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A YOUNG MAN OF EXTRAORDINARY BEAUTY Oscar Wilde JOHN MORGAN Gareth Jones BOOK UK
A YOUNG MAN OF EXTRAORDINARY BEAUTY Oscar Wilde JOHN MORGAN Gareth Jones BOOK UK
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The Picture of Dorian Gray - the famous novel (his only work of fiction) written by poet by Oscar Wilde. This limited edition cover designed by Gareth Jones and John Morgan.
Published by Four Corners Books, London 2008
This cover, designed by Gareth Jones and John Morgan, seems to dismiss every preconception about the function of a book jacket. There is no mention of title, author or publisher, nor is there an image to evoke the content within. Instead, the designers chose a long quote – in a notably hideous font – to encapsulate this Faustian tale of the beautiful and the ugly.
Wilde was arguably always far more about aphorisms than narrative. This isolated single description, which dwells on the extract rather than the whole, manages to successfully distil the fundamentally epigrammatic nature of the writer’s only novel.
Jones and Morgan selected the font, the horrible “ITC Benguiat”, for its Art Nouveau pretensions. Designed in the 1970s, a decade which self-consciously looked back to fin de Siècle decadence, the typeface is used to echo the naughty 1890s. But it is also a reference to the Gitanes advertisements, featuring sideburned and moustachioed male models, which populate the inside of the book. It isn’t clear why the artists found Wildean resonance in the French cigarette brand, but it pops up again in the blue ground of the cover – a shade identical to that of Gitanes 20-packs.
The book’s large format refers both to the novel’s original serialisation in Lipincott’s magazine (which saw the first publication of many novels). The pages, featuring different font sizes, and super-sized extracts, do not make the novel easy to read. This is perhaps a direct jibe at Wilde’s observation: “The difference between literature and journalism is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read.”
This cover is certainly among the most striking and unusual of recent years, a bold use of typeface and an example of the still extraordinary power of letters and words in a field saturated with images.
First edition, long sold out.
Still sealed as originally published. Unopened, brand new.
This rare book and record set will be sent within a sturdy box for added protection.
CONDITION: Mint
CONDITION: Mint
Shipping includes insurance & online tracking. We are happy to combine post with other purchases from us.
B392 140311_4925
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