The 1970s was the heyday of weird and wacky Loch Ness Monster book covers, you can check out the various covers that were produced to entice buyers in those days at this link. But they don't come much weirder than this one that fellow researcher, Nick Redfern, alerted me to a few days back. The advert states it was published by Futura on December 15th, 1974, which was a year after the original hardback book with the more familiar cover below.
What the cover depicted and what it had to do with the book's thesis was not immediately apparent. The artwork was evidently that of William Blake (1757-1827), though the sketch was not known to me. Nick put me right and said it was his work "The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed In Sun" which is based on the Book of Revelation 12:1-4.
Okay, the dragon correlation is obvious, though the dragon in Blake's work is symbolic of the Devil himself. But the woman clothed in light? You got me there, so answers on a postcard please. That makes it now four variations on the Dragon and Disc covers, including this dragon and UFO artwork below. The fourth variant is a blue version of the green cover above.
The book cover is featured on Amazon though I am not sure how you buy that actual cover. It looks like a stock photo and so I will leave that to other collectors, I have enough books for now! Nick wondered about the provenance of the book as it was advertised as "import". That is what is says on amazon.com but on amazon.co.uk, it is not import, which makes me think it is was a book for the British market only and was imported into the USA marketplace.
The author can be contacted at lochnesskelpie@gmail.com
