It’s me again: Daisy Miller
¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 Daisy Miller is one of my best friends in the literary world. I will never forgive Henry James for sacrificing her to the Modernity. Who wouldn’t want to depict her on a book cover? She’s practically asking for it.
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Daisy Miller is the namesake of her own text, meaning it is easy to want to put her front and center on the cover. That makes sense. Few of the covers I could see strayed from this tried and true technique. Daisy Miller was originally published in 1879, in magazines and journals. Her first trip into a solo book was at a time when books didn’t get pictures on them.
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The oldest cover I could find was a Dover Thrift edition. Without Daisy on the front, something similar had to make do: actual daisies.
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¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 This has been the only semi-recent cover I have found without a picture of a porcelain white girl with bright eyes looking directly at the reader. Countless other editions feature girls who could be twins, despite the image originating from different artists, in lacy dresses and carrying parasols, maybe. Of course, it’s interesting to consider how these book covers were chosen. Most “classics” editions from a publisher will have a painting featured on the cover; often times those paintings are not related to the text. Sometimes paintings are inspired by novels, but often times a publisher will pick something nice. For instance, the following painting is on all kinds of book covers (I’ve seen it all over) without it relating specifically.
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¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 2 In the Luxembourg Gardens
¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 John Singer Sargent, American (active London, Florence, and Paris), 1856 – 1925
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Here are some examples of the most common style of cover:
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The first Penguin Classics edition I found
The republished Penguin Edition, part of a celebration of Henry James or something
MacMillian has the parasol.
Wordsworth is giving me more of an Ann of Green Gables feel, but I guess it works. 
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All of these covers could have the same woman, the only difference being the varying amounts of natural lighting. Broadview Press takes a different route. I have liked every edition from Broadview I have bought, their cover art never disappoints either. Instead of putting Daisy Miller on the front, stay with me here, they put the Colosseum on the cover! Not an artistic rendering of the Colosseum either, but a photograph of the Colosseum, complete with a gentleman and lady in the frame. The Colosseum is [in a way] a cause of Daisy’s demise, making it an important setting for the text. Not only that, but it makes a reader think more about the consequences of the story then just the consequences of Daisy’s. So, interesting choice, Broadview!
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¶ 16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 1 I am not sure what route I am going to take on my cover yet. I want to try to do something other than just, a woman. James is really writing more about culture and culture changing around Daisy, so hopefully I can think of a creative way to show that.
“actual daisies”: 🙂
Also, yes, you’re correct: at this point in time, most books would have been published with just the loose text block and then custom-bound at the buyer’s request. Or, you could get a pre-fab binding (in boards, with a cloth cover), and it would have looked something like this edition here.