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By K. M. Newton

The painting The Fair Toxophilites: English Archers by W. P. Frith, dating from 1872, is one of a series representing contemporary life in England. Frith wrote that his”

“desire to discover materials for my work in modern life never leaves me … and, though I have occasionally been betrayed by my love into themes somewhat trifling and commonplace, the conviction that possessed me that I was speaking – or rather painting – the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, rendered the production of real-life pictures an unmixed delight. In obedience to this impulse I began work on a small work suggested by some lady-archers, whose feats had amused me at the seaside … The subject was trifling, and totally devoid of character interest; but the girls are true to nature, and the dresses will be a record of the female habiliments of the time.”

After Gwendolen Harleth’s encounter with Daniel Deronda in Leubronn in Chapters 1 and 2, there’s a flashback to Gwendolen’s life in the year leading up to that meeting, with Chapters 9 to 11 focusing on the Archery Meeting, where she first meets Henleigh Grandcourt, and its consequences. In the England of the past archery was the basis of military and political power, most famously enabling the English to defeat the French at Agincourt. In the later nineteenth century it is now a leisure pursuit for upper-class women. This may be seen as symptomatic of the decline or even decadence of the upper class since it is now associated with an activity which Frith suggests is “trifling and commonplace.” A related symptom of that decline is the devotion of aristocratic and upper-class men, such as Grandcourt and Sir Hugo Mallinger, to a life centred on hunting and shooting.

The Frith painting shows a young female archer wearing a fashionable and no doubt extremely expensive dress and matching hat. This fits well with the novel for Gwendolen takes great care in her choice of a dress that will enhance her striking figure and make her stand out at the Archery Meeting, since “every one present must gaze at her” (p.  89), especially Grandcourt. The reader may similarly be inclined to gaze at the figure in the painting. One might say that together with her bow and arrow Gwendolen dresses to kill, an appropriate expression for arrows can kill though in her case she wishes only to kill Grandcourt metaphorically: “My arrow will pierce him before he has time for thought” (p. 78). Readers of the novel will discover that light-hearted thoughts about killing Grandcourt will take a more serious turn later.

With the coming of Grandcourt into the Wancester neighbourhood through renting Diplow Hall, the thoughts of young women and especially their mothers turn to thoughts of marriage – there is obvious literary allusion to the plot of Pride and Prejudice in which Mr Bingley’s renting of Netherfield Park creates a similar effect. The Archery Meeting is the counterpart to the ball in Pride and Prejudice since it is an opportunity for women to display themselves to the male gaze in order to attract eligible husbands and no man is more eligible than Grandcourt. Whereas Mr Darcy eventually turns out to be the perfect gentleman, in Eliot’s darker vision Grandcourt has degenerated into a sadist, “a remnant of a human being” (p. 340), as Deronda calls him. Though Gwendolen is contemptuous of the Archery Meeting as marriage-market, she cannot help being drawn into it as she believes at this point that ultimately a woman of her class, background, and upbringing has no viable alternative to marriage.

While Grandcourt’s moving into Diplow Hall together with his likely attendance of the Archery Meeting become the central talking points of the neighbourhood among Gwendolen and her circle, the narrator casually mentions another matter that is being ignored – “the results of the American war” (p. 74). Victory for the North in the Civil War established the United States as a single nation, one which would ultimately become a great power. There is a similar passing reference later to the Prussian victory over the Austrians at “the world-changing battle of Sadowa” (p. 523), a major step towards the emergence of a unified German nation. While the English upper class are living trivial lives the world is changing around them and Britain’s time as the dominant world power may be ending.

Though the eponymous Deronda does not feature in this part of the novel, he is in implicit contrast to Gwendolen and the upper-class characters as he is preoccupied with these larger issues and uninvolved in trivial activities like archery or hunting and finally commits himself to the ideal of creating a political identity for the Jews. When he tells Gwendolen near the end of the novel of his plans, she is at first uncomprehending but is forced to confront the existence and significance of great events that she previously had ignored through being preoccupied with such “trifling” matters as making an impression at the Archery Meeting: “… she felt herself reduced to a mere speck. There comes a terrible moment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger destinies of mankind … enter like an earthquake into their own lives — when the slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an invading army or the dire clash of civil war” (p. 677). She will no longer be oblivious of something like “the American war.” By the end of the novel the reader looking at the painting on the front cover may realize that though this woman who resembles Gwendolen remains trapped in triviality and superficiality, the character created in the mind of the reader by the words of the novel has moved on from that image and undergone a fundamental alteration in consciousness.

