The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World by Harlan Ellison
![Hardback edition by Science Fiction Book Club, March 1970, with the authorized text restoring editorial changes made to the text of Avon’s paperback edition. [More info on ISFDB]](https://fiu-original.b-cdn.net/fontsinuse.com/use-images/N208/208648/208648.jpeg?filename=31288968836.jpg)
Hardback edition by Science Fiction Book Club, March 1970, with the authorized text restoring editorial changes made to the text of Avon’s paperback edition. [More info on ISFDB]
The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World is a collection of fifteen short stories by Harlan Ellison (1934–2018), first published by Avon Books in paperback in July 1969. A hardback edition followed ten months later, by the Science Fiction Book Club. The titular story won the 1969 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. The last story, “A Boy and His Dog”, is among Ellison’s most famous ones, and was adapted into a film of the same name.
The cover design by Leo and Diane Dillon uses lettering, not type. It does qualify for Fonts In Use, though: the letterforms are clearly patterned after a typeface, namely Davison Art Nouveau, a.k.a. the Dune font. This is evident in hallmark glyphs like the O with the internal swash terminal. The designers even referenced several of the typeface’s many alternates, more or less directly: there’s the R that curls inside the counter, the one reaching below the baseline, and the one where the leg curves to the left. The accompanying sans on the paperback edition is Helvetica Condensed.
![Avon paperback edition, July 1969 [More info on ISFDB]](https://fiu-original.b-cdn.net/fontsinuse.com/use-images/N208/208649/208649.jpeg?filename=31498229627.jpg)
Avon paperback edition, July 1969 [More info on ISFDB]
Back cover of Avon’s paperback edition
2 Comments on “The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World by Harlan Ellison”
So this is what I have using the thin variant of Art Nouveau that I’ve been working on. I do think I may adjust the “swirls” based on this book cover.
I’ve updated the swirls on my thin variant to better match this cover and for better overall cohesion with the bold version.