A Mystery That Should Not Exist
This is a repost blog.
Original post by S. Elizabeth, author of the upcoming book The Art of Fantasy, on her blog ‘Unquiet Things for Kindred Glooms’. Click through to the original blog entry for the full text and blow-by-blow of the investigation.
Mystery solved by the crew of Endless Thread at WBUR. Click through for complete text and audio, and to find out who the illustrator was.
Hat tip to Metafilter for surfacing this story.
9 May 2023: A Mystery That Should Not Exist: Who Is The Cover Artist For This Edition Of A Wrinkle In Time?
Why is it that in this current year of 2023, no one seems to know who the cover artist is for this iconic Dell Laurel-Leaf A Wrinkle in Time cover art?? In a time when we have so much information available to us at our literal fingertips, how could it possibly be that the above marvelously and terrifyingly iconic imagery is perpetually credited to “unknown artist”? Even the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, always an excellent and trusted resource, does not have an answer.
1 Sept 2023: Artist: Known — Illustrator for ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ gets long-overdue credit
By Amory Sivertson and Emily Jankowski for WBUR
A couple years ago, as the writer Sarah Elizabeth was working on her book, “The Art of Fantasy” (out September 12th), a particular illustration kept popping into her mind’s eye. It was the cover for the 1976 Dell/Laurel Leaf paperback edition of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic sci-fi/fantasy novel “A Wrinkle in Time.”
She wanted to include the piece in her book, but she didn’t know who the artist was. “I thought, ‘Oh, pish posh! Surely I’m going to find this in the first page of Google.’ No. No, no, no!”
The answer isn’t on any page of google, or any page of the physical book itself — not the copyright page where the rest of the credit information is, not the front or back cover, NOWHERE. Sarah posed the question in the Unresolved Mysteries subreddit. “This would be the kind of thing that the folks over at Endless Thread would have a field day over,” someone commented.
And, indeed… we did! In this episode, Amory uncovers the artist behind this iconic illustration.
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