Originally published by Harper Collins in a US edition in June of 2019, the cover of William McKeever‘s Emperors of the Deep; Sharks; The Ocean’s Most Mysterious, Most Misunderstood, and Most Important Guardians depicts a sharply defined photographic image of a shark as it swims boldly yet smoothly through its aquatic realm. The cool filtered blue light of the epipelagic (sunlight zone) ocean layer surrounds the unmistakable strongly upright tail of a shark prominently featured in the foreground as it swims away from the observer’s perspective. The iconic triangular dorsal fin, being farther from the viewer, gives the feeling of at least momentary safety while still imparting the chilling thought that the shark could still turn around at any moment. Dramatic in its composition, perhaps even reasonably described as cinematic (which, as one of its author’s principle media is film) it is an image that would be expected to appeal to the thrill of sharks, but not – thankfully – in a manner that merely panders to all-too-common misunderstandings of these creatures (as are, alas, too many popular presentations of them).
The visual, as well as psychological, effect of the first UK edition, published by Harper Collins UK in July of 2020 under the somewhat modified title of Emperors of the Deep; The Ocean’s Most Mysterious, Misunderstood and Important Guardians is a world away from its American predecessor. Artistically reminiscent of the study of natural history back in the days when it was still natural philosophy, colorful illustrations of four different shark species are depicted in profile against a cream-colored background that immediately reminds the viewer of well-aged parchment. Far from seeking an emotional response from the observer, this is a cover that invites learnéd enquiry; it conveys the seriousness of antiquity and the scholarship made possible through museum collections.
Further, the differences in, and subsequent changes to the subtitle in the UK hardcover and paperback editions are also significant. Two of the three uses of the superlative “most” are absent from the UK hardcover edition‘s title, rendering it as Emperors of the Deep; The Ocean’s Most Mysterious, Misunderstood and Important Guardians, then in the forthcoming UK paperback edition (the US paperback edition does not change in either appearance or title from the US hardcover edition), the third “most” also disappears, as well as “important” and the martial (and dare it be said, masculine?) “guardians,” to yield a decidedly more restrained Emperors of the Deep; The Mysterious and Misunderstood World of the Shark. I find these last changes particularly significant as they shift the sharks themselves from being the exclusive focus of the subtitle, and therefore assumably being perhaps even of the work as well, to the “world” of the shark being the subtitle’s focus, conveying to the potential reader that the subject is not only the sharks themselves but the ecosystems in which they live as well, perhaps even their interactions and relationships to humans.
Admittedly biased to most all things both classical and scholarly as I am, as well as being a firm devotee of the old style of natural history museums (as still to be observable in the superb Natural History Museum at Tring) to which it speaks, there is little ambiguity in which, were I to be presented with the choice between the two editions, I would choose to purchase: the UK edition would clearly receive my money.
