New Discworld Collector's Library Editions

It's recently been announced on Terry Pratchett's website that the Discworld Collector's Library will continue to include all the adult Discworld novels.

Terry Pratchett's celebrated and much loved Discworld series previously had collector's editions, with covers by illustrator Joe McLaren, up to Jingo, number 21 in the series. Now, due to popular demand, all the Discworld adult books will be released with new collectible covers.

The books are surprisingly affordable for collector's editions, ranging from £9.99 to £12.99 on the Discworld Emporium. Of course, if you wanted to get the entire series you're looking at a big pay out.




I suspect this announcement may divide opinions among Pratchett fans; a lot of people are devoted to the original covers by Josh Kirby, which usually depict overly wrinkled crones, muscled men and pretty muscled women too but wearing considerably less than the men. I like Kirby's covers for their sense of fun and attention to detail and they have become iconic, but I have to say that they never really represented the stories inside to me. In fact I didn't read any Pratchett books until I was almost 20 because I thought they were just aimed at pubescent boys who spent too much time indoors and enjoyed painting figurines of men wearing cloaks and women with enormous boobs in tiny armour.
Of course, this is certainly one strand of Pratchett's fans but his books appeal to so many more people; young and old, male and female. Always infused with humour, Pratchett's books may be set in another universe filled with vampires, wizards and goblins, but they are quintessentially human and so easy to devour.

I have all of the Discowrld series and they are nearly all the Josh Kirby editions. It would be much too expensive for me to replace the whole set and there isn't any point really, but I must admit that I do really love Joe McLaren's illustrations and find them to represent the stories a bit more. Plus, they're a bit more grown up when you're reading them in public.

These are four of the covers that are due to come out. I particularly like The Fifth Elephant cover, it also happens to be one of my favourites (Vimes is my hero!).

Source

What do you think of the new covers?