In 1972 Penguin published A Clockwork Orange to coincide with the release of Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation. David Pelham's was Penguins fiction art director at the time. The designer Pelham commissioned to create the dust cover kept asking for more time and eventually submitted 'a very poor job very late'. Pelham had no option but to reject it, 'which was a hateful thing to have to do because we were now right out of time' and he had to come up with an alternative cover literally overnight. This he did, with a cog for an eye that brilliantly alludes to both clockwork and the protagonist Alex, who wears black mascara in Kubrick's film and has his eyes pinned open for Ludovico conditioning.
The [original book cover](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/23/Clockwork_orange.jpg) by Barry Trengrove (1962)
In 1972 Penguin published A Clockwork Orange to coincide with the release of Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation. David Pelham's was Penguins fiction art director at the time. The designer Pelham commissioned to create the dust cover kept asking for more time and eventually submitted 'a very poor job very late'. Pelham had no option but to reject it, 'which was a hateful thing to have to do because we were now right out of time' and he had to come up with an alternative cover literally overnight. This he did, with a cog for an eye that brilliantly alludes to both clockwork and the protagonist Alex, who wears black mascara in Kubrick's film and has his eyes pinned open for Ludovico conditioning.
The original book cover by Barry Trengrove (1962)
In 1972 Penguin published A Clockwork Orange to coincide with the release of Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation. David Pelham's was Penguins fiction art director at the time. The designer Pelham commissioned to create the dust cover kept asking for more time and eventually submitted 'a very poor job very late'. Pelham had no option but to reject it, 'which was a hateful thing to have to do because we were now right out of time' and he had to come up with an alternative cover literally overnight. This he did, with a cog for an eye that brilliantly alludes to both clockwork and the protagonist Alex, who wears black mascara in Kubrick's film and has his eyes pinned open for Ludovico conditioning.