Last night on Work of Art, in a challenge that thrilled book-design nerds like us, the contestants were charged with designing covers for Penguin Classics. The winner, John Parot, made a gorgeous, colorful, semi-abstract image for H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. But the real loser was Jane Austen: Two Pride and Prejudice covers landed in the bottom three, and one — Judith’s horrible backwards-script design — got its creator booted. It was a horrible picture, but we’ve found five real Pride and Prejudice jackets that are nearly as bad. Give them a once over after the jump, and then cleanse your palette with a gorgeous one we stumbled upon in our search for the very worst.
Five ghastly Pride and Prejudice covers…
Somehow, this isn’t the first book we feel like reaching for…
Dramatic typography fail + awful audio icon
Pride and Prejudice and Twilight
Elizabeth Bennet, angry elf
Jane Austen for Shopaholic fans
… and one excellent one. Guess they don’t make book covers like they used to:
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Comments (9)
I actually love the penultimate one. AND I like chick lit. Yes, I said it.
The “angry elf” is actually a portrait of Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot, painted by Edouard Manet. The issue here isn’t so much that the illustration chosen to represent Elizabeth Bennet isn’t beautiful enough-Austen’s heroine isn’t meant to be a beauty. Rather, the cover is wildly misleading because it uses a French painting of an 1860s Parisian woman, instead of an 18th century British portrait of an English country woman. In other words: art history fail.
Actually, a lack of art history failed this cover creator, while some basic art history knowledge might have prevented such a blunder.
Isn’t the one Peregrine did on Work of Art similar? a similar sensibility? I got what she was trying to do
The chick-lit one isn’t so bad, it might actually attract a new type of readership for this classic, which is perhaps the point. But oh! The last cover is really gorgeous, especially after the first few ghastly ones.
Had to laugh at the Pride and Prejudice and Twilight one…I thought exactly the same thing when I saw the cover!
Actually, the P&P and Twilight is intentional. I saw it in a bookstore with a sticker that said “Before Bella and Edward.” They did something similar for Wuthering Heights Hey, whatever gets these young girls reading Austen instead of that other swill.
I actually don’t mind the penultimate one, as well. It could certainly be worse! The P&P + Twilight one…very scary. Why, oh why, did they try? The one with Austen displayed on the front is certainly not very appealing. You just hear the Year 11/12 students cringing from having to read a novel with a women like that on the front cover!
Oh yuck yuck yuck, twilight???? Urghhh, I’m a teenager, and if they just put a nice romantic cover, without seeming erotic of something like those romance novels, then any teen, well, girl, would wanna pick them up, and parents definitely can’t have a a problem.
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