Book Covers

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 166874

"yutu75es" wrote:
> > No one seems to have noticed the strange desing on the spine of
the British cover, over the title. It seems like an arrow, a circle
and a triangle. Any theories about what it might be/mean/represent??
> 
> Shelley replied:
> It looks to me to be just like that cat (or dog?) with the arrow in
the mouth- it looks to be mark denoting some publishing or editing
company, and not part of the book itself. I made that initial mistake
myself. Anyone else with Bloomsbury books have a book with a mark like
this on it?
> 
> I think you could spin theories all day about this divided
triangle/circle inside mark, and that they won't be relevant to
anything Rowling wrote.

Carol responds:
The dog with the arrow in its mouth is the logo for Bloomsbury's
children's books, corresponding to the naked archer for the adult
books. Both logos can be seen here:

http://www.bloomsbury.com/

But the triangle with the circle inside it is different. It isn't a
rune, but it may be an alchemical symbol. As I pointed out in a
previous post, it's in the same place on the Bloomsbury children's
cover as the ring with the Peverell crest (the ring Horcrux) on the
HBP cover. 

I don't own these editions, being American, so I'm relying on the
Lexicon to help me out. The original PS had a strange character who
doesn't match anyone in the books in that position. He was originally
on the back cover, as well, but was replaced by Dumbledore. The
thumbnail sketch on the spine of the book may have been replaced, as
well; I don't know. (Can someone who owns this book help me out?) CoS
has Hedwig, PoA I don't know about (I can't find the complete
children's cover at the Lexicon or anywhere on the Internet), GoF has
Hedwig again, and OoP has a Phoenix feather (matching the Phoenix on
the front cover).

Here are the relevant links, FWIW:

http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/ps/rg-ps00.html
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/cs/rg-cs00.html
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/gf/rg-gf0.html
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/op/rg-op00.html
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/hbp/rg-hbp00.html

If anyone has a link showing the spine of the Bloomsbury children's
edition of PoA, please let me know. The Lexicon reader's guide for PoA
at http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/pa/rg-pa00.html shows only
the Scholastic book cover. (Bloomsbury shows only a thumbnail of the
front cover; I had to resort to eBay to view the front and back covers
together, and the spine wasn't shown.) At a guess, the drawing at the
top of the spine of PoA could be Buckbeak, who features prominently on
the front cover, or the wolfish-looking slobbering dog on the back
cover, which could be either a transformed Lupin or Grim!Sirius. Or
the image on the spine might be Crookshanks or Scabbers--some but not
all of the objects at the top of the spine are featured elsewhere in
the cover art.) In any case, it would be an animal, object, or person
as relevant to the story as Hedwig, Fawkes, or Marvolo Gaunt's ring. 

At any rate, based on the spines of the earlier children's editions,
we probably shouldn't dismiss the symbol at the top of the spine of
the Bloomsbury children's edition of DH. It's most definitely not a
logo, and probably does have some bearing on the story, perhaps as
much as the ring Horcrux did on HBP. 

I'm betting that it's an alchemical symbol, possibly related to the
union of the houses if air, water, earth, and fire can all be
symbolized by triangles. A circle, I believe, represents wholeness or
unity--hardly unimportant if one of the themes of DH is unity not only
within Hogwarts but within the WW as a whole. (We have a first step
toward unity with a house-elf joining our half-blood, pure-blood, and
Muggle-born on their quest to defeat Voldemort, who specializes in
divisiveness, turning not only friends and Houses but even his own
Death Eaters against each other.

In any case, the image almost certainly does relate to the themes and
content of DH and possibly to the Sorting Hat's and Dumbledore's
speeches regarding unity. It may relate, as well, to the symbols on
the rim of Dumbledore's Pensieve, not all of which are runes.

I refer anyone who's interested to the post upthread about triangles
as alchemical symbols. I did a search for a symbol resembling the one
on the book spine and found lots of triangles within circles, but not
the reverse. Even the Muggle Granger (John, that is) was no help.
Where's Hermione when you need her?

Carol, wondering why it's so hard to find an online image of the
complete PoA Bloomsbury cover but realizing that's a question for
another forum!