Cover Art Anomalies

In a comment to my last post, it was pointed out that the yellow band on that book is wider than usual. Sometimes when a book is printed, the cover art gets shifted up, down, left, or right from the normal position. The result is that the outer portions of the cover art that are not normally seen are sometimes visible. We tend not to think about this when we look at our books, but the original paintings for the cover art were cropped when used for the covers.

I have the copper printing plate that was used to make the wraparound dust jacket for the Dana Girls book, A Three-Cornered Mystery. Notice how the bottom edge of the printing plate has more of the artwork on it than what appeared on the dust jacket.


I am sure that some examples of A Three-Cornered Mystery have covers that show more of the bottom edge of the illustration.

I have a picture cover of the Nancy Drew book, The Haunted Bridge, seen at the left below, in which the cover art was shifted to the left and wrapped onto the spine. The end result is that more of the right edge of the cover art appears on the book.


Not only is the cover art shifted to the left, it is also shifted up slightly from the normal position.