Put away that e-reader and take a peek at the incredible book cover art of Richard Tuttle. Tuttle, whose work was recently featured at Book Patrol, creates one-of-a-kind bindings for classic novels, interpreting the stories as beautiful, often cheeky sculptures. Tuttle explains: “I make literary artifacts. They are designed to pull books down off the shelf and display them in the salon, gallery or home as if they were works of art, which, of course, they are. Whether binding books with leather, paper, paint, wood, and found artifacts or building sculptures to encase the volumes, I seek to find a perspective that shouts out a piece of the essence of the literary work. I try to put myself in the author’s or character’s mind to say something about the time it was written in; the attitude that is explored and expressed; the magic that makes it a work of art.” Most of these unique editions are available (for a pretty penny) at Franklin Books. Even if you don’t have the cash, you can ogle them to your heart’s content after the jump.
The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
Animal Farm, George Orwell. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
Catch 22, Joseph Heller. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
Dracula, Bram Stoker. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa, Jacques Levy. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez/The Henry Miller Trilogy. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books
Walden, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Image Credit: Richard Tuttle/Franklin Books