Cover Art: Journey To The Center of the Earth

I was looking at an article that was about the cover art of "your" favorite books. Except the books listed either weren't my favorites or else I wasn't interested in them or hadn't even heard of them. So Iooked up the different covers from some of my favorite books and I was surprise at how many different covers some of them have had. It was hard to pick a favorite with so much art to choose from.

 Today Journey To The Center of the Earth is my choice. I wasn't terribly happy with the choice of covers. There were more than these ten, but most of them were very unattractive. My copy is the first pic, of course. It's actually not my only copy, but I couldn't find the picture of my other copy on Google... or there were so many I overlooked it.

 Of course, there were plenty of busy covers that tried to feature the entirety of the landscapes and creatures seen by the characters. I'm not too much into the busy covers. They try too hard. Most of them I didn't save. Then there were covers depicting specific scenes or places. And I really like the two water beasts clashing in the subterranean lake. Very imaginative. 

  But the last four are my favorites. The simplest covers work the best for me... or I'm just very boring. The decorative hardbound and that last picture of a barren landscape are the best with the other red inner light and descent as close seconds. There's a seriousness to them that I like. This isn't a book that is taken seriously, obviously, because it's concept is beyond disproven for a long time and it's now more of a kids' adventure book. But I think it deserves a more mature treatment because the whole thing plays out straight faced with the characters earnestly experiencing the journey.