I recently came home from a yard sale with a paperback copy of Jane Eyre. When I showed my husband, I said “I know you already have this but I really like this edition.” He didn’t question my madness at all and said “Sure, that looks really nice.”

I started reading Jane Eyre on my Kindle three years ago. I made it about 35% in and quit- I couldn’t get into it. I had a lot of “stuff” going on in my life at the time, which I suspect prevented me from being able to fully process a work of classic literature.

I’ve always fully intended to give it a try again. I’ve taken our copy from the shelf a couple times with good intentions, but I’ve never quite felt inspired to give it a go.

When I saw this new copy at the yard sale, I ran my hands over the cover and thought “Ooh, this looks good.” When I got home, I was tempted to curl up on the couch to read it! I haven’t started it yet, but it has definitely moved up on my TBR list.

So here we have the same book, with three different covers, each generating a different response.

The saying is “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” however if covers weren’t intended to influence readers, why would there be different versions, and so much work invested in cover design?

I suppose that in order to appeal to a large number of people over a long period of time, publishing multiple editions with different covers makes sense. It worked for me!

What about you? Have you had similar feelings about multiple editions of the same book?

What book have you chosen specifically because of the cover?