I’ve always loved putting together collections of Virago cover art, and I thought it was time to put together another.

The more I look through my collection – and I’ve been looking through it a lot lately, thanks to the TBR Dare and the LibraryThing Monthly Virago Author Reads – the more interesting artists and artwork I find.

I’ve also been delighted to find some wonderfully thoughtful matches of book and cover.

The covers are lovely, but the paintings come alive when they are released from their green frames. I’ve learned that sometimes images have been cropped, or re-coloured, or altered a little in some other way to fit that frame. And that may be the best way to make a good cover for a book, but it shouldn’t be the only way we see the work of these artists.

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I should love to be able to step into the cover of this book.

 Betty and Babbin by a Fountain by Mainie Jellett

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Jenny Wren by E H Young (#177)

‘On their father’s death, Jenny and Dahlia Rendall, with their mother Louisa, move across the river to the heights of Upper Radstowe. Here they try to make a living by taking in lodgers. But their neighbours eye this all-female household with alarm and distrust — especially when a local farmer takes to calling on Louisa, now an attractive, if not entirely respectable widow. Dahlia takes it all with a pinch of salt; fastidious, conventional Jenny cannot. Embarrassed by her mother’s country ways, smarting at every slight, both real and imaginary, she longs for a different life. Then Jenny falls in love with a handsomne young squire — but certain of his prejudice and a prisoner of her pride, she dares not reveal her name …’

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An usual – but effective – choice of image.

 

Head of a Girl by Célestin Joseph  Blanc

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Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather (# 160)

‘At the end of the seventeenth century, on that “grey rock in the Canadian wilderness” known as Quebec, a French family, the Auclairs, begin a life very different from the one they knew in Paris. On her mother’s death ten-year-old Cécile is entrusted with the care of the household, and of her father, Euclid, the town’s apothecary. Two years later, in late October 1697, as the red-gold autumn sunlight pours over the rock “like a heavy southern wine”, Cécile and her father prepare for the long, difficult winter ahead with no word from home – news of events in the world they have left behind must wait until spring, when the annual boats from France are able to make their way up the St. Lawrence. For her father it will be a painful exile, but for the young Cécile life holds innumerable joys as old ties are relinquished and new ones are formed…’

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I think you might guess this author from the painting

L’Ambitiuse by James Tissot

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Old New York by Edith Wharton (#179)

‘The four novellas collected here, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of ‘The Age of Innocence’, brilliantly capture New York of the 1840s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. Originally published in 1924, this outstanding quartet includes ‘False Dawn’, about a rocky father/son relationship; ‘The Old Maid’, the best known of the four, in which a young woman’s hidden illegitimate child is adoted by her best friend, with devastating results; ‘The Spark’, involving a young man and his moral rehabilitation — “sparked” by a chance encounter with Walt Whitman; and ‘New Year’s Day’, an O. Henryesque tale of a married woman suspected of adultery. Each reveals the codes and customs that ruled society of the time, drawn with the perspicacious eye and style that is uniquely Edith Wharton’s.’

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The collection of short stories shares a cover artist with the long series of novels that I read with friends last year.

A Corner Of The Artist’s Room In Paris by Gwen John

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Journey to Paradise by Dorothy Richardson (#321)

‘Published together for the first time are Dorothy Richardson’s short stories: delicate and slippery tales which range from the vast gardens of childhood and the anticipation of seaside holidays, to the shifts in perception as youth stutters towards maturity and on to the levelling experiences of old ages and death. Accompanying the range of fictional voices are her autobiographical sketches, offering insight into Dorothy Richardson’s life and the development of her creative talent.’

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I’ve spotted the brother of the last artist on covers of several Green Virago Modern Classics.

A French Fisherboy by Augustus John

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Mr Fortune’s Maggot by Sylvia Townsend Warner (#2)

‘The Reverend Timothy Fortune, ex-clerk of the Hornsey Branch of Lloyds Bank, has spent ten years as a South Seas Island missionary when a ‘maggot’ impels him to embark on what he describes as a ‘sort of pious escapade’ – an assignment to the even more remote island of Fanua, where a white man is a rarity.Mr Fortune is a good man, humble, earnest – he wishes to bring the joys of Christianity to the innocent heathen. But in his three years on Fanua he makes only one convert – the boy Lueli, who loves him. This love, and the sensuous freedom of the islanders produces in Mr Fortune a change of heart which is shattering…Beautifully imagined, the paradise island and its people are as vivid as a Gauguin painting. Told with the driest of wise humour, touching and droll by turns, its theme – that we can never love anything without messing it about – is only one of the delights of this enchanting book.’

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I have found very similar paintings of lilies on two covers: this is the lesser known of the pair

Calla Lilies by Hannah Gluckstein

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A Saturday Life by Radclyffe Hall (#267)

‘Confronted with the news of her daughter’s naked dancing, Lady Shore is temporarily distracted from the Egyptian papers littering her desk. At three years old Sidonia could draw; a spate of morbid poetry followed, and now, at the age of seven, her Greek movement is superb. Having little comprehension of modern civilisation, Lady Shore asks her sharp and monocled friend Francis to guide this extraordinary child. As she grows older, Sidonia’s various and intuitive talents show no sign of abating. Increasingly precocious and superior, she moves on — from the frowsy atmosphere of a sculpture studio to singing lessons with the white-clad and extensive Ferrari family in Florence.’

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I wonder if the author might have read the magazine that provided an illustration for her book’s cover …

Illustration by Helen Dryden

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Treasure Hunt by Molly Keane (#356)

‘When old Sir Roderick dies in the stately but crumbling Irish mansion, his family discover that he’s left nothing but debts. His brother Hercules and sister Consuelo cannot understand why they cannot continue their feckless, champagne-drinking ways. They are outraged when young Roderick and Veronica insist on stringent economies and taking in paying guests. Meanwhile dotty Aunt Anna Rose, ensconced in her sedan chair (which she fondly believes to be the Orient Express) has a Dark Secret and, just possibly some long-lost rubies…Originally a play, this 1952 novel sparkles with comedy, mystery and a gallery of eccentricities.’

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The complete painting is much lovelier than the cropped cover image.

The Language of Flowers by George Dunlop Leslie

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The Semi-Attached Couple and The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden (#16)

‘Born the daughter of Lord Auckland in 1797, Emily Eden was a witty nineteenth-century aristocrat whose two delightful novels were first presented to an admiring world one hundred and fifty years ago. These matching masterpieces satirize the social world Eden knew, loved, and laughed at. Like Jane Austen she is concerned with love and marriage, money and manners. but her voice is distinct. Eden’s charm and humor – both above- and belowstairs — and her sharp social commentary make her work enduringly captivating.’

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That’s the last painting in this little exhibition.

Another one will be along in the summer.

I already have paintings and illustrations in mind …