Words & Pictures

Longtime readers may remember that I've been working on my (academic) manuscript, which I turned in (with much trepidation) last fall. If not, you can get the background here:

http://83durant.blogspot.com/2009/09/printing-in-process.html

A week ago, I got very good news on that front: my book has passed the clearance review! I have a few targeted areas of revision and some tidying up to do, but I should be able to get that done (I think) in about a month. There is one other big task I need to do, and that's why I'm writing today: I need to find a cover image.

Here's a word cloud that will give a sense of some key themes of my book (you can click on the image to make it bigger):
I'm not going to put the title here, because then this page will pop up when people look up the title, which is not really the first thing I want them to see. But basically, it's a study of gothic novels (Caleb Williams, Frankenstein, Edgar Huntly, and The Bondwoman's Narrative) and how they portray the justice system. The cover will be a fairly boring academic one with the title in a plain font, and then an image in the middle. Typically this press's books feature historical images, and I'm sort of imagining some kind of old illustration of a courtroom or a prison or something like that. If you, dear readers, have suggestions, please let me know. If you happen to have a fabulous photograph of some legal or judicial building (particularly an old one in London or the UK more generally) that might be a possibility, too. Links to good sources, or suggestions for images are very much welcome.