Scholastic is releasing a special 10th anniversary edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. There's new cover art depicting Harry looking into the mirror of Erised, as well as additional artwork from Mary Grandpré. Plus, there's a tantalizing comment in the press release about bonus material from J.K. Rowling. To see the new cover up-close and personal, plus a beautiful illustration of Hagrid and the first years sailing across the lake, go to Scholastic's website.I love the new cover, particularly the way you can just barely see the shadows of Harry's parents in the mirror. I'm not quite sure why there's a skull and a glass eye on the right hand side of the illustration.
My husband recently made an interesting point about the cover of the American edition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There was such an unbelievable amount of secrecy about revealing the plot of the book before the publication date. And, yet, the cover of the book shows the absolute climax of Book 7 and the whole series.
It was right under our noses for 3 1/2 months and nobody picked up on it. I've got to give Scholastic a lot of credit for being gutsy.There are two new polls up on the sidebar about the new edition. One of them asks if you like the old cover better than the new one. Here's a picture of the original cover of the American edition so you can compare:
Hrrm. I don't really think that the cover art for Book 7 really gives that much away. Most of the books had a show-down of the type depicted in the art, and it seems to reason that most of the readers would assume that there would be an ultimate showdown between Voldemort and Harry in the final book.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you posted this -- I am a HUGE HP fan, and am thrilled to see the new cover, which I like much more than the original!
ReplyDeleteI'm curious now as to the bonus content from JKR -- it's intriguing enough that it makes me want to buy the book...
My boss and I were talking about this over the summer. Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban both show the ending, but we never realized it until the end of the book. I actually think that the HP7 deluxe cover gave so much more away. I kept waiting for the dragon to appear throughout my reading of the Deathly Hallows and was surprised when it wasn't the end of the book!
ReplyDeleteAlso, my friend photoshopped the Deathly Hallows cover by adding a Frisbee in between Harry and Voldemort. It totally works.