George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, July 1950. First printing by Signet, which I think makes it the first paperback printing of the book (if anyone knows of an earlier one, let me know; the hardback was first published the year before). I like this because covers of the book tend to be quite serious, if not ominous, given the cultural influence of the book, its use as a political warning, and its status as literature (cf. the second image, still somewhat overly dramatic, that of the 1960, 20thprinting, also by Signet; the blurb on the back is basically the same on both, by the way). The 1950 edition frames it more as a "pulp" novel. What would reading it as pulp rather than portent do to what we make of the book?
And, for the heck of it, here is the first Penguin paperback printing from 1954 (when they rarely included images on covers).
I'm certainly not the first person to blog or write about this cover of Nineteen Eighty-Four. See, e.g., this piece in the New Yorker which discusses it within the rise of cheap paperbacks in the 1950s. Or this piece about sensationalist covers from the same era used to sell literary classics.
