Nineteen Eighty-Four (Secker & Warburg, 1949)

Michael Kennard's jacket for the Secker & Warburg first edition, published in London on June 8, 1949: the title in loose white script laid over a huge, ghostly "1984" that fills the panel. No picture, no Big Brother, just the date doing the work. The jacket was printed in two colors, this green and a dark red, and bibliographers know of no priority between them. This copy still has its unclipped price of 10s. net.