This, the latest post in my Beasts! series, was unexpectedly difficult to compile. While it seems there isn’t a book cover in existence that couldn’t be improved by putting on a bird on it, bugs are, at least by comparison, somewhat rare. While I assumed that bees, beetles, butterflies, centipedes, flies, spiders, termites et al would naturally lend themselves to evocative book designs, we are apparently still quite squeamish about creatures with six legs or more. That said, today’s post includes far more rejected (and short-lived covers) than previous instalments in the series, which that it isn’t necessarily the designers who are afraid of creepy crawlies, but rather other decision-makers in the process are worried about their negative influence on sales. Hopefully some of these covers will change their minds about that…
The Acid House by Irvine Welsh; design by Matt Broughton (Vintage Books)
Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer; design by Charlotte Strick; Illustration by Eric Nyquist (FSG / February 2014)
Arcadia by Lauren Groff; design by Will Staehle (Voice / March 2012)
Babayaga by Toby Barlow; design by Gray318 (Corvus / February 2014)
The Bees by Laline Paull; design by Steve Attardo (Ecco / May 2014)
The Bees by Laline Paull; design by Jo Walker (Fourth Estate / May 2014)
Beautiful You by Chuck Palahniuk; design by Rodrigo Corral Design (Doubleday / October 2014)
Bone Gap by Laura Ruby; design by Michelle Taormina (Balzer + Bray / March 2015)
Boxer Beetle by Ned Beauman; illustration by Lorenzo Petrantoni (Sceptre / August 2010)
Brodeck’s Report by Phillipe Claudel; design by Anna Heath (Quercus)
Bug Music by David Rothenberg; design by Ervin Serrano (St. Martin’s Press / May 2013)
Carnival by Rawi Hage; design by Brian Morgan, illustration by Lorenzo Petrantoni (House of Anansi Press / August 2012)
Chop Chop by Simon Wroe; design by Ben Wiseman (Penguin / April 2014)
Cockroach by Rawi Hage; design by Albert Tang (W. W. Norton / October 2009)
Cockroach by Rawi Hage; design by Bill Douglas (House of Anansi / unused)
Constant Gardener by John Le Carre; design by Stuart Bache (Sceptre)
Crowd of Sounds by Adam Sol; design by Bill Douglas (House of Anansi / April 2003)
Electricity by Victoria Glendinning; design by David Mann (Pocket Books / April 2006)
Escaping into the Open by Elizabeth Berg; design by The Book Designers (Harper / August 2012)
Fever by Sonia Shah; design by LeeAnn Falciani (Picador / June 2011)
The First Principles of Dreaming by Beth Goobie; design by Natalie Olsen / Kisscut Design (Second Story Press / September 2014)
Generation A by Douglas Coupland; design by Jennifer Heuer (Simon & Schuster / June 2010)
Generation A by Douglas Coupland; design by Books We Made (Tropen / August 2010)
Ghost Moth by Michèle Forbes; design by Kathleen Lynch / Black Kat Design (Penguin Canada / October 2013)
A Sting in the Tale by Dave Goulson; design by LeeAnn Falciani (Picador / April 2014)
Hurt Healer by Tony Nolan; design by Connie Gabbert (Baker / unused?)
In Translation edited by Sherry Simon; design by David Drummond (McGill-Queen’s University Press / unused?)
The Marriage Game by Alison Weir; design by The Book Designers (Ballantine / unused)
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka; design by Jamie Keenan (W. W. Norton / February 2014)
Missing Link by Jeffrey Donaldson; design by David Drummond (forthcoming)
The Moth introduced by Neil Gaiman; design by Dan Stiles (Serpent’s Tail / August 2014)
My First Kafka by Matthue Roth & Rohan Daniel Eason; design by Richard Rodriguez; cover illustration Rohan Daniel Eason (One Peace Books / June 2013)
Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn; design by Stuart Wilson (Picador / April 2012)
Original Sins by Peg Kingman; design by Darren Haggar (W. W. Norton / September 2010)
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville; design by Crush Creative (Pan Books / May 2011)
Possession by A. S. Byatt; design Vintage Design (Vintage / December 2009)
The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida; design by Kai & Sunny (Sceptre / July 2013)
Royauté by Alexie Morin design by Catherine D’Amours / Pointbarre (Le Quartanier / October 2013)
The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes; design by Keith Hayes (Mulholland Books / June 2013)
Swallow by Theanna Bischoff; design by Natalie Olsen / Kisscut Design (NeWest Press / February 2013)
Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe; Holly MacDonald (Bloomsbury / October 2009)
Why You Should Read Kafka Before You Waste Your Life by James Hawes; Design and lettering by Steve Snider; Illustration by Douglas Smith (St. Martin’s Press / July 2008)
