Hello booklover, and welcome to today's episode of Beautiful Books, which is a guide to collecting
the Penguin Deluxe Classics series. I know I often review a lot of more expensive hardback
books on this channel, but I do like to also call out more affordable editions as well,
and this is one series that I have many books from on my own shelves.
Now, there are well over a hundred titles in this series, so what I’m going to do
is just talk a little bit about the series while I show you all the covers in order of
production because I quite enjoy seeing how the designs have progressed over the years.
For some of my favorite designs I’ll do a bit of close-up, but if you are
interested in any of the titles, I have made a complete list of all the books that I put on
my website which I’ll link below, and this is where I have added in lots of important
details like who wrote the introduction, which translation is used, the cover artist, etc, etc.
I thought I might add a bit of a game to this video which you can play along with even if
you’re not an avid collector. So, see if you can guess which titles have been the best sellers,
which titles have different covers depending on whether you buy them in England or America,
which authors have the highest number of their books represented in the series,
and which book has been published with a record number of 3 different covers. And
then you can see if you’re right as you watch the video!
So this paperback series of ‘deluxe editions’ includes many, many world classics, and each
volume features wraparound cover art by renowned comic artists, illustrators and graphic novelists.
Like most paperbacks, the volumes are glue-bound, but this is one of the rare paperback series for
which Penguin actually do use acid-free paper. All of the books in this series are very nicely
presented with matte paper covers made of a lovely dense card, wraparound art on French
flaps (so it looks like a mini-dust jacket) and deckled page edges. Penguin usually make use of
excellent up-to-date translations for the books in this series, and the volumes typically include
extremely valuable notes and introductions by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors.
The books follow a mostly cohesive size and presentation structure
and the series overall seems to be primarily under the design direction of Paul Buckley,
but there are lots of variations in different interpretations of the series
design brief by the different artists, which makes for a really fun collection.
There are also several sub-series within the collection as well, such as the Graham
Greene Anniversary Centennials, the Couture Collection by fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo,
the Penguin Threads Children’s Classics, and the Graphic Deluxe Edition titles which feature covers
by renowned comic artists. Now, I have a lot of fine press editions of the classics already
in my library, but I find these paperbacks useful additions as well because of their affordability,
great notes, and how easily portable/lendable/annotatable they are.
Sometimes you not only get different cover designs for different countries but also even
different experts write the scholarly notes depending on which country it was printed in,
which i have to say rather surprised me.
Because the series features such well known classics, the cover illustrators have been
able to seize a creative freedom to break the conventional rules of cover art design.
This is one of the reasons that the covers for this series are so striking – the artwork choices
include bold and dramatic interpretations, as well as simple but coy designs. Being Penguin
publications, the titles do skew heavily to your typical English classics, but there are
also classic volumes from other cultures featured, and the translations chosen are always top notch.
There are sure to be a few titles in the collection that you haven’t yet read.
The comic book cover designs in this collection are quite an arresting contemporary interpretation
of the classics, and I think they do an incredible job of reminding the reader
that some of the works that we now consider “classics” were considered trashy, or humorous,
or perfectly relatable, or even completely outrageous at the time they were first published.
The pairing of comic artist with the contents has obviously been done with great care,
and the cover art style complements the novels brilliantly.
I'm going to go quiet for a few minutes now while you just enjoy the art but naturally
I'll keep popping back in with comments as we go.
so I want to call out this group of novels here, which is known as the Couture Collection,
which is a set of iconic novels that were “dressed” as it were in watercolor, pencil or ink
by acclaimed Cuban fashion illustrator Ruben Toledo. They were released in 2009 and 2010.
I love the slyness of the character’s faces, and I think the covers manage to capture both
the period feel of the novels as well as a modern haute couture vibe. Ruben has said that he hadn’t
read the novels before the cover assignment, so he came to them fresh and visualised them
as animated movies in his head as he was reading. He then created these beautiful evocative abstract
images in order to create a cover that draws in readers across different generations.
The cover for the Kama Sutra is very much not-safe-for-work – not at all what you’d expect
on a typical Penguin novel, and the illustrator actually created an entire alphabet to go with it.
This is another collection that I want to highlight, the Penguin Threads Collection.
The books in this collection are romantic and child-friendly classics
that feature cover art that was originally hand-stitched using needle and thread,
then sculpt embossed on both front and inside covers for a textured, tactile reading experience.
I've included a few images of both inside and outside covers because they're really cool.
The first three covers were by Jillian Tamaki, and the second three are by Rachell Sumpter.
Okay, we're getting close to the end - how did you go with your guesses?
The best sellers have been the Penguin Threads and the Couture Collection that I highlighted
earlier - in fact the Penguin Threads Emma and the Picture of Dorian Gray from the Couture
Collection are both currently out of print. The titles that have different covers and
introductory notes depending on whether you buy them in the US or the UK are Sense and
Sensibility and Persuasion by Jane Austen, as well as Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.
Super annoyingly and irresponsibly they have the same ISBN so you really have
to be careful when purchasing if you're doing it online if you're after a particular cover.
The book that has had three covers is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott,
but American readers have to be a little careful here because in the UK
publication of Little Women was split over two volumes so British editions of the first part
(which is called Little Women) may seem incomplete to you.
The final question - which was which authors have the highest number of their books represented in
the series - has a few different answers. Jane Austen is always a good guess here and if you
consider the fact that the Penguin Deluxe Classics series includes a volume called
The Complete Jane Austen, you could say they've published all seven titles. But strictly speaking,
there have only been four individual volumes plus the omnibus, giving you a total of five books.
The Graham Greene Centennial Collection, published early on in 2004, actually features six of his
novels. But in fact, on track to beat them all is Proust. In addition to his collected poems,
we also have his seven volume masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. However this collection
features a completely new translation, and so far only five volumes have been published
starting in 2004, meaning he is presently still tied with Graham Greene for the number of books.
However, the sixth volume is due in January 2021, and we also have the seventh volume to
follow at a later date. But i'm happy to call you a winner if you picked any of those three authors.
There are also a couple of fun new volumes due out shortly,
and I'll add these to the end of the reel.
I hope you enjoyed this trip through all the covers in the series. I really think it's such
an interesting collection of designs! I'm sure there are one or two cover designs that tickle
your fancy, and I'd love for you to share them in the comments. There's also a really interesting
volume that delves into the cover design of this series and several others called Penguin Classics:
Cover to Cover which i really enjoyed reading, and can recommend if you like that sort of thing.
As I mentioned earlier, I'll link below to my list of ISBNs and other details because there's
too many to fit them all in the description box. Please do hit the like button if you enjoyed the
video, and if you're new to the channel double tap the bell and subscribe if you want to be notified
about any of my future videos - my annual Christmas collection is coming up soon...
'Til next time, bye!
please do hit the like button if you enjoyed the video and if you're new to the channel
double tap the bell and subscribe if you want to be notified about my future videos
my annual best of you review is coming up soon and that's always a lot of fun till next time bye