Can you picture a shelf full of these lovely spines facing out from your bookshelves? (I can. They'd look quite nice on my bookshelves as a matter of fact). Recently Oxford University Press relaunched their Oxford World's Classics series with a more contemporary feel to them. I was fortunate enough to receive a few titles with the newly redesigned covers. I really like them. They seem more sleek and sophisticated and have a cleaner look to them, and I love how they carried over the red type. The contents remain the same, but they've spruced up the packaging.
I have lots of the books with the older look on my shelves, but don't they seem sort of stodgy in comparison? According to the OUP Blog:
"We wanted a new look that would be fresh and contemporary and appeal to general readers and browsers who might previously have thought Oxford World's Classics were a bit too academic for them. So we have a clean white title panel, and white back and spine, and we have chosen dramatic crops of appropriate illustrations to intrigue and entice the reader. We also wanted a sense of continuity with the old look, so we have retained a red strip at the top of the spine and back cover, and added a tantalizing detail from the cover image in a small thumbnail on the spine (older readers may remember that we used to have a similar feature on a previous incarnation of the series, but at the bottom of the spine, not the top). We also chose a new typeface for the cover, Capitolium, a modern take on classic lettering, based on classical Roman inscriptions and Renaissance calligraphy and designed by Gerard Unger. The insides of the books are unchanged, and we will continue to publish high-quality editions and translations with outstanding introductions and notes at truly affordable prices, editions that are designed to satisfy the needs not just of students, but of the lively general reader as well."
How do you choose a few classics when they have over 750 titles? Actually I don't believe they're all being released at once, but it was still hard choosing from even an abbreviated list. In the end I opted for Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos's Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and Alexandre Dumas's The Black Tulip. Now which should I read first? I'm leaning towards the Bronte ("The friendship between the two women, and the contrast between their situations, is at the heart of this compelling novel, which is suffused with Bronte's deep yearning for an earlier time.") at the moment. I'll be wrapping up Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility soon in anticipation.
What do you think of the new designs?