Something About Inverse Images

Positively strange.

Here’s something fun to discuss. Negativity. But I mean with images.

I mentioned a few months ago the strange, initial paperback edition of The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn (Bantam Skylark, 1980). Yes, yes, the cover, the cover. That’s not the only oddity with the artwork. As you flip through the pages, you’ll soon discover the full-page interior illustrations by Judith Gwyn Brown are black-and-white reversed. The above image is of the frontispiece.

Its...nice...in its own way, and – oh, who am I kidding? It’s not nice. It’s a distraction. It looks wrong because it is wrong. The images appear correct in the original 1978 hardcover edition, so what happened here? Is this a common issue? Why don’t you see it in more books? Would this been corrected for later printings of this editions, or would the powers-that-be said, “eh”, and left it as is?

Two years later, the inverse images were visible in the 1982 hardcover edition published in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson; see below image. The first thing I’m curious about is whether these two publishing companies were related. Were the book images already created, meaning there was nothing to do but look the other way?  Did Hutchinson think it looked correct?

No other Bellairsian books have surfaced with this feature, but I’m curious if others know other books with a similar issue.