Thursday, November 12, 2009

Similar Covers: Old-Fashioned Women

When I first came across The Beth Book by Sarah Grand months ago, I knew I recognized the image on the cover, but it took me forever to figure out its lookalike is Writing a Woman’s Life by Carolyn G. Heilbrun, a book I used to own (I can’t find it at the moment). Although the cover for A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf doesn’t feature the exact same image, they look pretty similar, don’t you think?




Can anyone identify the paintings used on these covers?

Edited to add:
Thanks to Tiina, who blogs at A Book Blog of One’s Own, for identifying the painting on the cover of the Woolf book as Dorelia by Lamplight at Toulouse by Gwen John. A quick search revealed another book with the other painting on its cover, Gwen John: An Interior Life by Cecily Langdale and David Fraser Jenkins (see above), which confirms that the same artist painted both paintings, as Kathy suspected. (This painting is called The Student.) Coincidentally, back in March of this year, I featured Keeping the World Away by Margaret Forster in a Friday Finds post: this book is a story about the painting A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris by Gwen John. Now I’m even more curious to read this book!

10 comments:

  1. Looks like gray and drab are in style!

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  2. I can't identify the artist, but surely it's the same one.

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  3. I have another edition of A Room of One's Own but with the same picture in the cover. It is a painting by Gwen John entitled Dorelia by Lamplight at Toulouse. It was painted circa 1903-4.

    Greetings,
    Tiina

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  4. Ti, I guess these covers are drab and gray, but there's something about these two paintings that I find really appealing.

    Kathy, you were totally right (see my edit to this post)!

    Thanks, Tiina! I've edited my post to include that info. I couldn't find this painting online (other than on book covers), but I did find other paintings of Dorelia, which, strangely enough, look nothing like the person in this painting!

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  5. That is definitely the same model and dress in all three. Interesting about the painting!

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  6. What a boring looking lady!! They could've done better on this one!

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  7. wow, more of these similar covers. 0_o =)

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  8. You really do have an eye for this! I love this one, I think all the books using John's painting in this post look great.

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  9. You amaze me with how many of these you find - even such an obscure plain one

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  10. The Forster book is pretty interesting but the best thing about it is that it sent me back to Gwen John herself. I'd always liked her work but a year or two ago I ordered a exhibition catalogue from a retrospective of her work at the Tate, along with her brother Augustus John's work. An amazing clear-eyed painter. And reading Michael Holroyd's biography of Augustus gives the reader a fascinating view of Dorelia, anything but boring...!
    tk

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