Reddit User Discovers His Grandfather’s Image as Iconic Book Cover

Isn’t the Internet a wonderful place? Years ago you could use unlicensed old photographs and chances are that no one would ever know, but thanks to virility and online communities such as Reddit and others, things have a tendency to be discovered!

This is what one Reddit user found out when he posted a picture of his grandfather to share with others. It seems his grandfather was a bit of a lad in his day, and this image from 1949 seems to capture that perfectly.

We’ve borrowed and blown up the image, it’s a little grainy but do you know the iconic book it appears as the cover photo on?

Did you get it? Almost immediately after Reddit user jimmydadean posted the pic, someone else came along and posted the iconic Penguin Classics cover of the Outsiders by S. E Hinton, containing this exact photograph, edited and reversed.

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This led to the user posting proof that the original photograph was indeed his granddad and tell a little of his grandfather’s story. In his own words:

“Some more context. When my grandfather was young he was a bit of a scoundrel. His home life was, I can only assume, terrible as he refused to talk about it. He ran away, joined a circus, a gang of youths, and was eventually arrested. He never really talked about this part of his life and he certainly wasn’t proud of it.

The judge, instead of prison, sentenced him to the equivalent of community service as a bakers apprentice (so the story goes). He has always been incredibly grateful for the opportunity to turn his life around thanks to that judge, and he did just that.

He would go on to work for Boeing, join the army, and continue baking, all while raising a family. We loved him, and he loved us. He was a good man who came from a dark place, and with one shimmer of kindness and hard work he turned his life into something amazing.”

And if his grandfather didn’t already have a pretty fascinating story, it seems that his photograph was picked up by Penguin Books, probably for some archive making the image iconic for many.