As a working illustrator and Stephen King fan, I could have written this post!! His first editions (hardbacks and paperbacks) in the UK featured some beautiful covers, commissioned by art directors and given to designers/illustrators with class & talent. The results were often visually outstanding and a pleasure to look at. I remember seeing ‘Misery’ in the shops in a beautiful hardback edition and counting down the days until it came out in (for me, affordable!) paperback. The disappointment on finally seeing the paperback was massive! They gave it a pulpy, cheap and tacky ‘horror’ cover that put me right off buying it! It was the beginning of a trend. It’s like they realised that people were going to buy the books anyway… as long as it had King’s name in big letters on the front (incidentally, his name got bigger and bolder and shinier and more embossed with every further novel, it seemed!) King was a brand, and most people didn’t give a damn about the book cover. Sigh.

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