How to judge a book by its cover

Financial Times (May 24 2008)

Joan Aiken wrote poetry, plays and adult novels, including a sequel to Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park , but she is best known for her children’s stories: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase and the Arabel and Mortimer series, the latter famously illustrated by Quentin Blake.

A Necklace of Raindrops is a collection of eight fairy tales in which we meet travelling apple pies, wishing mats, oversized cats and a witch who lives in a chicken’s foot. The tales are a little dark and often surreal: Aiken claimed to have been influenced by the haunted house she grew up in as a child.

This first edition, published by Jonathan Cape in 1968, features a psychedelic, wrap-around cover designed by the Polish illustrator Jan Pienkowski. His distinctive style evokes the fairy tales’ mix of surrealism and exoticism; apparently, he played a tape recording of the fairy tales as he drew. The girl on the cover is Laura, from the title story, who is given a magical necklace of raindrops by her godfather, the north wind. This was the first cover to feature Pienkowski’s enchanting silhouette style. The black title lettering picks up on the silhouette and stands out against the multicoloured backdrop that captures a sense of 1960s experimentalism. “It was my first jacket that I was really pleased with,” Pienkowski says. “It was done with an airbrush in the psychedelic manner. And the mini skirt was at its height at that time.”

In the background is the far-away exoticism of Arabia, with its minarets and palaces. As a child during the second world war, Pienkowski travelled through eastern Europe. The folk tales he heard there had an enduring influence on him and have featured in his own books.