Vinyl Covered Cardboard Book of Art From the 1960s

First things first. What makes a book cover iconic? At that place are no hard and fast rules, of form—similar anything else, y'all know it when you see information technology. Merely in society to compile this list, I looked for recognizability, ubiquity, and reproduction—that is, if there are a 1000000 Etsy stores selling t-shirts/buttons/posters/tote bags with the book comprehend, or if someone you lot know has always dressed up as it for Halloween, or has a tattoo of it, it probably counts as iconic. That is: the most iconic volume covers exist as cultural artifacts that are attached to, but slightly separate from, the books they were designed for. (That'southward an admittedly hazy threshold, but what isn't these days?)

At that place is some relationship, of course, between a book's inherent popularity and endurance (nosotros might phone call this its "classic" condition) and the recognizability of its cover, peculiarly its commencement cover, if it was washed correct, and there can also be a relationship between the quality of blueprint itself and its iconic-ness, but neither of these things are necessarily predictive. For instance, I would argue that, famous every bit the volume may exist, there is no iconic encompass of Lolita. The iconic epitome that yous're thinking of—eye-shaped sunglasses, etc.—is of course from Stanley Kubrick'due south movie adaptation, and while information technology has been used in various means on multiple Lolitareprints since, that'southward non quite the aforementioned affair. There are plenty of terrible covers forLolitaand also some good ones, only this isn't quite enough either. Conversely, there accept been hundreds of cute or clever or well-designed covers published over the years, just very few have actually made information technology to cultural icon status. We hold out hope.

Northward.B. that I excluded children's books for this list, even The Hobbitand The Fiddling Prince, iconic though they are! (The rules are slightly dissimilar for children'south books, in my stance, and so that'southward an run a risk for another time.) It also feels a piffling premature to count anything published in the final 30 years as "iconic," and so you lot won't see more contempo-but-recognizable covers likeConversations With FriendsorA Footling Lifehere either. Icons to exist, mayhap. Finally, this list necessarily comes from an American viewpoint—I'd love to hear if there are other book covers that are more iconic than these in other countries.

pride and prejudice hugh thompson

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice; cover design past Hugh Thomson, 1894

There are innumerable different covers for Jane Austen'south nearly beloved novel, simply this ane—which originally covered the start fully illustrated edition of the novel, published past George Allen—was not only the most popular edition at the time but continues to be the version nearly used for merch.

great gatsby book cover

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby; encompass art past Francis Cugat, 1925

This may be the most recognizable book embrace in American literature, but it also has an unusual history. For one thing, it was the only cover that Spanish creative person Cugat e'er designed. For some other, he completed the piece of work before the manuscript was finished (he made $100), and it appears the encompass really influenced the book. "For Christ's sake don't requite anyone that jacket you lot're saving for me," Fitzgerald wrote to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, "I've written it into the book." This might have been a response to a sketch rather than the finished product, but either way, information technology influenced—and became—an American classic.

bravenewworld

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World; encompass design by Leslie Holland, 1932

In that location are several categories ofBrave New Worldcovers: pill covers, auto part covers, clone covers, and earth covers—many of which visually reference the original by Leslie The netherlands, which is yet the near celebrated and iconic, despite the fact that Holland had famously never even read the book.

Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire; cover art past Alvin Lustig, 1947

The lithograph of Alvin Lustig's cover for Williams' play, which was published in hardcover by New Directions in 1947, is part of the permanent collection at the Cooper Hewitt museum.

J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye; encompass design past E. Michael Mitchell, 1951

Salinger was notoriously strict about the way his books were presented (you lot may recall that this is the only one with any kind of image at all). His close friend Eastward. Michael Mitchell was his neighbor in Connecticut while he was writing his nearly famous work; reportedly, Salinger read bits of the book out loud to his friend as he was working on it, and eventually asked him to design the comprehend. Like the Austen above, information technology has been reproduced countless times on endless pieces of merchandise, and has graced more than a few dorm room walls in its time.

Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Human; cover design past Edward McKnight Kauffer, 1952

Invisible Human is sort of unusual, as literary classics go, in that it has seen a slew of cracking covers (my favorite is probably the Vintage Books 30th Anniversary edition) and few offensively bad ones (though I practice find the current UK Penguin Classics edition to be rather also cute). Merely the starting time edition cover is all the same the most iconic—peradventure because of McKnight Kauffer'southward groundwork as a poster artist. And it turns out that McKnight Kauffer designed a lot of interesting covers in his fourth dimension, including a 1938 edition ofRebecca and a 1941 edition ofThe Maltese Falconthat I had never seen earlier.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451; cover pattern by Joe Pernaciaro, illustration by Joseph Mugnain, 1953

It looks a petty dated now, simply it's notwithstanding the virtually recognizable—and iconic—cover for this beloved classic.

