Recovering the Classics

Every great book deserves a great cover. Sadly, many of the greatest classics in the public domain are left with poorly designed or autogenerated covers that fail to capture what makes these books exciting and inspiring to us. We're asking illustrators, typographers, and designers of all stripes to create new covers for over 150 of the greatest works of fiction in the public domain including new 2019 titles! Together we can help to keep these classics fresh, modern, and accessible to new generations of readers.

Proceeds support The Digital Public Library of America which amplifies the value of libraries as Americans’ most trusted sources of shared knowledge. They do this by proactively collaborating with partners in the field to accelerate innovative tools and ideas that empower and equip libraries to broaden digital access to information.

Your Cover Should:

  • Depict the front cover of one of the listed titles, prominently displaying the book’s title (larger) and the author’s full name.
  • Be a vertically oriented, 12" by 18" RGB image at a resolution of 300dpi (3600 by 5400 pixels) that is a JPG or PNG
  • Be bold, expressive, and engaging
  • Be legible in black and white
  • Be a full bleed image (no margins or borders)
  • Keep a safe area of at least 1" on all sides (don’t place text too close to the edge)
  • Optional: Include an apparel file that is layered or includes a transparent background (AI, PSD, PNG, TIFF) (Be sure to outline any fonts used)

Your Cover Shouldn’t:

  • Include urls or logos (small artist signatures are fine)
  • Use copyrighted images or images that don't belong to you. All images you use should be your own, or available under a creative commons or other similar license.
  • Rely overly on cliches

Book List:

  • A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  • A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
  • A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
  • A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
  • A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
  • Aesop's Fables by Aesop
  • Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
  • Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  • Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen
  • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  • Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery
  • Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
  • Antic Hay by Aldous Huxley
  • Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
  • Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
  • Bambi by Felix Salten, illustrated by Barbara Cooney
  • Bleak House by Charles Dickens
  • Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand
  • Daddy-Long-Legs by Jean Webster
  • David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
  • Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
  • Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
  • Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker
  • Dubliners by James Joyce
  • Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott
  • Emma by Jane Austin
  • Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
  • Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
  • Flappers and Philosophers by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott
  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  • Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
  • Grimm's Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm
  • Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
  • Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
  • Heidi by Johanna Spyri
  • Howards End by E. M. Forster
  • Inferno by Dante Alighieri
  • Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
  • Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  • Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott
  • Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
  • Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
  • Jungle Tales of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • Kangaroo by D.H. Lawrence
  • Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Kim by Rudyard Kipling
  • King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Author Unknown
  • King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard
  • La Prisionnere by Marcel Proust
  • Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
  • Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
  • Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
  • Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • Little Men by Louisa May Alcott
  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
  • Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
  • Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
  • Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life by George Eliot
  • Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
  • Mrs. Dalloway in Bond Street by Virginia Woolf
  • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass
  • New Hampshire by Robert Frost
  • Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
  • Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy's Progress by Charles Dickens
  • On Liberty by John Stuart Mill
  • On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
  • Paradise Lost by John Milton
  • Persuasion by Jane Austen
  • Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie
  • Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter
  • Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
  • Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
  • Rootabaga Pigeons by Carl Sandburg
  • Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  • Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
  • Swann's Way by Marcel Proust
  • Tales of the Jazz Age by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • Tess of the D'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented by Thomas Hardy
  • The 8 Strokes of the Clock by Maurice Leblanc
  • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
  • The Ambassadors by Henry James
  • The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights by Unknown
  • The Art of War by Sun Tzu
  • The Awakening by Kate Chopin
  • The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • The Call of the Wild by Jack London
  • The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
  • The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
  • The Ego and the Id by Sigmund Freud
  • The Federalist by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay
  • The Fox by D.H. Lawrence 
  • The Good Soldier: A Tale of Passion by Ford Madox Ford
  • The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  • The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
  • The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
  • The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  • The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
  • The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
  • The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
  • The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
  • The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
  • The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper
  • The Legend of Sleep Hollow by Washington Irving
  • The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
  • The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne
  • The Lost Continent by Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
  • The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle
  • The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  • The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs 
  • The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie
  • The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dicken
  • The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
  • The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  • The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
  • The Professor by Charlotte Bronté
  • The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
  • The Prospects of Industrial Civilization by Bertrand and Dora Russell
  • The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
  • The Return of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
  • The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
  • The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
  • The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
  • The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
  • The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen
  • The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
  • The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
  • The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
  • The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
  • The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
  • The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
  • The Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
  • The World Crisis by Winston S. Churchill
  • This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
  • Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Frederich Nietzsche
  • Towards a New Architecture by Le Corbusier
  • Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • Tulips and Chimneys by E.E. Cummings
  • Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
  • Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
  • Ulysses by James Joyce
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
  • War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
  • What Maisie Knew by Henry James
  • White Fang by Jack London
  • Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
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