Fantastic Covers
I love these covers. I love them so much, when I was looking to add the Earthsea trilogy back to my collection (the copies I had when I was a kid lost for some years now), I purposefully searched used bookstores for these editions.
I’m not sure exactly why I love them so, but there’s something about them that seems epic, mythic, wondrous. They inspire me to create stories that are grand and poetic, stories of magic and mystery and wonder. (The novels themselves also engage, entertain, and inspire me, but that’s a whole different post.)
I don’t know if I’ll ever write an epic fantasy novel, but if I do, I want it to have a cover like these.
I think Keith Henderson was likely influenced by Pauline Baynes!
I had the Lord of the Rings paperbacks with that cover art. They were old when I got them and I read them so many times that they eventually fell apart. Now I have a lovely leatherbound volume, but I’ll always remember my first set.