 K. M. Newton is Professor Emeritus at the University of Dundee. He is the editor, with Graham Handley, of the new Oxford World’s Classics edition of Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.

For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford’s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. You can follow Oxford World’s Classics on Twitter, Facebook, or here on the OUPblog. Subscribe to only Oxford World’s Classics articles on the OUPblog via email or RSS.

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Image credit: The Fair Toxophilites by W. P. Frith. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The post The Fair Toxophilities and Daniel Deronda appeared first on OUPblog.

        

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Harvard University recently discovered three books in its collection that are bound in human hide.

The details make it sound more like the elements of a novel than of real life. One book was found in the Langdell Law Library, another in the Countway Library of Medicine, and yet another in the Houghton Collection. One book deals with medieval law, another Roman poetry and the other French philosophy. The book Practicarum quaestionum circa leges regias… doesn’t jump out as bound in human flesh, as The Harvard Crimson reports. Check it out:

The book’s 794th and final page includes an inscription in purple cursive: ‘the bynding of this booke is all that remains of my dear friende Jonas Wright, who was flayed alive by the Wavuma on the Fourth Day of August, 1632. King Mbesa did give me the book, it being one of poore Jonas chiefe possessions, together with ample of his skin to bynd it. Requiescat in pace.’

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What’s your favorite author photo? Love them or hate them, these photographs influence opinions about books.

If you look for “great author photos” online, all you will find is examples of bad author photos. So we want to see your favorite photographs.

No irony! Just show us the author photos that you loved. Share a link in the comments section and we will add your name and link to this post.

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Double-duty-book. You can read it, and when you're done, you can wear it. pic.twitter.com/4Od4xTPHqi

— Amy Tan (@AmyTan) September 12, 2013

Novelist Amy Tan inspired fans with review copies of her new novel to pose with the cover. As you can see by the photograph embedded above, her new cover looks very spook beside a reader’s face.

We’ve embedded a Storify post below collecting more fan-shots of the book. Check it out:

Yesterday, Amy Tan posted a playful picture of her forthcoming book, The Valley of Amazement. The result? A Sleeveface-like meme, as people lucky enough to have galleys of the book, which comes out in November, sent the beloved author their own half-face shots.

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Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual author and illustrator Bradley W. Schenck has released the Pulp-O-Mizer, a free online tool for making your own vintage-looking pulp fiction cover.

As you can see by the image embedded above, we created a GalleyCat logo straight out of classic science fiction magazines. Here’s more about the tool:

The rectangular cover images are a great choice for your blog posts, discussion boards, Twitter, and pretty much anything else… except for Facebook. For Facebook you should select one of the Square options (a square on a white background, or a square on black). Facebook does cruel and unusual things to the rectangular images, but the square cover images have been raised in hardened circumstances and trained to withstand torture. So they’ll be all right…

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Little, Brown Books for Young Readers has released the new cover for the next Lemony Snicket book. When Did You See Her Last? is coming on October 15th.

This is the second book in the “All the Wrong Questions” series, illustrated by Seth. The dispatch also included a YouTube conversation between Snicket and his pseudonymous creator, Daniel Handler.

Snicket also sent a curt letter along with the cover image: “Please immediately listen to

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Random House has revealed the cover for megabestselling author Dan Brown‘s new novel, Inferno. The book will be released on May 14th.

The cover features a portrait of Dante, the Italian city of Florence, and a diagram of the nine rings of hell. Inferno will revolve around Dante Alighieri‘s 14th century epic poem by the same name. You can download a free illustrated eBook copy of Inferno.

