists at any stage in their careers, represented by galleries/agents or not, for further books in the series.

UPDATE: The magical John Self has a review of Blumfeld over at Asylum, with lots of pictures to give you a better idea of what the book looks like in the flesh.