What's in a cover

[pbray]

I continue to be amused by the differences between the cover art for the US and UK editions of the Harry Potter books. The newly revealed covers for HP7 continue the trend.

Illustrations behind the cut for kindness.



US cover (one size fits all):

UK children's cover:

UK adult cover:

Note novel text exactly the same, only difference between children's version and adult version is the packaging.

Comments

[naomikritzer]

We have all of them in British editions, all with children's covers. We should probably get the children's edition with this last one, for consistency......but the adult cover is beautiful.

[naomikritzer]

Also, I'm surprised the American publisher doesn't do separate editions just to double-dip all the people who would buy both.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I agree the adult UK covers are gorgeous--I'd love to have them myself. Given that there's even a "special edition" of HP7 coming out, it seems that the publisher recognizes that there's a collectors market out there. So perhaps it won't be long before they start double-dipping.

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

I do prefer both UK covers to ours. I assume that the US gift/collectors edition will have a slight different cover though, because that is what they did for the last two books.

The UK cover appears to be a bit of a hint perhaps...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Be interesting to see what they come up with.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Agreed on all counts. Some of the US cover designs look ... phoned-in to me, and, considering how irritating I found the interior design (with the stars and stuff) in the first (younger, shorter) book, I'm not sure I could get through any of the later ones in that format.

FYI, if you like the UK covers but don't want to pay extra for shipping from the UK, you can order the Raincoast editions from Chapters Indigo (www.chapters.indigo.ca) or amazon.ca; they are identical to the UK editions inside and out (except they say Raincoast on the spine), but you get a bit of a break on the currency exchange.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Oops.

It turns out you're not allowed to do that: http://www.raincoast.com/harrypotter/faq.html.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Bah! That seemed like such a good plan.

I've seen the UK editions at sci-fi cons in the dealer's room, once the initial frenzy of the new releases has died.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

It did, didn't it?

I'm always having Good Ideas that turn out to have Fatal Flaws. Sigh.

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

If you look at the covers in closeup, one of the most intriguing things is that in the UK Children's Cover, Harry is clearly AN ADULT. Ron and Hermione are on the edge of teen/adult, but I don't think anyone looking at the facial structure and musculature on Harry would think he was a boy.

In the US cover, on the other hand, Harry is shown as an older teenager.

Does this reflect the differences in UK/US opinions of the maturity of someone who is 17/18? Or just the UK cover recognizing that Harry's experiences have matured him well before his time?

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I also have the impression that the UK covers were scarier than the US covers (here Goblet of Fire springs to mind).

I was most struck by the Harry as lone hero versus the group shot on the UK cover.

Well, that and the fact that on the UK cover it appears that Harry and friends are posed in front of the Stargate, while an enormous (yet unseen) creature vomits on them.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Harry and friends are posed in front of the Stargate

That's what I said, too!

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

My first thought was that the UK cover looks very Terry Pratchett.