Mister and Missus: Update

A quick update to the remarkable conjoined Evan S. Conell Mrs Bridge and Mr Bridge books: I stole these pictures from the Twitter feed of book producer Ilaria Rovera, who made the lovely design work of Thomas Heatherwick and Claire Mason a physical reality.

 

Mister and Missus

An intriguing special edition of a book forthcoming from Penguin Classics UK has caught my eye, and also puzzled me. Evan S. Connell, whose chilling The Diary of a Rapist gave me the heebie-jeebies, wrote paired novels Mrs Bridge and Mr Bridge, telling both sides of the complicated story of a marriage. They're coming out in paperback, one this year and one next year, but Penguin is also releasing the two together as a pricey special edition that looks like this (click for bigger):

I'm not at all certain out how this set works, though I'm assuming both books have a notch in the spine and inner margins, which would make opening and reading them a bit odd. I'd love to see them in reality, or get more info, but Penguin remain weirdly reticent on their various websites and publicity places. For this reason I don't know the designer, either. UPDATE: The book is the work of designer Ila in collaboration with Thomas Heatherwick, with Claire Mason doing the interiors.

And even though they wouldn't fit normally into any bookshelf, I want them!

Here is the paperback of the first book, which drops the usual Modern Classics look for an mid-century feel: