Post by Ahasuerus[snip-snip]
Post by MagewolfSeeing the original cover for Dragonsbane reused, for at least the tenth
time, on that page reminds me of a question I have whenever various book
covers get brought up. Which piece of art has been used as a cover
image for the most different books? Not counting clip-art, maybe. But
I do not have the slightest idea how you would go about finding out.
It depends on how you define "different books". For example, Lee Gibbons'
"The Shadow Rising" has been used by almost 20 differently titled books,
but they are all volumes in "The Wheel of Time" series and various
translations thereof -- see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?851385
(scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to see the cover scans.)
Then there are "series covers" which were reused by multiple books in
the same series, e.g. http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1875586
or http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2013849
And then there are oddball cases like this Jim Burns cover --
http://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/e/ef/HNSCNCFCTN1981.jpg . The left part,
the center part and the right part have been used separately on a number
of different books -- see http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1271575
I was thinking more about artwork that was made for a book cover and
then reused as opposed to something used as a brand image. And I think
translations of a book with the same cover should not really count as a
different book.
There are also times when books are divided differently such as a single
hardcover coming out as two paperbacks,multiple books being combined
into a new edition, and I know that Japanese translations used to be
divided up most of the time though after my book contact moved back to
the US I have fallen years behind.
So as long as the cover is on a book that contains in whole or part the
book that it was first on I would not count that as a different book either.