I blame Simon – he started this off last week with posts on bad book covers for classic novels – Wuthering Heights after seeing this post on bad Jane Eyre ones.
I thought I’d have a go too – and rather than choose a Victorian novel, I came a little back up the timeline and have plumped for Daphne Du Maurier’s best-known book, Rebecca. Here goes – my selection of bad or funny or just plain plain covers…
Left – The first edition is the ‘Ronseal’ cover – does exactly what it says on the tin – twice!
*
Right – The ‘Cookson’ cover, for misery romance fans.
*
*
Left – The ‘Zaphod-Beeblebrox’ cover – Mrs Danvers seems to have another head growing out of her arm.
*
Right – The ‘Sting’ cover – ‘every breath you take, I’ll be watching you’…
*
Left – The ‘Wilkie Collins’ cover. This one’s not bad, just on the wrong book!
*
Right – The ‘On the Beach’ cover – this reminds me of Nevil Shute’s apocalyptic novel.
*
*
Left – ‘The Moody Redhead’ cover – with the strange black mark on her chin.
*
Right – ‘The Saloon Bar’ cover for lovers of Western-style fonts.
*
Left – The ‘Gothic Manderley’ cover, where the house is a witches castle.
*
Right – The ‘Don’t look now’ cover.
*
*
Left – ‘The Mrs Danvers is sweet really’ cover.
*
And finally – The ‘Jeffrey Archer’ cover – Not a penny more, not a penny less!
*
Maybe these covers aren’t generally as bad as the ones Simon found, but I enjoyed thinking of captions for them.
I quite like the ‘saloon bar’ image, though the font isn’t the best! – what a great collection.
Love the captions Annabel – and some of those covers are just *so* awful! The “Gothic Manderley” cover is very typical of a lot of the books my mum was reading as I grew up….
Very funny, Annabel! I enjoyed these a lot – and had no idea Rebecca had come in for so many dreadful covers! The head growing out of Mrs Danvers’ arm is especially odd…
You´ve made my day.What were they thinking when they “designed” the “Jeffrey Archer” cover? 😀
There is something I love about a bad book cover, I think it’s the idea that it just looks unique on my bookshelf, especially if it’s an old copy. But sometimes, you just wonder what the publisher was thinking.
Your captions for each cover were perfect! Such an awesome post…thanks for the laugh.