Brown had this comment in the release: “Although I studied Dante’s ‘Inferno’ as a student, it wasn’t until recently, while researching in Florence, that I came to appreciate the enduring influence of Dante’s work on the modern world … With this new novel, I am excited to take readers on a journey deep into this mysterious realm…a landscape of codes, symbols, and more than a few secret passageways.”

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When the UK publisher Faber released the cover art for a 50th anniversary edition of The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, online critics attacked the controversial cover image.

Below, we’ve collected parody book covers inspired by the updated cover, including A Hunger Games-themed cover, go-go dancers and clowns. What is your favorite?

The London Review of Books wrote about the controversy:

The first edition of The Bell Jar to appear under Sylvia Plath’s name was published by Faber in 1967, with a cover designed by Shirley Tucker. This month Faber have brought out a 50th anniversary edition of the novel (it was first published by Heinemann in 1963 under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas), with a cover about as far from Tucker’s Bridget Rileyish concentric circles as you can get: a stock photo from the 1950s of a woman with a powder compact. As Dustin Kurtz, a marketing manager at Melville House, tweeted, “How is this cover anything but a ‘f*** you’ to women everywhere?”

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Matthew Owen has won the  Fahrenheit 451 cover design contest from Simon & Schuster and the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

The winning cover (embedded above) was revealed at the ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Owen, who hails from Little Rock, AR, created a cover that beat out more than 360 submissions. Both the Simon & Schuster staff and the Bradbury estate participated in judging the entries.

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On his blog, artist Michael Whelan revealed how he painted the cover for A Memory of Light.

The blog article shares sketches, color tests and materials he used to create the action-packed cover. Darrell Sweet, the original cover artist for the series, passed away, so Whelan took over the design of the epic series.

Here’s more from Whelan’s blog: “I digitized all the existing cave and figure visualizations I had accumulated. In Photoshop, I played around with combining them in ways that might work. On my studio laptop, I set up a slideshow of the more appealing approaches and painted the figures selected into the backgrounds I had chosen. These I sent to Irene Gallo at TOR books for selection as a cover approach. Some were more highly developed than others—I learned long ago that the powers that choose such things tend to favor more finished concepts than looser ones—so naturally I tended to favor the concepts I was most interested in developing into a full scale painting.”

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Novelist Mazarkis Williams spotted a hooded man on four different fantasy covers and is offering a “bounty” for readers who can spot more examples in the bookstore.

Last week, the writer promised “a prize of arguably huge value” to anyone who can find the hooded man lurking on other book covers. He also offered “a prize of immeasurably less value” to any reader who can find five covers reusing another image.

Here’s more from the author: “Who is this masked hooded man? Where will he turn up next? Where else has he been already? Putting to one side the issue of this stock-character-of-easy-virtue I hope that the fact four such varied and fine (though I say it myself) novels lurk behind his menace is a fact that puts fresh shine on the well-worn directive never to judge a book by its cover.”

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Novelist Neil Gaiman revealed the covers for two upcoming books on Tumblr.

We’ve included the cover image poster for The Ocean at the End of the Lane above. Below, we’ve included links to free posters you can download for your computer.

The author also showed the Chip Kidd-designed cover for Make Good Art, a book version of the commencement address that Gaiman delivered last year.

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Over at SlackStory, artist Oliver Miller has created 8-bit covers for famous books, turning classic novels into pixel-paintings that look like video games from the 1980s.

We’ve embedded Miller’s cover for J.R.R. Tolkien‘s The Two Towers above, what do you think about his computerized take on the fantasy novel? The image above built upon Wizard by Radpants at Make Pixel Art and Towers by Mildtoast at Make Pixel Art. If you like his 8-bit art, Miller also illustrated the first lines of some famous short stories.

Here’s more from the artist: “I selected the novels above, not as a list of the Greatest Novels of All Time, or as a list of My Favorite Novels of All Time, but because they were (mostly) books that I love whose covers I knew how to illustrate. Full confession: I have not read An American Tragedy, and I think that Theodore Dreiser is a boring writer. I just liked the title. And I started reading Moby-Dick (“Call me Ishmael”) and Gravity’s Rainbow (“A screaming comes across the sky”) but I did not finish reading them. Someday I will finish reading them. I read all the others.”

