But You Can Judge the Cover by Looking At the Cover

One of my absolute favorite book series of all time has two new editions out. One is way too expensive for me and the other probably isn't but I wouldn't want to buy them anyway.

Between 1969 and 1999, Patrick O'Brian wrote twenty books about Royal British Navy Captain Jack Aubrey and his friend, surgeon and spy Stephen Maturin (An incomplete 21st book was released in 2004, four years after O'Brian died while writing it). The books are set in the time around the Napoleonic wars and have been called by many some of the best historical novels ever written. I can't find any reasons to disagree with those people.

For the majority of the series, the books were published by W.W. Norton & Co. in both hardcover and trade paperback (This is the company that gives so many college students back strain with its ginormous Norton Anthology of English Literature). The Norton editions featured cover paintings by artist Geoff Hunt that showed ships and sailors in mostly ordinary periods of work, rather than explosive battles sometimes favored by other artists. Two Hunt prints hang on the wall of my home.

Luxury imprint Easton Press is publishing its own leather-bound, gilt-edged editions of the 20 complete books at a mere $60 a pop. An ABE books listing for all 20 volumes of the Easton series was north of $2,000 -- well above the Easton price, but you don't have to wait 20 months for the whole thing to sit proudly on your shelf.

Harper Perennial is also reprinting the trade paperbacks of the series, offering short essays explaining some of the sailing technology and terms O'Brian uses and some things about the world of the time. That part is kind of interesting. But the covers...ugh. No Hunt prints. Instead, we have photos of one or two men in proper period costume that are posed in scenes that might come from the book. They look like bad romance novel covers except for the lack of open shirts, panting bosoms, Fabio or females. Winston Churchill may (or may not) have said that the major traditions of the Royal Navy were "rum, sodomy and the lash," but that doesn't mean I want visions of Aubrey and Maturin getting all Brokeback Mountain when I look at the cover of the book.

Fortunately the hardback editions, which I am gradually purchasing with the help of used bookstores and OKC's own Full Circle Books, are still printed with the Hunt paintings on the cover.

The way God intended.