Novels with dead bodies shown on the cover, available on Amazon.

March 26, 2015 11:37 AM

Please help me resolve an argument about what Amazon will and will not sell. Party A claims that Amazon will not sell any book with corpses shown on the cover art. Party B despairs of the work involved in a late change to their book's cover. My gut feeling is that this is a ludicrous exaggeration of their actual policy and that there should be plenty of blatant counterexamples, but it's not an easy thing to search for. That's where askmefi comes in.

For our purposes please ignore zombies or other undead. Skulls and skeletons probably not good enough either.

They don't need to be close-ups or gory, it would actually be best if the corpses were only background detail rather than the focal point. A battlefield with visible casualties would be perfect. Someone standing on a pile of fresh corpses? That's great too. The more examples the better.

Unfortunately links to Amazon's actual policies will probably not be useful here. Reason has already failed and only blatant counterexamples will sway them.

posted by Lorc to Shopping (13 answers total)

First thing that came to mind was Mary Roach's Stiff. Not a novel, alas. Searching for "mortuary" in the literature and fiction category turns up some similar shots of toe tags, though.
posted by ann_disaster at 11:40 AM on March 26, 2015

I imagine there will be books about various genocides that show piles of corpses.
posted by Dorothea_in_Rome at 11:41 AM on March 26, 2015

Are you looking only for works of fiction? If not, Killing Pablo, by Mark Bowden, immediately came to mind.
posted by bondcliff at 11:50 AM on March 26, 2015

The Lullaby Murders
The First Casualty
The Civil War
posted by willnot at 11:52 AM on March 26, 2015

At least one of the Hard Case Crime list has a corpse on the cover. This is the one I found, just clicking on the list a bit -- I bet there are others. And yep, they sell it on Amazon.
posted by holborne at 11:53 AM on March 26, 2015

Books having to do with Jean-Paul Marat or his assassin, Charlotte Corday, are likely to feature images of Marat's dead body, since there are a couple extremely famous paintings of this scene. Examples here (though this is a play), here. See also books having to do with Salome or Judith. Many decapitated heads.
posted by ostro at 11:54 AM on March 26, 2015

Also, this one, which is also sold on Amazon.
posted by holborne at 11:56 AM on March 26, 2015

Battlefield? Here's a book about Gettysburg with at least a dozen corpses front and center.
posted by mochapickle at 11:59 AM on March 26, 2015

And another, same image, different book.
posted by mochapickle at 12:00 PM on March 26, 2015

Someone standing on a pile of fresh corpses? That's great too.

For the cover of Conan the Buccaneer, Frazetta famously painted Conan throttling an enemy while standing over the corpses of his fallen foes. Amazon sells it (1971 ed., 1988 ed., etc.).
posted by RichardP at 12:01 PM on March 26, 2015

This book of Weegee photos is for sale on Amazon, and has a dead body prominently featured on the cover photo.
posted by zombiedance at 12:14 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Clarification: does Party A believe that Amazon will not sell any book with a corpse on its cover, even if that book is published by a major publisher? Or does the restriction just apply to self-published books that authors create and put up for sale directly on Amazon?
posted by alms at 12:20 PM on March 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

Or does the restriction just apply to self-published books that authors create and put up for sale directly on Amazon?

This was going to be my question too. Amazon is picky about their direct sales, less so about other stuff from big publishers. I'd suggest Not One Among Them Whole: A Novel of Gettysburg. Super corpse-y.
posted by jessamyn at 1:22 PM on March 26, 2015 [1 favorite]