Binding design encompassing a lock motif, as each story in the 3 I was given to illustrate all had some mention of a locked door. The way I have designed the book cover then transforms the book into the door, both looking in, and out, framed by the keyhole.

A Tale of an Empty House

"But as that limping step moved own the passage I felt fear, the hand of the nightmare that, as it clutches, paralyses and inhibits not action only, but thought."

 

This is a very visually descriptive story. At the climax, the limping man, then an invisible force, attempts to strangle one of the main characters in the empty house. We learn later that he himself was strangled by his girlfriend's father.

 

Due to the many references to neck injuries, I made the 5 steps in the house symbolise fingers around a neck (the dark wall). The shadow of the limping ghost on the floor is also cut off at the first stair at the neck, again referencing dammage to the neck.

The Treasure of Abbot Thomas

"'Well sir,' said Brown, speaking low and nervously, 'it was just this way. Master was busy down in front of the 'ole, and I was 'olding the lantern and looking on, when I 'eard somethink drop in the water from the top, as I thought. So I looked up, and I see someone's 'ead lookin' over at us. I s'pose I must ha' said somethink, and I 'eld the light up and run up the steps, and my light shone right on the face. That was a bad un, sir, if ever I see one! A holdish man, and the face very much fell in, and larfin, as I thought."

 

The eye symbol is a strong visual symbol in this story, so I used the tone and shape of looking up at the well to also suggest the shape of an eye.

The Upper Berth

"It was something ghostly, horrible beyond words, and it moved in my grip. It was like the body of a man long drowned, and yet it moved, and had the strength of ten men living; but I gripped it with all my might - the slippery oozy, horrible thing - the dead white eyes seemed to stare at me out of the dusk; the putrid odour of rank sea-water was about it, and its shiny hair hung in foul wet curls over its dead face."

 

Again in this story the ghost has a very physical interaction with the main character, and just after this passage of text attacks him, breaking his arm and trying to strangle him. I wanted to capture the discomfort and the closeness of the 'thing' to the main character.

 

The porthole is a very significant symbol within the story, repeatedly being opened in the night, and the ghost finally escaping through it, so used this as a motif to represent the 'dead white eyes'.