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The Many Book Covers of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

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Karina Glaser

Contributing Editor

Karina Yan Glaser is a full-time writer and illustrator with a varied career teaching and implementing literacy programs in family homeless shelters and recruiting healthcare professionals to volunteer in under-resourced areas around the world. Karina is the New York Times bestselling author of the middle grade books, The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street and The Vanderbeekers and the Hidden Garden. She lives in Harlem with her husband, two daughters, and an assortment of rescued animals. One of her proudest achievements is raising two kids who can't go anywhere without a book. Website: www.karinaglaser.com; Twitter: @KarinaYanGlaser; Instagram: @KarinaIsReadingAndWriting

This post is part of our Harper Lee Reading Day: a celebration of one of the most surprising literary events of our lifetime, the publication of her new book, Go Set a Watchman. Check out the rest right here.

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There have been over 40 million copies of To Kill a Mockingbird sold worldwide since its first publication in 1960, translated into over forty languages. With all those copies out there in the world, I thought I’d check out some of the covers of this iconic book. Some were stunning, others a little creepy, and a few I wanted to buy immediately for my collection. With 337 listed on Goodreads, there were a lot of covers to look at.

So, how many of these covers do you know? How can you tell a true first edition? Do you remember which one you had for your school reading? (I had #8.) Where can you buy one with illustrations and a slipcover? What did some of the international covers look like? Check out some of them below:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird 1st ed 2.To Kill a Mockingbird 1st British Edition 3. To Kill a Mockingbird Folio Society Edition

1. First US Edition, published in 1960 by J.B. Lippincott Company. Approximately 5,000 first printings were produced.”FIRST EDITION” is stated on the copyright page, and the dust jacket has the price of $3.95. The back of the dust jacket has a photo of Harper Lee taken by Truman Capote. The hard cover is brown with a green spine.

2. First British Edition, published in 1960 by Heinemann

3. Folio Society Edition (UK), published 1996 (cloth-bound and slipcased, 85 illustrations)

4.To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition Australia 5. To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition 6.To Kill a Mockingbird 50th Anniversary Edition 2

4. 50th Anniversary Edition, published June 2010 by William Heinemann

5. 50th Anniversary Edition, published June 2010 by Arrow Books Ltd.

6. 50th Anniversary Edition, published May 2006 by Harper Perennial Modern Classics

7.To Kill a Mockingbird Cover 1 8.To Kill a Mockingbird School Edition 9.To Kill a Mockingbird Vintage Classics

7. 50th Anniversary Edition, published April 2010 by Grand Central Publishing (Hachette Book Group)

8. First published 1960 by J.B. Lippincott Company (same cover published by numerous publishing houses afterward)

9. Published February 2004 by Vintage Classics

10.To Kill a Mockingbird Italian 11.To Kill a Mockingbird Chinese 12.To Kill a Mockingbird Persian

10. Italian edition by Feltrinelli

11. Chinese edition

12. Persian edition

13.To Kill a Mockingbird French 14.To Kill a Mockingbird Spanish 15.To Kill a Mockingbird Norwegian

13. French edition by Livre de Poche

14. Spanish edition by Zeta Bosillo

15. Norwegian edition by Aschehoug

 

So, what’s your favorite edition?