Book review: Jane Austen Cover to Cover by Margaret C. Sullivan

The twenty-fourth book I read in 2018 was Jane Austen Cover to Cover: 200 Years of Classic Covers by Margaret C. Sullivan.  This is a lovely little coffee table book with full-color images of the covers of various editions of Austen's novels over the years, from first editions through movie tie-ins to mash-ups.  Some are lovely; some are laughable; and a great multitude are anachronistic, particularly when it comes to fashion and the current standard of beauty.

Some gleanings:

The famed Peacock Edition of Pride and Prejudice was published in 1894 and was so iconic that, despite peacocks not being mentioned in the text, many later covers revert to the theme.

Northanger Abbey wins the category of most inappropriate cover art, with many illustrators and marketers taking at face value the Gothic trappings Austen was parodying.  (Sample cover blurb from the 1965 Paperback Library edition: "The terror of Northanger Abbey had no name, no shape -- yet it menaced Catherine Morland in the dead of night!")

There is an e-book which manages to misspell both the title (Sense and Sensibility) and the author's name on the cover.

Oldcastle Books published a faux-pulp edition of Pride & Prejudice, featuring a Colin Firth portrait with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and the cover blurb "Lock Up Your Daughters... Darcy's In Town!"

This book definitely stirred up my never-very-dormant collector's vibe.  One disappointment, however, is that Sullivan often discusses the interior illustrations of a particular edition but provides no images.  I suspect that the rights might have been expensive and/or unavailable, but I'd frankly rather she didn't bring them up than talk about them and leave me hanging.