Famous book covers with stories of their own

For these classic books, the covers are as iconic as the novels inside. Here's the scoop on how four famous covers came to be.

"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

Paul Bacon has designed an entire library's worth of book covers: 6,500, give or take a few.

Now 91 years old, the graphic artist is credited with creating the "Big Book Look," a style that includes a "large, bold title, prominent author's name, small conceptual image." The most famous example? Bacon's cover for Joseph Heller's "Catch-22," released in 1961.

Bacon worked up 11 different versions of the eye-catching cover. At the time, many publishers favored literal depictions and realistic illustrations. But for "Catch-22," Bacon was free to experiment. "It was very liberating to realize that I didn't have to do something that looked like Norman Rockwell did it," Bacon said.

Digital production was still years away, so each element of Bacon's covers was pieced and pasted together by hand. Bacon ripped "Catch 22"'s iconic red figure right out of a piece of paper and glued him into book-cover history.

"The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The cover of "The Great Gatsby," with its mysterious floating face, may be considered a classic now, but one prominent writer hated it right from the start. Ernest Hemingway declared that it looked like the "jacket for a book of bad science fiction."

Luckily, no one seems to have cared what he thought. The cover was designed by the Spanish painter Francis Cugat, who received $100 for his efforts. In a twist that might ring true to procrastinating writers everywhere, Cugat actually finished the art before F. Scott Fitzgerald finished his book.

Fitzgerald reviewed Cugat's early sketches while writing, sparking a theory that the cover art may have actually influenced his final draft. One researcher wonders if it was the disembodied eyes of Cugat's cover that gave Fitzgerald the inspiration for his description of Daisy — the "girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs."

When the movie tie-in edition of "The Great Gatsby" was released in 2013, Cugat's artwork was replaced with a photograph of the cast. Leonardo DiCaprio's slick Jay Gatsby took center stage. Some booksellers were so upset at the switch, they refused to carry the new edition. "It's just God-awful," a bookseller at McNally Jackson told The New York Times. "'The Great Gatsby' is a pillar of American literature, and people don't want it messed with."

"The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger

Like everything else about J.D. Salinger, the history of the "Catcher in the Rye" cover has a hint of mystery to it. The illustrator of the dreamy carousel is E. Michael Mitchell, a commercial artist who once lived next door to Salinger in Westport, Conn.

Salinger picked his neighbor to design the cover and the two continued to exchange letters for many years after that, as Salinger's career took off and his reclusive habits took hold. "Dear Buddyroos," Salinger began, in notes to Mitchell about his writing habits, his life in New York, his divorce, and the joy he found in watching his children sleep (Holden enough for you?). At one point, Salinger declared that he had "never had two dearer friends" than Mitchell and his wife.

So why, then, did Mitchell betray his notoriously private friend and sell the letters, steeped in Salinger's personal details and quirks? Rumor has it the two had a falling-out after Salinger refused to send Mitchell an autographed copy of "The Catcher in the Rye," the very book he'd designed.

"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury

Joseph Mugnaini's haunting man on fire lights up the original cover of Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451." His illustration is the perfect visual metaphor for Bradbury's dystopic tale.

Bradbury and Mugnaini's collaboration is a case of two great minds truly thinking alike:

In 1952, a young, broke Bradbury was walking the streets of Beverly Hills, peering in art gallery windows. An etching by Mugnaini caught his eye; Despite the $70 price tag, he knew he had to have it. He returned the next day and the gallery owner unveiled another of Mugnaini's works.

Bradbury was shocked: It was like his own secret thoughts had come to life on the canvas: "I had made notes the prior year concerning a dark carnival train arriving at midnight in a wilderness town to tempt people with its delights and threaten them with its terrors," Bradbury said. "And there was that train!"

"Here in sum was my soul mate. This Mugnaini chap, whoever he was, had to be found, met, known." Bradbury tracked the painter down and the two began a decades-long collaboration, working on several books and a lithograph series.

Mugnaini seemed to know the exact shape and color of the weird worlds inside Bradbury's head. Bradbury gushed that the artist was the "matcher of my metaphors, sharer of my illustrative dreams, stealer of my wings which he takes and builds into more amazing shapes so as to fly higher than I imagined he could."

Ballantine Books agreed that the original edition of Fahrenheit 451 was something special. The press released a limited edition run in 1953 of 200 copies bound in asbestos, designed to survive a blazing flame.

More cover fun

• 45 covers of "The Great Gatsby" designed by fans
• International editions of "Catch 22"
• The most beautiful covers of "Fahrenheit 451" via Slate
• 14 covers of "The Catcher in the Rye" designed by fans