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What book would you carry during a march? For the last few years, activists have created book cover shields to use for protests.

As you can see by the photo embedded above, these “Book Blocs” make a striking image during a protest. The Occupy Wall Street Library will host a workshop on July 29th, showing readers and activists how to use these tools.  Here’s more about the class:

Perhaps the most striking example of such deployment of books has been the Book Bloc—phalanxes of protesters hoisting large shields against lines of riot police, each emblazoned with the cover of a book. Book Blocs first appeared in Italy in 2010, and since then they have made their way to London, Spain, California, New York and beyond.  For this workshop, we will supply the materials and instructions to make our own book shields. Members of Occupy CUNY and librarians from the People’s Library will be on hand to talk about the history of the Book Bloc and spark conversation about the tactical and symbolic uses of books. Participants are encouraged to drop in for the workshop anytime between 2-5pm.

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The first issue of X-O Manowar featured a talking comic book cover (video embedded above).

With a smartphone and QR codes, the comic book company actually made the main character speak through the comic cover in a short video. Do you think more authors should experiment with this cover technology? The comic was written by The Surrogates author Robert Venditti with art by Eisner Award-winning Conan artist Cary Nord.

Here’s more about the comic: “Born into battle, Aric of Dacia — heir to the throne of the Visigoth people — has never known peace. After a brutal encounter with a mysterious enemy known as The Vine leaves him a prisoner on an alien world, the only hope Aric has of returning to his family and saving them from slavery is to seize a weapon of incalculable destruction and become X-O Manowar!?

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Vintage and Anchor Books art director John Gall has revealed the design for the paperback edition of 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.

We’ve embedded a photograph above–what do you think?

The New York Times had more details: “Gall, the art director for Vintage, designed the paperbacks to be visible through a clear plastic box, fitting together to create one image. The list price is $29.95, and Vintage will initially print 50,000 copies.” (Image link via Sarah Weinman)

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What if your book cover could interact with your reader? Drag your mouse over the book cover embedded above to see what the future might look like.

UK Publisher Walker Books just unveiled that cover for Daylight Savings by Edward Hogan. Impressed by the design, literary agent Jonny Geller tweeted a great question: “Better than a book trailer?”

Here’s more about the book: “Today, in fact right this second, the clocks are going back an hour. For most of us, this is a fantastic day as it means we get an extra hour to stay wrapped under the duvet, safe in our beds. But for one of the main characters in Edward Hogan’s debut young adult novel, Daylight Saving, this time of year brings nothing but fear… it’s a thriller ghost story by a new voice in YA fiction that will have you utterly gripped. We can also tell you that this very night, when the clocks go back, is one that fills the characters with dread.” (via Jane L.)

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In breaking summer publishing news, editor and freelance writer Michelle Witte has proven that Penguin Classics covers would make great band-aids.

Last week Penguin Classics unveiled a super cool limited-edition set of skateboard decks featuring cover art from Penguin Classics’ titles. You can actually win one of the skateboard decks if you submit a picture of a Penguin Classic and a skateboard. Follow this link for more information about the contest.

Inspired by the contest, Witte designed a set of band-aids with some hilarious choices of classic titles on the front. Here’s more from the post: “Skateboards are boring. But bandaids with Penguin Classic covers? Yes, please! So to make a pitch to the people at Penguin Classics, I offer my suggestions for extremely awesome bandaids featuring some of the great Classics book covers.”

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The cover for Robert Kirkman‘s first novel set in the world of The Walking Dead comic book series has been unveiled. Entitled The Walking Dead: The Rise of The Governor, the book debuts at the end of September.

Last year Kirkman landed a series book deal with the Thomas Dunne Books imprint at St. Martin’s Press. The first book in the series will be co-written Jay Bonansinga.

Above, we’ve embedded the cover for the new novel. SPOILER ALERT: The description of the book below reveals a few broad plot details from the comic book series.

