I hadn't seen those Jane Austen editions and quite frankly I doubt they will win a new audience for her books! But I am decidedly old-fashioned in my tastes so I may be wrong.

I am guessing early teen readers who haven't yet encountered the Chronicles of Narnia. In my experience they are the age group that are most likely to not want to be caught reading a book with illustrations. 

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?”

(In the immortal words of Lewis Carroll... that is, of course, the opening paragraph of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland   {ym}:giggle:  )

Seriously, if that's the reasoning nowadays, that is really, honestly sad. For starters, the Chronicles aren't aimed at teenagers. I read most of them when I was 7 (LWW came a couple of years earlier), and I should think the target audience is definitely the under-13s. They certainly don't contain any of the standard elements of today's teenage / young adult fiction. Not that it would hurt most teenagers to read them — and I'm aware a number of Narnia fans here first encountered the books in their teens, or even later — but these books genuinely are not aimed at the age group that's inclined to go "Urgh, that looks like a book for little kids... all right, maybe I do want to read it, but I don't want to be SEEN reading it!!" (And yes, I have been through that stage too, but only briefly before I decided I was going to read whatever I wanted to read and I didn't really care who saw or what they thought. {ym}:wink: )

That said, it's nothing new for publishers to republish classics with new cover art (whether or not internal illustrations are included) that they think will appeal to a particular audience that they hope will buy these books, and there have been worse examples than these genericky-fantasy-AI-resembling covers for the Chronicles of Narnia. If anyone missed these earlier this year, I hereby present to you Puffin Books' (yes, that is Puffin as in the children's division of Penguin) recent attempt at selling Jane Austen's six novels to "young-adult readers"...

(I mean, OK, some of those guys on the covers are quite nice looking, but seriously... I first got hooked on Jane Austen in my own teens and I can assure you, if you're not already familiar with her books, those cover illustrations really do NOT match the content. {ym}:eyebrow: )

The only reason I can think of why HarperCollins made the decision to not include them is they are trying to appeal to an audience that would possibly be put off by illustrations.

I wonder who that would be. Maybe adults who never read Narnia as children? As others have commented, the new covers look very much like contemporary, bland "fantasy". Along with the new cover designs, by removing the Pauline Baynes pictures, which were so good and honest and old-fashioned and earnest, Harper Collins is making Narnia a more recognizable product. More recognizable in that it is more similar to everything else modern audiences are used to encountering.

Posted by: @decarus

Are the new covers of Narnia out today?

Yes, they are out in the wild! Has anyone got their hands on a copy yet? I hear there are no Pauline Baynes illustrations included, which is unfortunate. 

I can confirm that the Pauline Baynes illustrations were not included in the new paperback editions. The only reason I can think of why HarperCollins made the decision to not include them is they are trying to appeal to an audience that would possibly be put off by illustrations. Personally I was disappointed by the lack of even a single illustration, it didn't seem like Narnia without them.

It may not be the reasoning as such here, but it does make me think about other classic stories which have had their illustrations taken out in later publications, to make them seem more 'mature' or so. Something I disagree with — give me my pictures!

Are the new covers of Narnia out today?

Yes, they are out in the wild! Has anyone got their hands on a copy yet? I hear there are no Pauline Baynes illustrations included, which is unfortunate.