For a few generations of students, the Twentieth Century Views series from Prentice-Hall was an essential source for pulling together papers for Honors/AP English classes.

Published from the ‘60s to the ‘70s, the series featured a consistent style by illustrator/designer Stanley Wyatt. Wyatt’s woodblock-esque covers all had an air of the sinister about them, and made the literary works being analyzed  seem darker and more compelling than the covers of the books themselves often did.

Wyatt didn’t always go for the obvious work or image, either. Yes, it’s of course Moby Dick on the Melville volume, but that’s The Marble Faun on Hawthorne. Crane is The Open Boat. I am not sure about Anderson and Dreiser, James is probably either Portrait of a Lady or The Golden Bowl. Prentice-Hall was inconsistent about revealing the source of the illustration, and about crediting Wyatt.

Unfortunately, these don’t get the use they once did. I’m having to pull most of them from our library’s collection for not checking out in 5 or more years. Sorry to see them go.

Publication dates as follows: