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.

[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...

[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.

[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?