One of the things that fascinates me about The Devil’s Dictionary—and almost any old text, really—is how many ways it’s been interpreted over the years. So I thought I’d take ten notable covers the book has had in its many, many editions…and rank them. This is very much not a complete listing, but its an interesting lens through which to view what good design…and bad design…can do.
Keith Bendis’s adorable devil is not quite true to Bierce, but it is true to the absurd charm the book has in the 21st century. It also represents what makes this edition special. Bendis’s illustrations anchor Bierce’s words into contemporary life, making this less of a reprinting and more of a collaboration.
This cartoon devil, by an unknown artist, is closer to Bierce in spirit than any other. The turn-of-the-century dress, the impish little grin, the deep-set eyes.
Oh, just look at those evil splotches! For sheer visual creativity, you can’t beat this one. Steadman’s internal illustrations are fewer than Bendis’s, but they honor a different side of hm. Bierce was a humorist and fabulist on the edge of becoming a horror writer; Steadman’s a horror artist with a sense of humor.
No one’s going to mistake this for a masterpiece of graphic design, but it shows the reader what to expect and throws them for a loop by putting the sample definition in the title’s usual spot. As minimalism goes, it works.
Uses some of the “natural” motifs common in Bierce’s day, and that outlined head with the viny, Biercey moustache brings it all together. Great color scheme, too.
This was my grandfather’s copy, but nostalgia aside, it’s kind of crude compared to #5. It’s going for some of the same things…stark red and black, Art Deco-ish floral motifs with a “devilish” twist. But it’s workmanlike, nothing more.
Gahan Wilson was an imaginative, award-winning veteran cartoonist. But this cover feels like a misreading. I don’t think Bierce would act like an unwilling participant in the subversive literature he published. So his horrified look isn’t doing it for me. And on top of that, the typography on this is way too busy.
Earliest editions of the work were called not The Devil’s Dictionary but The Cynic’s Word Book. Back in those days, book jacket design wasn’t really a thing yet, beyond generic art-deco abstraction applied to any book in a publisher’s line.
This design, AKA “Ruin a Perfectly Good Author Photo with Five Minutes in Photoshop,” is the promo image for a recording of the work on Audible. An enduring classic…is represented this way in the single largest recorded-books marketplace. Something went wrong there, somewhere.
Lord deliver us.