Latest Addition To The Spill Library: Thurber’s UK Middle-Aged Man On The Flying Trapeze
On the left above is the US edition of James Thurber’s fifth book, 1935’s The Middle-Aged Man On The Flying Trapeze. On the right is very latest Thurber addition to the Spill library: the UK Hamish Hamilton Middle-Aged Man. The cover drawing is the same — how could it not be. Why mess with perfection.* The most obvious difference between the two covers is color choice. For me, the blue works beautifully (and preferably). Had it been a different shade of blue I would likely lean to the US mustard cover.
It’s the cover text where things get really interesting — not just the UK’s By Thurber of “The New Yorker” but the slightly awkward and endearing, A Collection Of Short Pieces Mainly Humorous But With A Few Kind Of Sad Ones Mixed In. Text as if conversational, not something worried over by the Hamish Hamilton editorial/pr department. The US publisher went with the straightforward A New Collection With Many Drawings. True enough, but so very dry.
*Well…here’s the US cover, sans dust jacket. Notice any difference between the dust jacket drawing and this one?
