The Saga of Darren Shan

Notes:

The cover from the American ARC (Advance Reading Copy -- known as a Proof in the U.K.) of Book 1. On the final cover, the image of the boy was removed, although you can see him on the rear jacket of the book. There was no writing on the spine -- it was completely blank. There was a letter from the chairman of Time Warner Trade Publishing just inside the cover, saying why they'd bought the book and how excited they were to be publishing it. The theatre on the cover, according to my internet research, is actually the Harris Theatre, which was in New York. It had several names over the years, was closed as a theatre in 1930, operated as a cinema for some time from 1940, and was demolished in 1997. This image of the theatre seems to come from 1919, when a play called "Wedding Bells" was running. It starred Margaret Lawrence and Wallace Eddinger, was written by Salisbury Field, and directed by Edgar Selwyn.