First Editions

A visitor to this website, Terry Zobeck, generously provided these cover images of his Alistair MacLean first editions. His collection covers both UK and U.S. editions. I have laid them out chronologically. (I apologize if this page takes a while to load; I wanted to include all covers at substantial sizes, which takes a lot of data.)

It's interesting to see how the covers are often quite similar but equally often bear little resemblance to each other. Early on, many more UK covers featured people, but that trend switched later. Some U.S. covers added brief descriptions of the books. Typography was sometimes the main difference (I especially like the "mod" lettering on the UK version of Circus). Seawitch shows the greatest contrast — would you be more enticed by an illustration of men aiming rifles beneath chattering helicopters, or by an image of a rusty barrel sitting in some water? Anyway, enjoy this collection!

UK First Editions	U.S. First Editions