Cover art for Delany's 'Dhalgren'

[peteryoung]

Back in April I mentioned that at Eastercon the SF artist Chris Moore had offered to send me a proof print – absolutely free – of his recent cover for the SF Masterworks edition of Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren.

Well, it's now up on the wall at home in Hua Hin, framed in black, with cream and black mounting boards beneath non-reflective glass. See how the original art compares with its final appearance on the book cover:

 

And yes, Gollancz did insert the missing 'R.' from Delany's name before it went to print.

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Is the main character white?
And I am curious about the distinctively "Mission District" architecture in the background which I do not associate with the donut hole northern cities of the setting.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

IIRC Kid had a Native American mother. The model for the illustration is one of Chris's sons.

I must get round to re-reading this someday, it was a defining book in my life at the time I read it, when I was 20.

[grytpype-thynne.livejournal.com]

It appears to have been colour-graded, or whatever. Can't let go of the 'yellow' thing , can they? I know to certain class of science fiction fan the colour yellow combined with the publisher's name has a nostalgic imprimatur of quality but book sellers seem to have hated the bloody things on the trivial grounds that they didn't actually sell..

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

Can't let go of the 'yellow' thing , can they?

Nope. And I heard Malcolm Edwards created the SF Collectors' Series because he felt Gollancz ought to have some stuff out there with yellow covers. They didn't really sell either, but at least they looked a bit classier than yer average bog-standard papperbok. And as physical books go I still prefer to read them more than the Masterworks format.