Pennington covers

07/05/98 17:27 RE>Pennington covers

I wish. Sadly by the time Urth came out here it was with a non- Pennington - and quite naff - cover.

You and me both. Severian looks nothing like you would imagine, and the "ship" is a normal sailing ship hanging in mid-air behind him! It looks as ridiculous as it sounds. Back when TBOTNS first came out Arrow re-released a number of older Wolfe books, such as Cerberus, The Devil in a Forest, and The Death of Doctor Island and Other Stories and Other Stories, and they all had Pennington covers. They aren't as good as the New Sun ones, but they still have that certain something. That Urth came out without a Pennington cover is one of the crowning injustices of life.

I was interested to read the recent correspondence about cover art. I too have always liked the Bruce Pennington covers for TBOTNS – to my mind they seem to capture the atmosphere of the books. Mr. Wolfe himself once told me that he considered the Pennington cover for Shadow to be "the finest jacket art I've ever had". Indeed, that particular cover even inspired a passage in TUOTNS. In Chapter XXVI 'Gunnie And Burgundofora', Severian recalls himself as a young journeyman, "striding along, his fuligin cloak billowing behind him and the dark cross of Terminus Est rising above his left shoulder". Mr. Wolfe confirmed that he had the image from the Pennington cover in mind when writing that passage. These illustrations and others can be found in 'Ultraterranium, the Paintings Of Bruce Pennington' (Paper Tiger 1991). Gordon