Saturday, June 4, 2016

Cover Envy: Deanna Raybourn's Veronica Speedwell Series

Deanna Raybourn's latest mystery series stars a spunky lepidopterist named Veronica Speedwell defying gender conventions and solving crimes in Victorian English.  I haven't read the first book, A Curious Beginning, and the second book comes out in January 2017.  These books sound delightful, but I wanted to point out the newly designed cover for the paperback edition of A Curious Beginning, which comes out this July.  The hardback cover was fine, but nothing to write home about (you can see it below).  The paperback cover, however, made me, I confess, immediately preorder the book, because it is so cleverly designed.  It is meant to look like the elaborate and perhaps over-designed embossed leather covers of Victorian novels.  Barnes & Noble's Collectible Editions is based on the same type of design, an example of which you can see below.  Check out the Victoria Speedwell covers below. I love a trompe l'oeil cover design!


The hardback cover:

Here's an example of a late 19th-century embossed leather binding:


Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics



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