Look Smart Trivia: First Edition Book Jackets
7Very few iconic books emerge with their iconography fully formed. When a designer imagines a cover for yet another new edition of classic, there’s already a familiar set of images to work with. But the designer of the first edition jacket doesn’t know what scenes, characters, or symbols from the story will resonate in the public imagination. Here are five details from the first-edition covers of well-known novels that have since been reissued with all kinds of other covers. Be the first to name them below and you’ll score a $5 Meh coupon. Unfortunately, Meh doesn’t sell used books. Insert signoff catchphrase here!
Hail to the @sammydog01, who identified the sources of all five of our Fictional U.S. Presidents yesterday. Campaign finance laws specify that you’ll have to wait another week before you can add another $5 Meh coupon to your fictional campaign war chest.
- Mr. President
- The Second Civil War
- World War III
- The Man
- Decker
- 4 comments, 14 replies
- Comment
@carl669 The cover for A Handmaid’s Tale is so appropriate. In a creepy way.
@carl669
/giphy Fucking Wow!
@f00l Who would have thought @carl669 was such a smarty pants?
@f00l @sammydog01 - he’s really not. his google-fu was just strong today.
I would’ve guessed DaVinci Code for the first one, even though at 2nd glance, it looks like something Picasso would’ve done.
I’m curious though, why the barrel of the pistol in #4 appears to have been sawn off after the “SMIT” of Smith & Wesson.
Is that a snub-nosed .38? Did they really look like that?
Best guess is it was a way to avoid copyright infringement while still using an identifiable brand?
Things like this bug me - probably more then they should. (h/t Irk)
@DennisG2014 It also looks like the finger hole thing has been cut too.
@eonfifty Oh yeah. Weird. Maybe it is meant to be a customized, shortened pistol.
I just assumed a sawn-off pistol barrel wouldn’t have such a finished look to it, but maybe it was professionally done.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@eonfifty I wonder if anyone reading this has read the novel, From Russia With Love?
I’d be interested to know if the pistol on the cover is something that is described in the book.
I did a Google search to try to find out if that pistol is a thing in the book, but unfortunately the search-waters are muddied by the fact that there’s controversy over the pistol being held by Sean Connery in the poster for the movie.
Yeah - these things definitely bother me more than they should.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@DennisG2014 a factory snub nose .38 definitely does not look like that.
From Ian Fleming:
@djslack - That looks dangerous. They’re playing with fire.
@DennisG2014 @djslack “Dickie Chopping”
@JasonToon
/giphy Beavis and Butthead
@djslack Thank you!
@DennisG2014 The story gets further complicated in that during that time Boothroyd is questioned by authorities about a murder committed in his area with a similar weapon and had to tell the authorities what I picture as “I swear, I mailed it to the guy that writes James Bond”. There was a link to an article that went into that in greater detail but the link was no good. I’m almost curious enough to try to track that story down.
@DennisG2014 Boothroyd’s gun was a S&W “Lend-Lease” gun sent by the US to Britain in the early '40s to aid in their war efforts. I have one in the safe, but I’m in my office, so I’ll have to steal an image from the interwebs:
Although the painting is more of a morphed S&W Mod. 19 and the Boothroyd’s M&P. The cylinder length in the painting is too long for a .38 and more relative to the .357 cylinder on the Mod. 19, as is the front blade sight and rear adj. sight. S&W didn’t introduce the 2.5" Mod. 19 until the mid-'60s:
When Look Smart trivia is about vintage military firearms, y’all can just head home for the day.
Wait, so number 4 isn’t a Guns n Roses albums cover?
Sign-off catchphrase alternative:
“Apologies to Matt Rutledge, we ran out of time.”