Classics

The Delightful World of Sherlock Holmes Book Covers

Rioter Liberty rounds-up some of her favorite Sherlock Holmes covers

Liberty Hardy Mar 31, 2015

Liberty Hardy

Senior Contributing Editor

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading. Twitter: @MissLiberty

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Recently, inspired by a marathon watching of the BBC’s Sherlock show, I started reading the books. I had read a couple of the stories when I was young, but never this much of the source material. It’s so good! I love when books you have heard so much about turn out to be as good as everyone says. My goal this year is to read the four Sherlock novels, plus all the short stories. I imagined that something so widely known as Sherlock Holmes must have fantastic cover art to go along with it – and I was right. Here are a few really cool Sherlock covers I found.

A Michael Kirkham design; a 1966 Slovakian cover; Polish cover from 1956

Cover by Bryan Innes; from the Rediscovering the Classics project; Australian cover

Another Australian cover; an old Harper’s edition; Penguin India cover

Bull & Cross design; unknown artist; yet another Australian cover

I highly suggest checking out the Google images yourself. And one more thing I found – this was too glorious to go without mention: Sherlock Holmes vs. Skeletor.