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Author and Reddit user Max Barry convinced his publisher to let the Reddit community help pick the cover for his book, Machine Man. As of this writing, cover design #5 lead with nearly 80 votes.

Check it out: “Here are some images. I would deeply love to hear what you think, because getting the cover right is really important, and I’ve been staring at designs so long I can’t remember what books are supposed to look like. And I trust your judgment. Or, at least, I’ve been around Reddit long enough to know there are more smart people here than lunatics.”

Follow this link to see all the potential cover images on a single page. Leave your cover votes in the comments thread at this link. You can also sample the book in this online serial version.

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In the three-minute video embedded above, you can learn how to build an optical illusion for your book cover or book poster.

Cover designer Lauren Panepinto explained the process in this blog post as well. The project requires some editing tools, but produces surreal and beautiful results.

Here’s more about the project: “So what you don’t know is that the initial design was even crazier. I wanted to hide the cover text IN the optical illusions. Slight legibility problem, I admit, for a teeny book cover…but FABULOUS for a poster. And since I know you guys love these how-to videos, I screen-captured my process so you too can make your own Editable-Text Optical Illusion Poster…and melt the retinas of all your friends. After the jump you can even download the Illustrator file I used, and add your own text.”

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Designer Chip Kidd has made covers for Haruki Murakami for years, and he unveiled his latest cover for 1Q84 (embedded above) at the  Knopf Doubleday site.

His essay reveals more about the plot of this massive novel.

Here’s more from Kidd: “By using a semi-transparent vellum for the jacket, and printing the woman’s image in a positive/negative scheme with the title on the outside layer and the rest of her on the binding, once the jacket is wrapped around the book it ‘completes’ the picture of her face. But something odd is definitely going on, and before the reader even reads a word, he or she is forced to consider the idea of someone going from one plane of existence to another.”

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Graphic designer Rodrigo Corral (pictured, via) has been named creative director at Macmillan’s Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG). According to Unbeige, Corral actually worked at FSG from 1996 to 2000 following his graduation from the School of Visual Arts.

Here’s more from Unbeige: “He begins in his new post early next month and will continue to run Rodrigo Corral Design, the nine-year-old studio behind such memorable book covers as those for James Frey‘s A Million Little Pieces, a shelf of Chuck Palahniuk novels, Debbie Millman‘s smashing How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer, and Jay-Z‘s recent memoir-cum-lyrical codex, Decoded.”

Rodrigo’s work has appeared in New York Magazine, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Book Review. His art has also been seen on books published by Simon & Schuster, Penguin Group (USA), and W.W. Norton.

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As self-published books multiply, a new generation of amateur designers are working on their own book covers. We attended the inaugural day of the  Blurb Pop-Up store in New York City (pictured) this afternoon, covering  the “Compelling Cover Design Workshop.” Designer Alan Rapp shared the most common mistake he saw amateur cover designers make–lack of experimentation.

He explained: “One of the tendencies that people have–I don’t even know if I would call it a mistake–is to be too conservative with topography. At publishing houses, when designers are submitting book designs, they don’t present one idea. They present at least three to five ideas. It manifests something that’s latent, something you didn’t imagine. What I like about Blurb is you can do that kind of experiment. I can do a number of versions, and I can see how they will feel.”

If you want more book cover deign resources, check out our collection of book cover resources for self-published authors. We also encourage self-published authors to RSVP for our Book Pitch Party on November 3rd.

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Garth Williams‘ original graphite-and-ink cover for the E.B. White classic, Charlotte’s Web sold for $155k at auction. Altogether, 17 bids were made via internet, phone, and mail on the Heritage Auctions item.

Besides the original cover, another three items were included in the lot: “a 14 x 16.5 in. ink drawing of a web that was used to create the decorative end paper design for the book, and two 9 x 8 in. watercolors of the cover design.”

According to The Washington Post, the auction organizers originally estimated it would go for $30,000, but it exceeded expectations by more than 500 percent. 42 of Williams’ art pieces were sold in the same auction and in total, the collection grossed more than $780,000. The New York buyer for Charlotte’s Web preferred to remain anonymous.

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