Twenty Thousand Streets, One Cover Image

One of my favourite books by one of my favourite writers, the Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky trilogy by the great Patrick Hamilton, has recently been rejigged in the cover department by Vintage UK. Unfortunately, it's been rejigged to look the same as a couple of other books that already exist.

 

 

 

Before the update, it featured possibly the least prepossessing barmaid in history...

This is from a Bill Brandt photo, 'Barmaid at the Crooked Billet, Tower Hill 1939'.

And before that, it looked like this...

And way back in the misty past, like this (an edition which now will set you back between $2000 and $5000, depending on condition).

This is as good a place as any to have a small whinge: Hamilton's much-praised first novel, Monday Morning, remains out of print and also completely unavailable, both second-hand and in libraries. Two different publishers have assured me over the last couple of years that they were going to reprint it in the very near future (at one point it was meant to be a Faber Find). No luck. Somebody needs to publish that book NOW, or my wrath will be terrible indeed.

UPDATE: John Self points out what I had forgotten--that NYRB also publishes Twenty Thousand Streets..., with a rather nice cover (designed by Katy Homans) using 'The Long House (red Bathroom/Blue Figure)' by Laurie Simmons.