I've been lusting after this book for a few months now and it finally arrived today. Nothing else got done as I promptly flopped onto the couch and dove it.

There's more to this book than I originally expected, with thoughtful and sometimes downright snarky commentary about each cover. The quality of the covers in each time period range from tasteful to tasteless to downright tacky and all a lot of fun to look at.

If you are a Jane Austen fan, this one is a keeper, although now I want to go out and search for some of these old editions (the original Peacock edition: yes please!). ( )

This book uses photos of 200 years of covers on Jane Austen’s novels to show how books have changed over time at least in packaging & marketing.

Learned a few bits of trivia on Austen I’d not previously known. Mostly left this knowing it’d be a great reference to teach the history of publishing & books ( )

I will be writing a full review on my blog, but here are some quick impressions. If you are fan of Jane Austen, you will probably love this, or at least really like it. Otherwise, your mileage may vary. The book can be interesting in the details of book history and publishing details, trivia from the trade, so on. However, casual readers may get tired of basically seeing covers for the same six or seven books (Austen main works are few; they've just been packaged, repackaged, and repackaged yet again over the years). ( )

This was a gift selection from my Secret SantaThing. And how precisely appropriate! My gifter obviously knew that some of my obsessions are old literature and their lovely covers.

Quite a nice survey. It includes editions from other languages and the simplified books for children, as well, including board books by Babylit (Gibbs Smith)and Cozy Classics (Simply Read Books.) ( )

A medium-sized coffee-table book, Jane Austen Cover to Cover is a pictorial history of the covers of editions of Jane Austen's novels from their first printings through roughly 2009. The accompanying text offers some facts on the history of printing, discusses trends in book covers, and offers light analysis of how well various covers represent the texts inside. The real star here is, of course, the reproductions of the covers, but the text is well done and made reading this an informative and complete experience. This was a Christmas gift from Husbeast, and it has been a delight to sit with it in the afternoons this past week. ( )