Robert Bloch, Psycho; cover design by Tony Palladino, 1959

Bloch'southward typographical blueprint for Bloch's novel was so successful that Alfred Hitchcock purchased the rights to information technology for the film's promotion; it too influenced Saul Bass' opening credit sequence. Co-ordinate toThe New York Times, Palladino "said the design—stark white messages torn and seemingly pasted together against a black background to resemble a ransom note—was intended to illustrate typographically the homicidal madness of the novel'due south protagonist, Norman Bates. 'How do you do a improve image of Psycho than the word itself?' he said." Indeed.

to kill a mockingbird

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird; cover design by Shirley Smith, 1960

Though there take been plenty of dissimilar covers for Lee'due south Pulitzer Prize-winning classic—later all, it's been translated into more than 40 languages and sold over 40 million copies—this outset edition embrace is still what you lot'd get if you say, went online to buy information technology correct now. If you felt moved to look around for something else, you would exist at least every bit likely as not to observe i that was somehow picking up on that original tree motif. Though of course there'south the start British edition. A whole different vibe.

catch-22

Joseph Heller, Catch-22; encompass pattern by Paul Bacon, 1961

Only likeTo Kill a Mockingbird, in that location have been a few redesigns of Catch-22 here and there, but the original has stuck. In a lot of ways, Paul Bacon is but every bit iconic as any of the covers on this list—he is credited with inventing the "Large Volume Look," which Steven Heller summed up in a 2002 issue of ImpressMag: "large, bold championship, prominent author's name, modest conceptual paradigm." Seen any of that around recently? I thought so. "His great innovation, in a way, was to rearrange the hierarchy of the book jacket," Peter Mendelsund told ThinkProgress a few years ago. "There was a time when book jackets had to be filled, top to bottom, with realistic illustration. . . . Paul's piece of work brought into high relief that what we exercise is create bureaucracy. When people talk near the Big Book Look, what they really hateful is one element on the jacket is being foregrounded, is really big, and is crying out for your attending."

That's not the only reason nosotros remember Bacon's work so well. "Sometimes with a jacket, what you're trying to do is substantially make the book, as you would a corporation," Mendelsund said. "You find some method, typographic or some emblematic image that will correspond that thing. The brands that have survived in corporate culture are unproblematic: they're like shooting fish in a barrel to remember, they're centre-catching. And so I think he sort of took that fashion of thinking — I don't know that he thought that overtly — only when I look at his jackets, I run across that beautiful simplicity."

Truman Capote, In Cold Blood; cover design by South. Neil Fujita, 1966

Co-ordinate to theTimes, when Fujita commencement presented this cover to Capote, it was much the same—except for the coloring. The hatpin, with its tip "similar a swollen drib of blood" was red; Capote objected, arguing that the crime wasn't fresh enough for red claret. In response, Fujita "changed the color to burgundy and added a funereal black border to the jacket."

the godfather puzo

Mario Puzo, The Godfather; cover design by South. Neil Fujita, illustration by John Kashiwabara, 1969

Much similarPsycho, this encompass has benefited from being used to promote the picture adaptation, which was, in this instance, the highest grossing film of 1972, and at the time the highest grossing film ever made—non to mention i of the nearly influential. Non a bad recipe for iconic-ness.

Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; cover design by Janet Halverson, 1969

One of the near beloved—and merchandisable—book covers on this list. Halverson designed a lot of classics, including Angelou'south Gather Together in My Name, which picks up on the imagery from this iconic cover, and Joan Didion'south Play Information technology As It Lays, just I could notice very footling information about her. More than biographies of female volume cover designers, please.

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-five first edition

Kurt Vonnegut, Abattoir-Five; encompass design by Paul Bacon, 1969

Another Paul Salary classic for a volume that has been recovered endless times—this i has been mostly replaced in schools with the Dell paperback edition from the 90s, but it holds its own in the t-shirt market place. Did you always find that the second 'Southward' is upside down?

portnoy's complaint

Philip Roth, Portnoy'south Complaint; embrace design by Paul Salary, 1969

Paul Salary overload, I know—only this assuming typographic embrace manner is not just still recognizable every bit Portnoy shorthand, but besides gear up up a design scheme for all of Roth's covers from 1969 to 1975, even as he moved from publisher to publisher.

