They also have a Twilighty version of Pride and Prejudice with the blurb "The Love Story That Started It All!" which does not make any sense.

I also love that they are using the Longfellow translation. Take that, dumb kids! Enjoy the Terza Rima!

No. No. NO!

Kids everywhere are going to be buying this book for the badass cover but will ultimately be put into a world of pain when they have read it. Win-win for everyone.

*headsplosion*

"Timeless classic"? Uhmmm...if anything, the story is pretty much set to the period of the time it was written, since all the denizens of hell are people Dante Aligheri was criticizing. Sure, it's a classic, but timeless? It's as dated as a "[insert genre here] Movie" spoof.

Part of me thinks, well, at least it might get kids to read. The other part of me is killing itself.

What a morning.

Even the words "translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow" look, um... (hip). :|

It makes me wonder how many years until someone makes a Goethe-inspired video game. Probably not long, at this rate...

i actually think it's a great idea! kids will flock to the bookstores, get tricked into reading this, and spent years in therapy weeping for their lost innocence. kudos, DelRey! kudos indeed!

-signed, Mephisto-

I didn't get the article at first. I was all, "what's the problem with this?"... and then I realized I was looking at a cover for the BOOK, not the GAME.

I am simultaneously horrified and highly amused. I should start a collection of badly revamped classic literature covers.

the only way to make a dante's inferno from the Aligheri work is a survival horror, think in silent hill 4 it's pretty close with al that levels with spiral downstairs, it0s just a base but it will work, right?

What level of hell are they going to Rob?

Heh heh

A Samuel Beckett video game would rock. We could play as Vladimir or Estragon in "Legend of Godot II: Terrible Silence"

The copy line "Dante's Inferno has exploded onto the scene" makes me laugh, because yes, it did explode onto the scene, but over A HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE AMERICA WAS DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. Makes me excited for that new invention I've heard so much about, bread.

I hate it when stuff like this happens. This is ridiculous. Why mess with classics?

hehe, now I've said that I've just realised that I quite enjoyed Pride, Prejudice and Zombies. But at least that didn't pretend to be the original.

About the Twilight stuff: I'm a fan of the Twilight series (though the books will always beat the films, hands down) but there's a line.
I can understand the shoes, hoodies, school supplies, even (just about) the Graphic Novel ( http://shelf-life.ew.com/2009/07/15/twilight-comic-book-manga/ )
But what is shocking me is that they are studying Twilight at schools! When I was at school people studied Shakespeare or Jane Austen, Dickens, any of the Bronte sisters, not things like Twilight! There's even a study guide - complete with Teacher's companion being sold.
There has to be a limit somewhere...

This is hilarious. I can't wait for bram stokers Dracula with castlevania art on the cover. Or dr jeckyll and mr Hyde with Aaron eckhart as two face on the cover.

This is craptastic! I can only imagine literature professors crapping their collective tweed trousers when this arrives at the university bookstore. "This is NOT what I ordered!" they will yell, only to discover that you really can't judge a book by its cover.

My (English major) girlfriend's main points of outrage:

1) The Longfellow translation.

2) "The Purgatorio would OBVIOUSLY be the better video game!"

All faith in humanity: lost.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Haw haw!

Seriously, this is harmless. There have always been illiterate twats, and this won't make things any worse.

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.

Eesh, this is bad. People either want to read, or they don't. You can't trick your typical action gamer into reading literature by sticking some game artwork on the cover. You really can't. I find it hard to believe it worked for Wuthering Heights, either.

What's next? Romeo and Juliet with an "As made famous by Twilight: New Moon" sticker over Shakespeare's name? *shudder*

I really want to see the look on the 13-year-old gamer's face (after he's done snickering at "Longfellow" on the cover) when he cracks this book open and realizes it's a very old translation of an even older epic poem.

This might be a "so bad it's good" kind of thing. I would like to see more bastardizations of public-domain literature. The Death Merchant of Venice. Romeo and Juliet and Vampires. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Space Commando. The possibilities are endless (and troubling).

This looks like what I would imagine Dante's Inferno would look like when I was a ultra anime nerd from Tawian and kind of sort of heard and knew about the book until I started reading it...

That cover looks like The Inferno as imagined by Zack Snyder.

I do not think this will get kids to read classics, the type of person who would buy this because of the cover or because it is, however tenuously, the inspiration for a videogame, will probably give up pretty quickly, especially as it is an old translation.

For some reason, when I saw this cover, I immediately thought it needed a Queensryche soundtrack. Rage for Order era, maybe.

It's so horrible that I almost have to own it, so I can show it around to my old English prof, my priest, my classically-minded friends, and watch their heads go kablooey.

That and I don't have the Longfellow translation in my library. Win-win.

Seriously though, that is just so very, deeply wrong.

Imagine if EA had altered the text, too? I see it reading like the stagnant works of one L. H. Franzibald. (And if you know who that is, you're as big a dork as I am.)

Seriously, imagine it...

"What do you ask of me?" asked the ice-witch.
Dante made her wait for his response, filling the long seconds by slipping on his blade-rimmed sunglasses.
"Only that you burn... in HELL!" he fumed finally - and with finality - and, with eleven flicks of his mighty blade, the frigid bitch fell into Hell, and did as Dante commanded!
"My life... is Hell," whispered Dante, to nobody but the ghosts of his tortured past, "and now... it is your death, too."

