A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Penguin Drop Caps) - Tapa dura

Winner of the 2012 Fifty Books/Fifty Covers show, organized by Design Observer in association with AIGA and Designers & Books

Winner of the 2014 Type Directors Club Communication Design Award

Praise for Penguin Drop Caps:

"[Penguin Drop Caps] convey a sense of nostalgia for the tactility and aesthetic power of a physical book and for a centuries-old tradition of beautiful lettering."
--Fast Company

"Vibrant, minimalist new typographic covers.... Bonus points for the heartening gender balance of the initial selections."
--Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

"The Penguin Drop Caps series is a great example of the power of design. Why buy these particular classics when there are less expensive, even free editions of Great Expectations? Because they're beautiful objects. Paul Buckley and Jessica Hische's fresh approach to the literary classics reduces the design down to typography and color. Each cover is foil-stamped with a cleverly illustrated letterform that reveals an element of the story. Jane Austen's A (Pride and Prejudice) is formed by opulent peacock feathers and Charlotte Bronte's B (Jane Eyre) is surrounded by flames. The complete set forms a rainbow spectrum prettier than anything else on your bookshelf."
--Rex Bonomelli, The New York Times

"Drool-inducing."
--Flavorwire

"Classic reads in stunning covers--your book club will be dying."
--Redbook

From A to Z, the Penguin Drop Caps series collects 26 unique hardcovers—featuring cover art by Jessica Hische

It all begins with a letter. Fall in love with Penguin Drop Caps, a new series of twenty-six collectible and hardcover editions, each with a type cover showcasing a gorgeously illustrated letter of the alphabet. In a design collaboration between Jessica Hische and Penguin Art Director Paul Buckley, the series features unique cover art by Hische, a superstar in the world of type design and illustration, whose work has appeared everywhere from Tiffany & Co. to Wes Anderson's recent film Moonrise Kingdom to Penguin's own bestsellers Committed and Rules of Civility. With exclusive designs that have never before appeared on Hische's hugely popular Daily Drop Cap blog, the Penguin Drop Caps series debuted with an 'A' for Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, a 'B' for Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, and a 'C' for Willa Cather's My Antonia. It continues with more perennial classics, perfect to give as elegant gifts or to showcase on your own shelves.

J is for Joyce. From its chronicling of youthful days at Clongowes Wood school to the radical questioning of all convention and the desire “to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race,” James Joyce’s highly autobiographical A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man portrays Stephen Dedalus in his Dublin upbringing. In doing so, it provides an oblique self-portrait of young Joyce himself. At its center lie questions of origin and source, authority and authorship, and the relationship of an artist to his family, culture, and race. Exuberantly inventive in style, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man subtly and beautifully orchestrates the patterns of quotation and repetition instrumental in its hero’s quest to create his own character, his own language, life and art: “to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use—silence, exile, and cunning.”