Malika Favre's picto-porno-typographic cover for the Deluxe Classics edition of Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra, which I imagine will wrap all the way round the back and onto the French flaps. The red slashes of the gloves and stockings are the perfect extra element which makes this, I think.
See also Favre's rather more Sapphic variation on this, from her site (click for a bigger version, as the actress said to the bishop):
Then there's Max Ellis's cutaway cover for Titanic, First Accounts, another Deluxe Classics also making full use of the flaps. Here's the front and the full fold-out cover (sorry for the low-res version of the latter, but it's all I could find).
Here's a Max Ellis alphabet, vegetable in theme:
And finally, designer unknown, this simple but eye-catching cover for the great Nikola Tesla's autobiography, using the best handsome-devil photo of him that I know of.
Bonus content: The Doctor Who theme played on twin Tesla coils...
..and this great photo of Mark Twain in Tesla's lab, 1894...
Yeah, that Kama sutra does wrap to reveal the whole title made of the body letters. Great/simple idea, but the execution/style of the art is wonderful. Little bit of deco/art neuvo/egyptian—for a classic Indian text. Only under the auspice of Paul Buckley.
ReplyDeleteHe's a bit of a bugger, that Paul Buckley: after getting his book on 75 Penguin covers, I had to buy a whole lot of them because of their beauty, and now I've nowehere to put them...
ReplyDeleteI'll keep them safe for you;)
ReplyDeleteHave you seen Kate Beaton's comic on Tesla? He is/was famously known as a celibate if I'm not mistaken and to be among a post of book covers with erotic undertones is so deliciously funny:)
ReplyDeleteThough I'm a big Beaton fan (and am very much looking forward to her imminent book) I'd forgotten that one!
ReplyDelete