Sarah Elizabeth did years of research for her book The Art of Fantasy, available September 12. Yet try as she might, there was one subject she couldn't track down. The cover of the 1976 Dell Laurel-Leaf paperback edition of Madeleine L’Engle’s book A Wrinkle in Time featured a terrifying green face with red eyes and a centaur-pegasus in shades of green, but who is responsible for the image? The artist wasn't credited in the book, and there was no documentation to be found. After exhausting all her leads, Sarah took the question to the internet, hoping to crowdsource some clues. The mystery went viral last spring, and fantasy art fans had plenty of suggestions that didn't pan out.
Then she got the folks at Endless Thread involved. Podcast producer Amory Sivertson was intrigued and started digging into the mystery. Finding records was complicated by the fact that Dell has been acquired by several other publishing companies in the 47 years since, and no one involved in this particular paperback edition could remember how the cover art was acquired. But the mystery has now been solved. The story of how that happened is fascinating, and reveals not only the artist, but involves the great lengths Sarah and Amory went through to find him, and then to authenticate the connections. All is revealed in a podcast, with transcript and links, at Endless Thread.
The story highlights the importance of keeping records and crediting artists wherever their art is used. That art will outlive the artist, and they deserve to be remembered for the works they produced. -via Metafilter