a propos our Lolita Cover Contest
Orion Books’ imprint Weidenfeld & Nicolson has commissioned new cover artwork from Minneapolis-based advertising agency Fallon for limited editions of nine works of fiction to celebrate their sixty years of publishing, among them
“…Lolita featuring a cherry die-cut and an endpaper by Louisa Scarlet Gray. Cherries ripening on the tree have come to be associated with feminine chastity and, when plucked, the loss of innocence or virtue. The bright end-papers featuring drawings of dolls further plays on this duality and that of child versus adult.”
It’s a curious cover. I’m not so sure about those cherries nor, for that matter, the endpapers. Cherries, really? To me it seems almost shockingly kneejerk. The endapers are curious as well. Other books in the series seem not to have fared much better, relying as they all do on a single cut out image through which a small portion endpaper shows.
