Edition reviews:

1966 first edition, designed by S. Neil Fujita

For this design Fujita proposed to Capote that the hatpin at the top of this austere jacket should have a red bulb at one end to appear like a swollen drop of blood. However, Capote objected to this because the crime was old, so the blood would no longer be bright red. As a result the colour was made burgundy and a funeral black border was added to the outside of the jacket. This suggests that the jacket should show some history, bright colours might make it too fresh and out of character. However, boundaries could be broken to make it so electric and bright, the story is reinvented.

1994 edition, Vintage Books USA

This edition uses one faded photograph for its cover. The cover communicates a sense of the bleak, loneliness that runs throughout the killers in the book. The soft colours indicate its age once again, yet the type is more modern this time. The sans serif creates a contemporary effect, however it also makes it too 'clean'; the typeface should be more classic and vintage to represent the book's content. The clouds also appear very unrelated to the content and are not really enough to surmise the dark and twisted nature of the book.

Published 2000 by Penguin Classics by Andy Bridge

This is an illustrations of the riffle used to kill the Clutter family. The design uses quite dulled colours even though the contrast is high. Although this grabs attention, perhaps it is still too bright to communicate the dark and dreary feeling created by the murders. Although it is certainly dramatic and conveys the style of the 60s. The bird in the centre could link to the freedom that the two men are desperately trying to reach, which does give the cover further subtle meaning. Again they have have used a dull red instead of a bright red, possibly linking back to the original design (the blood is old.)

2004 edition- Soğukkanlılıkla by Gülay Tunç (Turkish design)

This is quite a unique jacket and it is characterised by it's Turkish design. The colours are bright and the red contrasts dramatically with the black. The silhouettes are sharp and crisp, they are very stylised, opposed to a more natural approach. This creates a more artificial aesthetic, which in some ways works to represent the forced, unnatural aspect of murder. Although this is quite a modern response it helps to freshen the story and make it more accessible.