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[conuly]

Can anybody identify the blurry book in this movie still?

You can post your answer here on Reddit, or tell me and I'll post it.

Comments

[bitterlawngnome]

To avoid copyright violations, books in movies are typically props fabricated by the art department.

[conuly]

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[steorra]

Not sure how consistent that is. I work in a used bookstore, and we get people working on movies/TV shows coming by the store to buy books for sets.

I second the person in the Reddit link who says
"I am pretty sure that is an Oxford World's Classics edition. I have some from the 90s and they have the same cover format."

I'm not sure what date range used that cover format, but it doesn't seem to be the one currently in use, but it definitely was. The author's name should be on the cream part and the book title on the green part. It looks to me like a two-line book title. But I can't make out any words or letters or even how many words.

[steorra]

I wonder if the colours of the label code for anything (whether the background to the title etc. is blue or green or red). The internet isn't telling me that they do, though.

[mama_kestrel]

Looks to me like Jane Eyre, but it's a guess at best.

[steorra]

Assuming the Oxford World's Classics guess is correct, I don't think it's Jane Eyre. Here's what the cover of Jane Eyre in the same-layout Oxford World's Classics version looks like:
https://pictures.abebooks.com/LELIVRE/11637549682.jpg

[goss]

*headtilt* Could very well be Jane Eyre as suggested above.

My pick is "A Room With A View" by E.M. Forster.

[gingicat]

Have you tried cropping it and doing a reverse image search?

[okojosan]

I just did that, and I'm not getting anything. I got some unrelated stuff. :/

[kaffy_r]

I'm not doing all the careful looking and thinking other folks are, but it looks to me as if it could be Far From the Madding Crowd, or possibly Jude the Obscure.

[spikethemuffin]

I was thinking _Ethan Frome_.

[spikethemuffin]

But that book is way thicker than EF.

[gingicat]

Well, drat. I really do feel that I’ve seen that one before!

[thekumquat]

I think it might be a Wordsworth Modern Classics David Copperfield - it looks incredibly familiar and I used to own that. It's about the right thickness and has the right lengths of title words.
If it's definitely Oxford, then I'd guess the same or possibly Tess of the D'urbervilles, though Tess is possibly not enough pages.


It definitely looks like a classic printed in the 90s, available in any charity shop.

[low_delta]

I did that, with some photoshopping to true it up, and referencing Goodreads (which has a lot of cover variations stored) and nothing came up.

[gingicat]

Ooh, great idea. I’m sorry it didn’t work.

[grav_ity]

Twitter says Pride and Prejudice, based on that being Meg Ryan's character's favourite book in You've Got Mail. I can only find a clear picture of Hanks reading another edition, though, so who knows.

(I will say, though, if it's Pride and Prejudice, or any classic, copyright isn't an issue and they can film whatever they want. There was a period on Elementary where a TONNE of current YA books just appeared in the background of shots, because: they can.)

[grav_ity]

I FOUND THE ISBN

it shows up on Amazon as "no picture"

9780192827609

[grav_ity]

i found the Emma, but not the P&P, and I also keep finding the cover from after the movie came out, because Oxford didn't CHANGE the ISBN when they changed the cover.