I like the lily in the foreground of the cover for The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

Posted by: @mel

(Another idea I like, though it hasn't turned into a sketch or anything, is when you have a design across the spines of an entire set... I don't think Narnia has one like that, and it would be very cool if it did.)

This is a cool idea but it'd further highlight the issue of ordering because they have to be displayed in a specific way for the design to work. Therefore people like me who display the boxset in publication order would have to concede to chronological for this set. 

I like those, @mel! As you suggest on Tumblr, they could do with some polishing, but overall they look lovely, especially with the medieval style. One of my main objections to the recently revealed new cover designs is that, even though they're not actually AI-generated art, they look a lot like it, and just feel too much like generic "fantasy art" covers with nothing to make them stand out as something different. Your concepts do stand out and look different and genuinely intriguing!

(I also appreciate the fact that you've got the numbering in what the vast majority of us Narnia fans agree is the correct order!! )

Just one question, because I can't quite make it out — who is the other creature talking to Puzzle on the cover of The Last Battle?

I do like these!  *votes for Mel's designs to replace the current new designs. 

[Edit: I wondered at first if it was Reep, but he isn't in that part of the story - unless it is the last part! One of the kind mice who help Tirian when he's tied up? Ginger the cat? -does he interact with Jewel?]

Posted by: @courtenay

Just one question, because I can't quite make it out — who is the other creature talking to Puzzle on the cover of The Last Battle?

I thought it was Shift. That cover struck me as a reproduction of Pauline Baynes's illustration of Puzzle showing Shift how he looked in the lionskin. 

Far more pleasing and prettier than the new book covers. 🙂 Not all in the Narnia books is mediaeval, of course, but these do capture something of the books nicely.

Posted by: @courtenay

Just one question, because I can't quite make it out — who is the other creature talking to Puzzle on the cover of The Last Battle?

As @col-klink suspected, it is supposed to be Shift. I did not allow myself to look up any references (like a good medieval scribe ) and went, eh, I kind of remember the illustration of Shift and Puzzle and also one from a childhood copy of The Monkey and the Chestnuts (if that's the title; it's a fable about a monkey conning a cat into pulling the chestnuts out of the fire and eating them all himself). This worked out as well as could be expected.  

@mel Thanks. I was just confused by the tail — Shift is always described as an Ape in the book, and that term almost always means a primate with no tail (otherwise he'd be called a monkey). We're never told what species he is, but Pauline Baynes' illustrations make him look something like a chimpanzee.

Anyway, I was just thinking, in less than 10 years' time the Chronicles will be out of copyright in the UK and most other countries (they already are in a few that have a shorter duration of copyright after the author's death). Maybe by then you could get these designs ready to be printed on the covers of a new NarniaWeb Special Edition of the seven books (numbered in publication order, of course)?? I'd love to see that.  

@courtenay, It was an embarrassingly long time later when I realized I had blithely conflated the two and come up with the wrong answer. Not that I would have come up with anything better if I had been thinking of the correct primate.  

Lord of the Rings seems to frequently get special print runs; it could be interesting if Narnia were allowed the same. (And if, by some wrangling of rights and whatnot, my idea were to be used, we could include alternate numbering stickers with the boxed set - everybody wins! )

Those are so cool, @mel, I think I like the one for the Dawn Treader best.  

Oh! I just now noticed the numbers on the covers. I am firmly in the publication order camp myself, but I do love the idea of having a print run of each option so that the idea of a spine design could be realized and it would be fair for both sides.  Special editions!

Posted by: @mel

Lord of the Rings seems to frequently get special print runs; it could be interesting if Narnia were allowed the same.

Hmmm, but as far as I know, LOTR is still under copyright in most countries and will be for a while yet. I don't think the various editions of it that keep coming out are any different from the Narnia books being regularly reprinted with different cover illustrations, as they also are — they're still only able to be published by the current copyright holder.

I was just referring to the fact that once the copyright expires, anyone will legally be allowed to publish the Chronicles with any cover art or internal illustrations, or indeed changes to the text, as they please. That already happens with older classics that are out of copyright, like The Wind in the Willows, or The Secret Garden, or Little Women, or the Alice books, or Dickens or Kipling or Austen or the Brontës. It'll be interesting to see what happens once Narnia is in that category too.

Big fan of these! Well done  

Posted by: @mel

(Another idea I like, though it hasn't turned into a sketch or anything, is when you have a design across the spines of an entire set... I don't think Narnia has one like that, and it would be very cool if it did.)

Juniper Books had one similar to what you described here. I'm convinced there's one more set that does as well but I can't seem to find them right now...

Posted by: @impending-doom

Posted by: @mel

(Another idea I like, though it hasn't turned into a sketch or anything, is when you have a design across the spines of an entire set... I don't think Narnia has one like that, and it would be very cool if it did.)

Juniper Books had one similar to what you described here. I'm convinced there's one more set that does as well but I can't seem to find them right now...

I'm sure that there was an entry for that Harper Collins design competition they did a few years back, whereby the spines not only had a picture on them (it was like a stylised representation of a landscape) but the books could be placed in either Chronological or Publication order and the spines would still form a complete picture in either case.

Can't seem to find it anymore, but i thought it was a really fun idea.

EDIT: Here they are:

https://www.sophiekemm.com/narnia