Monday, 19 April 2010

Repackaging Fitzgerald

Penguin repackages F Scott Fitzgerald at an ever-increasing rate. Coming in October are six of his books as a set of hardcovers, with subdued era-appropriate dustjackets. I don't have the designer information as yet. What do you think?

UPDATE: The designer is the brilliant Coralie Bickford-Smith, who I interviewed here. The covers will be printed on metal foil, giving them a gorgeous 1920s Art Deco look. Beautiful!








For comparison, here are the first of Vintage US's Fitzgerald reissues.


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13 comments:

  1. Anonymous19 April 2010 at 16:25

    Hope they fix the title of The Beautiful and Damned (no second "the") before publication. These are pretty and Fitzgerald-ish, but only the Gatsby one, with its oddly interrupted and slightly warped pattern, really feels like the book.

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  2. JRSM19 April 2010 at 16:42

    Well-spotted! I dodn't notice the rogue 'the' at all.

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  3. Brian Busby19 April 2010 at 17:49

    The superfluous "THE" would guarantee a sale to this Fitzgerald collector. Can't say I'm in love any of these covers. The Penguins remind me of endpapers... and, as a result, cheap Dover Thrift Editions like The Cherry Orchard. The Vintage editions are fine, but uninspired.

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  4. JRSM19 April 2010 at 17:53

    They do look like those cheap Dovers, don't they--from before they started using images on the covers. I'm hoping there'll be some metallic ink treatments or some such to spice them up a bit.

    The bonus 'the' may make it onto the final cover: Penguin did publich a Modern Classic version of 'Lolita' with the author named as 'Nabkov' on the spine, and an earlier Fitzgerald collection confuses stories 'The Cut Glass Bowl' and 'The Bowl' in the blurb, describing the football story as a creepy tale of supernatural revenge, or something along those lines.

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  5. JRSM19 April 2010 at 17:55

    And, inevitably, there are typos in my complaint about other people's errors.

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  6. Laura Ottina20 April 2010 at 01:05

    I do love deco patterns, but I think the previous comments are right, and the addition of some special touch would really help... and yes, metallic ink would be great.

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  7. Craig D.20 April 2010 at 13:51

    I'll hang on to my cheap (relatively: cover price $14) paperback of Gatsby with the original cover artwork framed in the center: http://tinyurl.com/y6q692d

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  8. JRSM20 April 2010 at 15:45

    Having talked to the designer, the excellent Coralie Bickford-Smith, I can confirm that the covers will be printed on metal foil, so will have a beautiful finish.

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  9. Anonymous20 April 2010 at 22:25

    I've been looking for The Great Gatsby here in my country for about three weeks now. Nothing. I did find those mass market Penguin paperbacks. They looked really sad.

    Now these. These are gorgeous.

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  10. Sasha20 April 2010 at 22:27

    I've been looking for The Great Gatsby here in my country for about three weeks now. Nothing. I did find those mass market Penguin paperbacks. They looked really sad.

    Now these. These are gorgeous.

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  11. Susan22 April 2010 at 14:19

    Does anyone know if these will be widely available? Or are they "exclusives" for a UK bookstore chain (as the clothbound classics were)?

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  12. JRSM22 April 2010 at 15:30

    Susan, they'll be available in the normal way: no irritating exclusives here.

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  13. Anonymous14 May 2010 at 20:53

    I can't say those Penguin covers excite me at all. Still, the original artwork for Gatsby (which Fitzgerald approved) has to be one of the most hideous book covers ever, so I'm sympathetic to the idea of redesigns.

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