Vampire Lit: Classic Pulp Re-Covering Tradition

Just glance at the cover of HarperCollins’ new edition of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and you’re likely to experience a sense of déjà vu. The font (zephyr btw), the deep black background, and the use of a crisp, singular image are all familiar hallmarks of a certain series of vampire novels that’s currently devouring the globe. Lest this should escape notice, there’s also a cartouche that reads: “Bella and Edward’s Favorite book.” If, for some reason, that’s still not enough for you to connect the dots, then you’re probably not part of the demographic HarperCollins is gunning for. But covers and content have a proud history of incongruity.

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Whether the Twilight-tweens and their ilk will fall for this kind of bait-and-switch is anybody’s guess, but I can’t fault the publisher for trying. Reading is, after all, fundamental, and it follows that almost any gimmick that gets people doing more of it is above reproach. Those who might decry the shamelessness of it all are just being naïve, as this sort of thing’s been around forever. Check out some of the more glaring attempts to smuggle high literary art into the hands of the unwitting that occurred during the 40s and 50s, when pulp editions of canonical works were commonplace.

UPDATE: Whoops, turns out these first three were gag covers commissioned by Slate.

These, however, are legit vintage pulp: