previously in this series: The Curious Case of the Odd Omnibus
Following my (oft ignored) rule of posting a new Narnia Bloggin' post after every five posts.
I went to my local Savers thrift store (dangerous) because I had been emailed a coupon for 30% off books & media (very dangerous), and I have no self control. I found a lot of great books, not least of which were two The Chronicles of Narnia (TCON) copies that I was staggered to find!
Remember me mentioning that Cliff Neilsen updated his digital art TCON covers? I had tentatively thought about collecting them when they eventually turn up in thrift stores etc. in the future, but I never thought I'd find one so soon! These literally just came out last year, and I found The Magician's Nephew (MN) with the new cover showing Polly coming up out of the pond! I like this cover a lot better than the old one, which looked too science fiction-y and scary. The new cover art is more whimsical and fantastical. My only quibble is that I like the position and look of the rings in the old cover better; they don't look as good flattened like that. Also some internet commenter said the 3 rings like that look like a Mickey head, and I can't unsee it. I wish Neilsen had just done 2 rings, 1 yellow and 1 green, interlocking; 3 makes no sense, as only 2 rings per child are used in the book. You can see the comparison of the old and new covers here.
When I went to put MN with the other Cliff Neilsen TCON copies I own, I found that I don't actually have the old MN cover, so it's good I bought this one! For some reason I thought I had them all. I think that if I come across the old MN cover, I may buy it just to have the entire original Cliff Neilsen digital art covers for TCON. It would have to be cheap but in a good condition, though. IDK. I def will buy the rest of the new cover art copies as I come across them in thrift stores and whatnot.
In my more cover art for TCON blog post, I had shared pretty covers for TCON that I do not own. Halfway between the last 2 big images, I wrote:
I found some pretty medieval-inspired covers that I like a lot, via the C.S. Lewis editions website. To see the other TCON books' covers in that series, click on each book in the main TCON editions webpage. I would def buy these if I saw them at the thrift store etc. in good condition. I love medieval/renaissance-inspired art.
I never really thought I would come across one of these at my thrift store, as I don't think they were published in the US (the UK, maybe?). But lo and behold, there was The Last Battle (LB) with its beautiful medieval illuminated manuscripts-inspired border and illustrated capitals spelling out NARNIA! This TCON series was published by Lions of HarperCollins in Glasgow, Scotland (I was right!); there seem to have been a couple of variants of these covers, as some of them were tie-ins with the BBC TCON miniseries from the eighties (just the books that the miniseries adapted: LWW, PC, & VotDT). In looking at the other TCON titles in this covers series, it looks like the illustrated borders are the same for all the books, and only the inside illustration changes for each book.
It's so beautiful. I'm so happy :) This back of book summary is accurate, I feel.
I did not end up buying and keeping a deluxe edition TCON omnibus after all, as the ones I looked at were all lightly damaged in some way and/or had very uneven page edges, unforgivable for such an expensive deluxe special edition with such pretty painted edges. I realize I hadn't really specified whether I kept the copy I exchanged or not, in that blog post. They all went back. I'll keep an eye out at bookstores for an undamaged copy with even, flat fore edges, but it's not a priority. Ah well. :/
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