The First Edition Covers of 25 Classic Books

by Emily Temple. Flavorpill -  Monday Aug 27, 2012

We try not to judge books by their covers — both proverbially and literally — but sometimes we just can’t help it. After all, the cover is your first impression of a book, and can inform the way you approach it. Plus, at least in our experience, any avid reader who carries a book wherever she goes has memories and feelings attached to it that can be instantly dredged up by a peek at the cover art. But of course, most book covers change over the years, whether minimally, correcting for modern fonts and colors, or maximally, going through radical change after radical change, each generation connecting (or not connecting) to a different design. With that in mind, after the jump, we’ve collected a few first edition covers of classic books, some of which may be familiar to you — a certain blue masterpiece will perhaps never fall out of favor — though some have been replaced by much more iconic imagery or fallen out of favor. Click through to reminisce over (or discover) 25 covers of classic books, and let us know if we missed your favorite in the comments.



Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. Olympia Press, Paris, 1955


Ulysses, by James Joyce. Shakespeare & Co., Paris, 1922


The Trial (Der Process), by Franz Kafka. Die Schmiede, Berlin, 1925



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