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V. S. Pritchett 
Mr. Beluncle

London: Chatto & Windus, 1951 (left)
&
New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951 (right)  
 
On the cover of the English edition we are given glimpses of a life in which Mr Beluncle, the shady business man, plays the role of smug impresario.  The American edition casts Mr. Beluncle as a stereotypical Englishman with bowler and furled umbrella. 

 

 


David Garnett
 A Shot in the Dark

London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1958 (left)
&
The Ways of Desire
New York: American Eagle Books, 1960 (right)  
 
In the English edition a man gazes at a young woman in an Italian mountain village. In the American paper-back, a scantily-clad woman embraces her lover by a lily-pond.
 

 

 


Budd Schulberg
The Harder They Fall

London: John Lane, The Bodley Head, 1948 (left)
&
New York: Random House, 1947 (right)  
 
The dust jacket illustration in the English edition depicts ‘Mountain Man Toro,’ the gentle giant from the Andes being pursued by a crowd of hangers-on.  In the novel, the hero, whose experiences are based on the life of Primo Carnero, is built up as a heavyweight contender only to be destroyed by the gangsters who control American boxing. The dust jacket illustration in the American edition focuses more on the sexual action outside the ring than on the fighting inside.

 

Roy Fuller 
The Ruined Boys

London: Andre Deutsch, 1959 (left)
&

That Distant Afternoon
New York: Macmillan, 1959 (right)  
 
The title for Fuller’s novel of English public school life comes from W. H. Auden’s “Seekers After Happiness.”  The title is changed for the American audience, though it still comes from the same poem by Auden. Perhaps the publisher felt the American audience would find the original title too suggestive.  The dust jacket art has also been changed to show one boy rather than two.

 

Rhys Davies
The Withered Root

London: Robert Holden & Co., 1927 (left)  
&
New York: Henry Holt, 1928 (right)  


The artist for the American dust jacket was clearly influenced by the English, though he chooses to portray the temptress in a perhaps more alluring but modest manner.