"utter lack of integrity" -- Ain't you cute? It's like you never heard of a marketing executive before!
-
I spent many years in the book business, and let me tell you: Book publishers have less of a sense of shame and integrity than the average Hollywood mogul. Publishers are ruthless, cutthroat, voracious beasts that will lie, cheat, and mislead in order to get your money. They have very few scruples, and sold their sense of decency, along with their grandmother, in order to get to their position in life.
-
You act like book publishers and marketing executives are bastions of taste and intelligent decisions; They're not. They're pond scum that knows how to make a profit, even if it means whoring out a classic while dancing on the grave of the author and making rude gestures at the author's great-great-great-grandchildren.

I've been trying to think about a proper metaphor for this and this is the best I've come up with:

IT'S LIKE SOMEONE BRUTALLY RAPING YOUR MOTHER RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE AND THEN TELLING YOU TO GO DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

You know, I consider myself a fairly smart guy. 4 years of honors English at my fancy college prep school. Straight A's. Successfully tested out of English 1 & 2 the first week of college, as you do. I read Inferno on my own outside of the class support structure, and I found it to be an extremely challenging read.

I laugh at the douches that buy this expecting it to read like the screenplay for 300.

Don't forget the tie-in with that dame over-the-top anime! As mush as I like Japanese animation, it feels like their "edge" is becoming rather dull. If they made it true to the original, and used a more evoking art style like Gustave_Doré, that would be truly epic!

Like Izandra noted (above), I did not know it was a book cover until I spot the DelRay logo. Being more of a Reader then a Gamer, I spotted the logo right away.

I had to read Wuthering Heights in the 8th grade and I hated it. The only joy I took during the torturous reading was picturing Heathcliff as the cartoon cat.

Do you suppose they picked the Longfellow translation because it's in the public domain and they spent all their money on the kick-ass cover art, so they couldn't afford to license a modern version? Or were they banking on Longfellow's strong name recognition among adolescent gamers? This is fairly harmless, I think, like all the movie/game tie-in editions of good books. They often reissue them and lower their price for this kind of thing, and I am all in favor of that. I'd keep an eye out for new editions of Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey, Jr. on the cover. I'm sure they're going to be doing the same thing.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*takes a deep breath*

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA hurrrrghhhhhhhhh

oh my god people are in for such a fucking shock when they pick this up

Shit. Officially. Lost. I hope everyone that reads this goes ape s@$t Avatar crazy afterward.

Mother fucker.

That's all I can say.

Mother Fucker.

I'm just waiting for the Cantebury Tales mmorpg.

Well, at least we can safely say that the creators of this cover will languish forever neck-deep in the frozen lake of Cocytus for this treason to the original source material.

Having already experienced the wondrous joy that is slogging through this book (although I did eventually come to enjoy it), I can just imagine what will happen when the people who buy this start to read what it is they actually bought.

But when will they do the graphic novel edition?!

:P

Has it occurred to anyone that this may be the latest in a series of crass publicity stunts Ea has been pulling for about the last year or so in the marketing of this game? There have been fake protests and news articles about this game that ultimately all turned out to have been concocted by EA's marketing department, supposedly to try and illustrate each of the nine levels of Hell. I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be yet another hoax.

But WHY?!

How about The Oddyssey with some seriously badass images of Odysseus's men getting turned into swine? I think that would be a really winner.

And nice Hitchhiker's reference.

I've read the whole Divine Comedy. its awesome. my favorite edition is one with badass William Blake illustrations. i even wrote a poem where the historical Dante and the guy from Devil May Cry comment on each other

Dante was basically a creepy nerd. the Inferno is his giant fanfic about everyone who hates him being tortured (later, everyone he likes are in Purgatory or Heaven) to rescue his crush (who hated him)

so fuck this edition

Ok - two problems with this long list of comments.

1. Why are we caring for kids innocence? It's been a long time since 13 year olds were thought of as innocent - no offence to those who still believe it. They're in secondary school and already know what it feels like to have a hangover! At the very least this book might keep them indoors.

2. Whatever the argument for and/or against this book for a child aged 13 (I'm saying 13 as that's when I, along with most of my friends started playing the 18+ games), anything which gets them to read is a blessing. So if they don't just play the video-game, and ignore the book, I say well done for picking up the book and realising that there is more to life than a screen.

Yes there are negatives to this, and it does make me sick that it's happening, however as everyone seemed to be so obsolete to the fact that children aren't innocent (anyone remember the 10 year old father?), I had to throw it in there.

This just pisses me off. Why do video games do this? I think there should be a ground rule- if you steal something from mythology, history, or the real world, you should have 85-95% accuracy with the original AT MINIMUM. I'm a Hindu, and every time I mention Shiva, people say "Oh, that's the goddess of ice, right?" Uh. NO. GOD. OF DESTRUCTION. AND DANCE. AND ASSOCIATED WITH FIRE. And more. What scares me even more than that? I am going to have these people in my high school Literature class eventually and I am going to have to grade their papers on this book, but instead of actually reading the book, they'll use the game as a reference.

why are you guys so obsessed with the whole Dante thing? I read the Divine comedy when I was 13 and I enjoyed it but I thought it would be cool if it was a game. In Game was made to be pure ENTERTAINMENT not Accuracy. Just enjoy the game and have fun with it.

oh and EA achieved it's goal: Making all those publicity stunts really made everyone want to make people have conversation on both them and the game. Ea tricked us all....