You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover - Or Can You?

Historical fiction is undergoing a renaissance. For historical fiction fans, today I am sharing part of an e-newsletter article from Libraries Unlimited about current trends in historical fiction. Perhaps it will spark a discussion about what you like and dislike about the new titles, and particularly their beautiful covers.

This is part of what Sarah Johnson, librarian and author, wrote in her article for readers' advisory practitioners. I'm sure all readers will be interested in this glimpse into publishing trends:

"To the delight of longtime fans of the genre, historical fiction is undergoing a renaissance. Especially popular on both library and bookstore shelves are novels featuring strong female protagonists. Readers — especially female readers — can't seem to get enough of novels about powerful, intelligent women from past eras and how they navigated the male-dominated world in which they lived. The catalyst for this trend was Philippa Gregory's groundbreaking 2001 novel The Other Boleyn Girl (Find this book in our catalog), the bestselling Tudor drama about Anne and Mary Boleyn and their rivalry for King Henry VIII's attention. Jeanne Kalogridis's The Devil's Queen (Find this book in our catalog), written from the viewpoint of the much-maligned Catherine de'Medici, and Michelle Moran's Cleopatra's Daughter (Find this book in our catalog), which tells the little-known story of the title character after her famous mother's death, are two recent examples among many.
Thanks to corresponding trends in historical fiction cover art, we can make educated guesses about which books will provide similar reading experiences. While black-and-white photos of shadowy Victorian street scenes announce themselves as historical mysteries or thrillers; and bold images of gleaming swords, helmets and other warlike accoutrements scream "military adventure"; historical novels whose dust jackets feature women in period costume are assumed to follow the "strong women in history" trend. The groupings are unmistakable, and because novels of this type are currently so prevalent, the associations are hard to miss.
When the story is based on an actual woman's life, the jacket design may be a variant of her real-life portrait. This is the case for Susan Holloway Scott's The French Mistress, featuring Sir Peter Lely's painting of Louise de Keroualle. Alternatively, covers show contemporary models garbed in gorgeous historically-based outfits. For example, on the cover of Jeane Westin's The Virgin's Daughters, a young woman wears a green gown with a beaded, richly embroidered bodice and farthingale, representing the late Tudor era — wholly appropriate for a work about two of Queen Elizabeth I's ladies in waiting. Historical accuracy in covers isn't a given, but that's a subject for another article!
Many of these examples share another thing in common: the woman's face is either completely or partially obscured, achieved either through cropping the image at nose-line, or by showing the figure with her back turned. The Other Boleyn Girl was a trendsetter in this convention as well, In terms of her covers and her choice of subjects, Philippa Gregory's success as an author is well worth emulating. The "headless woman" look is frequently seen in contemporary fiction, too; and it has met with mixed reactions. Critics charge that it's the artistic equivalent of taking away women's identities, ironically something the novels are trying to counteract. On the other hand, it adds an aura of mystery, since readers are required to visualize what the main character might look like. Also, some readers say it lets them more easily imagine themselves in the protagonist's shoes, allowing them to vicariously experience the novel's actions and emotions along with the heroine.
Either way, these covers have proven to sell books, and publishers' marketing departments know it. Elizabeth Chadwick, a prizewinning British novelist who writes biographical fiction about the medieval English nobility, found that her sales more than quadrupled after her publisher commissioned a redesign with what she personally termed the "headless bodice" look. Headless they may be, but many of these designs are truly beautiful; and like many readers, I'm not at all immune to their effect. My bookshelves at home are full of them, many of them displayed face-out.
However, because these covers appeal so strongly to female audiences — who reportedly make up over 70% of the fiction reading public (Gabriel) — their appearance hasn't been limited to novels of the Philippa Gregory variety. Laura Joh Rowland's The Fire Kimono and The Snow Empress, historical mysteries set in 11th-century Japan, have striking, evocative covers that echo the trend, as does Lindsey Davis's Saturnalia, part of her Falco series set in ancient Rome. Even a recent translation of Tolstoy's original War and Peace has a cover that fits this category. Of course, all of these novels have important female characters, but none is told exclusively from a female perspective.
So what does a "headless woman" cover really mean about a book's content? Even with historical novels where women are the viewpoint characters, the designs cut across subgenre lines, with similar approaches taken by the covers of Terri Lynn Wilhelm's Deception (Regency romance), Joyce Lebra's The Scent of Sake (biographical fiction about a 19th-century Japanese businesswoman), DeVa Gantt's Forever Waiting (family saga set in the 1830s West Indies), and Kamila Shamsie's Burnt Shadows (literary novel about the long-term impact of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). The art for Ann Turnbull's No Shame, No Fear, an award-winning young adult novel set in Restoration England, follows the same format. All include era-appropriate backdrops and depict dark-haired women with upswept hairstyles who face away from the reader. In a sense, the covers distill the novels down to a single unifying theme—"strong, historical women". But apart from that aspect, these four books have little in common with one another. They're very different in terms of genre, writing style, and approach.
Cover art is a form of advertising, after all. It's meant to grab our attention, but in many cases it simultaneously presents us with something recognizable, offering clues about what we might be getting. The commonalities in cover design can broaden the possible audience for these books, hooking new readers who might not have picked them up otherwise and encouraging them to try a subgenre, title, or author new to them. On the other hand, they can be misleading. Historical novel fans or readers' advisors who base their "readalike" decisions on the jacket art — and many do — may end up with something quite different from what they expected."

The old adage of "don't judge a book by its cover" isn't entirely true; nor is it entirely false. What do you think? Have you ever picked up a book for the cover alone?

Notes:

Sarah Johnson. "Judging Historical Novels by Their Covers — Or Not." Readers' Advisor News, September, 2009.

SARAH L. JOHNSON is Reference Librarian at Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois. She is the author of Historical Fiction II: a Guide to the Genre (Libraries Unlimited, 2009) and its predecessor, Historical Fiction (Libraries Unlimited, 2005). She also serves as book review editor for the Historical Novels Review and blogs at Reading the Past.