Here’s an even sneakier way of doing it.
I need to go back to Trinity College, because they’ve got a lot more than the Book of Kells.
And of course there’s a DIY.
I am a sucker for fore-edge paintings, and I’m happy to report that publishers haven’t forgotten how. The most recent example I’ve seen was the recent and marvelous Penguin Classics edition of The Wizard of Oz.
The fore-edge paintings tell the whole story, albeit from bottom to fore to top, so to speak. On the bottom is the tornado that sweeps Dorothy’s house away to Oz, the fore-edge shows Dorothy en route to the Emerald City with Toto and her four found companions in tow, and the top shows the flying monkeys (squee) and Oz the Great and Terrible heading home in his balloon.
I wrote about the Penguin Classics WoZ edition here.