Suddenly Wells Everywhere

In 1946, having recently published the short but aptly-titled Mind at the End of Its Tether, H. G. Wells died. And thus 2017, which is 70 years later, sees him drop out of copyright in much of the world. And lo, there suddenly shall come forth a torrent of Wells.

Vintage Classics UK is one of the first to have a go, with these eye-warping 3D covers. Vintage Classics used to compete with Penguin Classics, who have the paperback rights to Wells while copyright lasts. Now Vintage is wned by the same people, Penguin Random House, so they will be going into competition with themselves, but I'm sure this makes sense to an accountant somewhere.

Oxford World's Classics are being rather more sober about things (I do like the Moreau cover, but the others are a bit bland).

Alma are adding him to their Evergreens catalogue...

..while Gollancz/Weinfeld & Nicolson, who currently only have hardback rights to Wells, are shuffling a whole lot into paperback (more on these here):

 

Collins Classics are doing their usual quickie covers...

..and the Macmillan Collector's Library are having a go too:

Vintage US is bringing out a couple...

..and finally we have Wordworth Classics, if you want ugly but cheap editions.

The five most popular choices in all this lot are, of course, five of Wells's best-known books, and for a good reason. Each of them effectively created a branch of science-fiction that would have countless imitators and followers over the next century-and-more (The War of the Worlds: alien invasion, The Time Machine: time travel, The First Men in the Moon: space exploration, The Island of Doctor Moreau: biological/genetic engineering, The Invisible Man: superpowers), but it's nice to see a few of the neglected social novels getting some attention too. In this respect, Peter Owen is standing out from the crowd: they're republishing only one Wells, and it's completely SF-free.

The Rooks Have Come Back, Again

Three recent editions of great books by great Russian writers; one cover image.





The painting is the atmospheric 'The Rooks Have Come Back' (sometimes called 'The Flight of the Crows') by Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov. (Click for a much bigger version.)



You can see that by tweaking the colour values towards the yellow and away from the blue, the Oxford Chekhov book gets a much more sunny feel: you wouldn't know at first glance that there was snow on the ground.

Savrasov (1830-1897) lived the stereotype of the Russian artist's life: commercial family background, early promise, European travel, success and fame, alcoholism, failure, penury, lonely death, only one mourner at the funeral. A collection of his moody, human-free landscapes is online here.

As for the three books: Ivan Bunin is somewhat neglected these days, but his short stories and novellas are wonderful (though best not read en masse, as they all tend to end in the same way); Turgenev is fantastic at bringing together a small community of disparate characters, often related in various complicated ways, and setting them loose on one another; and Chekhov is still THE short story writer to beat. You can't go wrong with any of them.

Another One of These

These two ladies are much in demand on classics covers, but they don't look very happy about it.




They're the The Two Sisters by Danish painter August Andreas Jerndorff.

Lempicka

Tamara de Lempicka--the Polish bisexual Art Deco painter and refugee from Nazism; born Maria Górska before marrying the adventurer Tadeusz Łempicki; resident of Poland, Russia, Switzerland, France and the US--is one of those painters most people know the work of without necessarily knowing anything of the artist. Her distinctive, somewhat unsettling paintings crop everywhere, and are much used on the covers of books.

Here are six of the many books about her. The woman in the green Bugatti on the first cover is a self-portrait.



Given the era in which she flourished, her work is well suited to decadent (or allegedly decadent) books from the inter-war years...




..and she is much used on the covers to feminist books with a transgressive or sensual/sexual bent..



..as well as sinister stories with strong, morally ambiguous female characters*...



..books by, about and for selfish motherfucking fascists "objectivists"..



..and all sorts of other books.


She gets around.

*In Nabokov's wonderfully black and cruel Laughter in the Dark, the main character marries a young movie starlet. When he is blinded she secretly moves her lover into their house. Said lover then proceeds to creep silently around the house, tormenting the husband, who is never sure if the sounds he hears are real or delusions. Nasty, gripping stuff.

UPDATE: Boktoka pointed me in the direction of another Lempicka cover, this one from Sweden: