Dustjacket porn: Familiar faces

Back in April (see here) I told you a bit about my Fairy Godmother and the lovely things she had sent me after my updated Hopeless Wish List post (now already hopelessly out of date). In that post, I shared some of the luscious dustjackets she had scanned for me of some of Mabel Esther Allan's rarest titles, and I have more of those to share soon. But she also sent me a slew of other dustjackets from her phenomenal collection. In this post, I'm sharing jackets for some of the books I've already written about here in the past, but for which I had either no cover images or only very poor images from the internet.

First, off, at the top of this post, a book I loved so much I made it part of the first batch of Furrowed Middlebrow titles published by Dean Street Press. I first reviewed Frances Faviell's brilliant, gut-wrenching WWII memoir, A Chelsea Concerto, back in 2013, and at that time I had never even glimpsed the cover art. F.G.'s copy, and the wonderful photo of Faviell herself, is ravishing indeed.

Next up, another favorite from an author we'll be publishing this year. We're reprinting Verily Anderson's Spam Tomorrow in our batch of WWII titles this summer, but Daughters of Divinity is just as wonderful and I'm happy to finally see the lovely original dustjacket (complete with a quote from no lesser figure than Elizabeth Bowen praising Spam). I reviewed Daughters of Divinity here.

I wrote about Elizabeth Coxhead's A Play Toward in 2015 (here). I found a halfway decent cover image from the internet for that post, but nothing near as nice as F.G.'s full scan. I was lukewarm on the book then, but I have recently read a bit more Coxhead with better success, which I'll be posting about soon, so a revisit to this one might be in order.

A Play Toward is on my Grownup School Story List, and so is Elizabeth Lake's The First Rebellion, a favorite I also reviewed in 2015 (see here). I had a very shoddy cover image indeed at that time, so F.G.'s scan is an enormous improvement!

It's impressive that F.G. managed to find a copy of Fay Inchfawn's Salute to the Village (reviewed in 2013 here) with any dustjacket at all, and it was delightful to see how the book originally looked.

I had a decent front cover of Geraldine Symons' The Suckling when I reviewed it late last year (here), but it could hardly compare to the gorgeous full jacket image provided by F.G.

I've written about Ruth Adam several times, but her dustjackets are a challenge to come by. I wrote about Fetch Her Away in 2016 (see here), and the novel reflects Adam's passionate concern with social issues.

Just about my favorite of Ruth Adam's books, though, is A House in the Country, which I reviewed here, yet I had never seen this lovely dustjacket for it. The book is charming and humorous, as you might guess from this cover, but you might not guess from the illustration that Adam's social concerns are also present here, cleverly interwoven with her amusing plot.

Back to my Grownup School Story List, I reviewed Margaret Hassett's Educating Elizabeth in 2015 (here), but had also never glimpsed its cover. F.G.'s copy is a bit the worse for wear, but it's a pleasure to get to see it at all.

And finally, one last cover from an author we're publishing this summer. I never got round to reviewing Come, Draw This Curtain, though I did read it a year or two ago. We're publishing Kamm's earlier Peace, Perfect Peace (reviewed here), and you might just see more of those enthusiastic blurbs about it on the back of this cover. I also recently reviewed Kamm's Nettles to My Head (see here).

And that's all for now, but have no fear: This is only the tip of the iceberg of the wonderful dustjackets F.G. has provided. Next up are lovely jackets for some of the children's fiction I've reviewed here. And as I mentioned, there are more Mabel Esther Allan covers and many more from other authors coming soon. Thanks again to the very generous F.G.!