S C A R L E T

Mysterious Cover for Historic Detective

Did you know that Edgar Allen Poe wrote the first detective novels? The three short mysteries are widely acknowledged to be the first detective novels ever penned and they heavily influenced Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. 

I was asked by the publishers Pushkin Vertigo to design the cover that would seem ‘gifty’ and have a festive feel. The final books are embellished with copper foil.

Set in Paris during the mid-nineteenth century, the brilliant Chevalier Auguste Dupin investigates three grisly and confounding mysteries. On reading the books I was surprised by how much had been appropriated from Poe’s ingenious puzzle solver since it was written; the pipe by synonymous with Holmes, the trusty companion who also narrates the story, and their armchair discussions while gleaning clues from newspapers.

I love it when there’s some significance to the patterns and flourishes used in the artwork so I set about hunting for my own visual clues to use in the design.

For the border surrounding the cover I drew little macabre icons such as skulls, headstones and blood drops that reflect the morbid subject matter in the stories. These were woven into a lacework pattern that also references a central theme in the second story. My favourite part is the little Parisian skyline with Notre Dame peeking through.

Maybe I would have read the warning signs first."

We were so nearly something. Not in a nostalgic, rueful manner – I’m glad I never loved you quite in the way a romantic relationship required; we were horrible communicators, I cared too much about the little things and not enough about the big,

We would have been hopelessly mismatched, we probably narrowly missed a bullet

And you probably would have made me happy.

Why am I writing this? I’m being so selfish again, But your smile is alluring and intriguing and beautiful, and I’ll always love the stormy blue of your eyes, The playful, deliberate way you’d choose your words, Always slightly amused

How do I tell you that I love you, But not quite enough?

And I’ll always love you, always miss you, in that unique, useless kind of way.

I really miss you, damnit,