Can You Tell a Book By Its Cover?

"Francis Cugat’s painting for F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is the most celebrated and widely disseminated jacket art in twentieth-century American literature, and perhaps of all time (see above). After appearing on the first printing in 1925, it was revived more than a half-century later for the “Scribner Library” paperback edition in 1979; more than two decades (and several million copies) later it may be seen in classrooms of virtually every high school and college throughout the country. Like the novel it embellishes, this Art Deco tour-de-force has firmly established itself as a classic. At the same time, it represents a most unusual, in my view, unique form of “collaboration” between author and jacket artist. Under normal circumstances, the artist illustrates a scene or motif conceived by the author; he lifts, as it were, his image from a page of the book. In this instance, however, the artist’s image preceded the finished manuscript and Fitzgerald actually maintained that he had “written it into” his book. But what precisely did he mean by this claim?"

Read the full and fascinating article on Cugat's cover art for the first edition of Gatsby, "Celestial Eyes: From Metamorphosis to Masterpiece" by Charles Scribner III GO HERE.

The challenging question Scribner poses remains: ". . . Fitzgerald actually maintained that he had 'written it [the cover art] into' his book. But what precisely did he mean by this claim?"

Comments and interpretations welcomed.