From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers--featuring cover art by Jessica Hische
It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film "Moonrise Kingdom" to Penguin's own bestsellers "Committed "and "Rules of Civility." With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series launches with six perennial favorites to give as elegant gifts, or to showcase on your own shelves.
V is for Voltaire. Voltaire's masterpiece belongs in the hands of every reader pondering our assumptions about human behavior and our place in the world. Voltaire tells of the ludicrous adventures and reversals of fortune of the naive Candide, who doggedly believes that "all is for the best" even when faced with injustice, suffering, and despair. A satirical challenge to the empty optimism prevalent in Voltaire's eighteenth-century society is both controversial and entertaining, but also vitally relevant today in our world pervaded by--as Candide would say--"the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well."
From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers--featuring cover art by Jessica Hische
It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film "Moonrise Kingdom" to Penguin's own bestsellers "Committed "and "Rules of Civility." With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series launches with six perennial favorites to give as elegant gifts, or to showcase on your own shelves.
V is for Voltaire. Voltaire's masterpiece belongs in the hands of every reader pondering our assumptions about human behavior and our place in the world. Voltaire tells of the ludicrous adventures and reversals of fortune of the naive Candide, who doggedly believes that "all is for the best" even when faced with injustice, suffering, and despair. A satirical challenge to the empty optimism prevalent in Voltaire's eighteenth-century society is both controversial and entertaining, but also vitally relevant today in our world pervaded by--as Candide would say--"the mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well."
Francois-Marie Arouet, writing under the pseudonym Voltaire, was
born in 1694 into a Parisian bourgeois family. Educated by Jesuits,
he was an excellent pupil but one quickly enraged by dogma. An
early rift with his father--who wished him to study law--led to his
choice of letters as a career. Insinuating himself into court
circles, he became notorious for lampoons on leading notables and
was twice imprisoned in the Bastille.
By his mid-thirties his literary activities precipitated a
four-year exile in England where he won the praise of Swift and
Pope for his political tracts. His publication, three years later
in France, of Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais (1733)--an
attack on French Church and State--forced him to flee again. For
twenty years Voltaire lived chiefly away from Paris. In this, his
most prolific period, he wrote such satirical tales as "Zadig"
(1747) and "Candide" (1759). His old age at Ferney, outside Geneva,
was made bright by his adopted daughter, "Belle et Bonne," and
marked by his intercessions in behalf of victims of political
injustice. Sharp-witted and lean in his white wig, impatient with
all appropriate rituals, he died in Paris in 1778--the foremost
French author of his day.Theo Cuffe is the transator of the Penguin
Classics edition of Voltaire's "Micromegas""and Other Short
Fictions."
Jessica Hische is a letterer, illustrator, typographer, and web designer. She currently serves on the Type Directors Club board of directors, has been named a "Forbes Magazine" "30 under 30" in art and design as well as an ADC Young Gun and one of "Print Magazine"'s "New Visual Artists." She has designed for Wes Anderson, "McSweeney's," Tiffany & Co, Penguin Books and many others. She resides primarily in San Francisco, occasionally in Brooklyn.
Winner of the 2012 Fifty Books/Fifty Covers show, organized by
Design Observer in association with AIGA and Designers & Books
Praise for Penguin Drop Caps:
"Vibrant, minimalist new typographic covers.... Bonus points for
the heartening gender balance of the initial selections."
--Maria Popova, "Brain Pickings"
"The Penguin Drop Caps series is a great example of the power of
design. Why buy these particular classics when there are less
expensive, even free editions of "Great Expectations"? Because
they're beautiful objects. Paul Buckley and Jessica Hische's fresh
approach to the literary classics reduces the design down to
typography and color. Each cover is foil-stamped with a cleverly
illustrated letterform that reveals an element of the story. Jane
Austen's A ("Pride and Prejudice") is formed by opulent peacock
feathers and Charlotte Bronte's B ("Jane Eyre") is surrounded by
flames. The complete set forms a rainbow spectrum prettier than
anything else on your bookshelf."
--Rex Bonomelli, "The New York Times"
"Drool-inducing."
--"Flavorwire"
"Classic reads in stunning covers--your book club will be
dying."
--"Redbook"
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