graphic design: penguin classics

I was browsing at my local Borders the other day and came across these fabulous updated covers of three of my very favorite books. (My all-time favorite is The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton, in case you're wondering. And no, I didn't see a fabulous new cover for it). They're all Penguin Classics imprints. The illustrations in this series are by über-talents (including Ruben Toledo and Jeffrey Brown).

The cover illustrations on the cover make these classics a bit more accessible to teen readers than the dour looking oil portrait that usually stares up from the covers, don't you think? How old were you when you first read these books? I was in ninth grade.

I'll admit that the cover of a book (the packaging of anything, really) matters to me. Although I have read all three of these books, and have perfectly good copies sitting on my shelves, I was extremely tempted to purchase them. I have a coupon, after all, I tried to justify to myself. Instead I walked out with a newish novel by Leif Enger: So Brave, Young, and Handsome. The cover is not particularly interesting ... which totally blows my theory.