the bell jar 1971

Sylvia Plath, The Bong Jar; cover design by Amy Isbey Duevell, 1971

Though I likewise considered the 1966 pattern past Shirley Tucker for Faber and Faber (the ane with the hypnotic concentric circles), Harper & Row's get-go American edition introduced Davida as the unofficialBong Jarfont, which can at present be plant (along with the rose motif) on quite a number of editions of the book.

a clockwork orange

Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange; cover design past David Pelham, 1972

About of the covers on this list are first editions, but David Pelham's paperback edition of A Clockwork Orange came out a full decade after it was commencement published. Information technology was a tie-in edition to go on with the release of Stanley Kubrick'due south film adaptation, only it was a piffling scrap of a curious one: Kubrick forbade Penguin from using any elements from the movie's affiche, designed past Philip Castle, in the new edition, so Penguin's art director, David Pelham, commissioned an entirely new ane. Unfortunately, the designer he contracted turned in a cover Pelham hated—well later the deadline. So Pelham was forced to pattern his own version, on extremely brusk find. Turns out he works well under pressure—the cover has go a much-used and reused shorthand for both book and film. Besides, socks.

Peter Benchley, Jaws; encompass pattern by Paul Bacon, 1974

Another example of a pattern idea and then vivid that it followed the book everywhere. Later on Runted'south salesmen rejected the first proposed cover for Benchley's debut—"a peaceful unsuspecting boondocks [shown] through the bleached jaws of a shark," which was Benchley'south own vision—editor Tom Congdon and fine art director Alex Gotfryd settled on a stark typographical jacket. They printed 30,000 copies—but when Bantam's publisher Oscar Dystel saw it, he balked. The balance, as Ted Morgan explained it inThe New York Times Magazine, went similar this:

"Without an paradigm," [Dystel] said, "No ane would know what Jaws meant. It could have been a book about dentistry." He asked Congdon to put a shark on the jacket. Congdon went to encounter Gotfryd and said: "Dystel wants an illustration. He's advanced a lot of money. I think we should honor his asking." Gotfryd stifled his exasperation and called artist Paul Salary, who made a rough layout of the enormous head of a fish.

"Why can't we have a swimmer also to take a sense of disaster and a sense of scale?" Gotfryd asked. Salary came in the next morning with the completed jacket, an open-jawed shark's caput ascent toward a swimming woman. Dystel was pleased and wrote Congdon on December. twenty: "The jacket pattern for Jaws is much improved. If yous sell 100,000 copies nosotros'll follow you to the letter of the alphabet."

"Nosotros realized that the new version looked like a penis with teeth," Congdon said, "merely was that bad? I placated Alex by buying him a $17 necktie at Paul Stuart."

Turns out, it wasn't bad at all.

Toni Morrison, Vocal of Solomon; embrace design by R. D. Scudellari, 1977

Anecdotally, this is the volume cover I run into near oft on t-shirts. It'south about the same color scheme equallyPortnoy's Complaint, though I much adopt this custom type treatment, with the stacked os and hidden face up.

the white album joan didion

Joan Didion, The White Album; comprehend design by Robert Anthony, 1979

The paperback edition of Slouching Towards Bethlehem—you know, the one with the spectacles—was a contender here, but the truly iconic cover is this one.

the color purple

Alice Walker, The Color Purple; cover design by Judith Kazdym Leeds, 1982

Though I really call up The Color Purple has one of the nigh elegant movie-tie in covers I've always seen, there'due south no beating the simplicity and power of the original.

milan kundera the unbearable lightness of being
Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being; cover design by Fred Marcellino, 1984

The hat that launched a chiliad tattoos (and other imitations). Fun fact: Marcellino is also the designer behind my favorite comprehend forThe Handmaid's Taleand Jonathan Franzen's first novel, among others.

confederacy of dunces

John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces; cover design by Charles Rue Woods, 1987

The lid that launched a thousand Halloween costumes. The image is a take, of course, on the black and white first edition original, merely this version—and this color scheme—take get much more iconic.

Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park first edition

Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park; cover pattern past Chip Kidd, 1990

Another book embrace whose iconic condition was cemented when its imagery was used for a very popular picture—and information technology might not be a coincidence that Kidd's first instruction, from Sonny Mehta, was to remember ofJaws. "I'thou like, 'Okay. Y'all want to make something that's going to be as iconic for this book equally the picture show poster ended upwards being for Jaws,'" Kidd told Spark & Fire. "And I remember at the time thinking, 'Correct, like that'south always going to happen. At that place's no mode in a one thousand thousand years that I am going to ever exist able to do that.'" And yet. . .