Paperback 884: Dagger of the Mind / Kenneth Fearing (Bantam 93)

Paperback 884: Bantam 93 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Dagger of the Mind
Author: Kenneth Fearing
Cover artist: "Galdone" (signature, lower right)

Estimated value: $15-20

Best things about this cover:

• Weird. That dagger of the mind looks a lot like an actual dagger.
• The artist was right to stab this painting. It's terrible.
• Art colonies were a weird source of fascination for pulpy writers of the '40s-'50s. There was probably some presumption of casual nudity and free love, although Zombie Veronica here looks well and properly dressed.
• "Bye bye, painting. I'll miss you."

Best things about this back cover:

• OK, that's a pretty persuasive first sentence. I like the idea of her husband running at her with a dagger and her just ... stepping aside. Like some weird torero.
• "Need more be said?" Yes, it need. It need be more said.
• That little sketch of the woman is pretty pathetic, but these endpapers are pretty boss!:

Page 123~

I said, rubbing my head, "Don't ask me riddles. I want some borscht, shaslik, and about two quarts of iced coffee."

Hey, that's *my* hangover remedy. Wait, what's "shaslik"? Sounds like something Mork would say to Orson.

~RP

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Paperback 869: N Or M? / Agatha Christie (Dell 187)

Paperback 869: Dell 187 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: N Or M?
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Norm!
• The cigarette is puzzled. "What the hell does 'NORM' mean?" it wonders.
• Design on this is so bizarre. Everything's laid out at odd angles, the cigarette ashes have an eerie, vermiform look to them, and the whole thing kinda looks like a white whale with "NorM" tattooed to the side of its face is trying to fight the scourge of smoking by devouring all related paraphernalia in its sight.
• Gerald Gregg is a cover artist god. As early, non-sexy paperback covers go, his weird abstractions are my favorite.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mappington! Backington! These never get old.
• If you call your place "Smuggler's Rest," the cops *are* going to find you.
• "Road." LOL. Thanks, map!
• If the devil doesn't live at Sans Souci, he will soon.

Page 123~

"Friends of friends of yours, I think you said?" Tommy suggested mendaciously.

Tommy always was a mendacious little bastard. I've always said that about him.

~RP

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Hardcover interlude: Rented Wife / Jack Woodford (Woodford Press, 1947)

Title: Rented Wife (Woodford Press, 1947)
Author: Jack Woodford
Cover artist: "Artist" is a strong word…

Yours for: $20


Best things about this cover:

• Man, hardback covers were (generally) sterile compared to those of paperbacks. Her boobs are prominent but without erotic quality. His mustache is thin but without erotic quality. Her hair is, indeed, epic, but again, without erotic quality.
• She does have a pretty decent "fuck-you" look, though.
• "Monica, can get you some more of these venetian blinds. In beige again, yes. That'll be all."

Best things about this back cover:

• This won the 1947 NYC erotic poetry slam.
• "Unmoral" is a word now?
• Memo to all authors—just start your own f'ing press.

Please also check out the great dust jacket flap copy—first, the ultra-ambiguous, super-dull, completely non-erotic plot description…


Then the hyperbolic, charmingly maniacal author description: "almost satanic powers of penetrating observation"???


Page 123~

Nope, going with Page 133, to which I randomly opened, and which contains this improbable bit of prosemanship:

On impulse she got up out of bed. Threw off her pyjamas … Started for the door, aflame with passion at the thought of putting her warm nudity down beside his muscular, hairy male body without further casuistry.

"Got a delivery here, let's see … [checks clipboard] …  looks like some warm nudity?" "Oh, great, we've been expecting that. Just put it down next to the muscular, hairy male body over there." "Alright. You gonna want any casuistry with that?" "No, just a receipt will be fine, thanks."

~RP

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Paperback 738: The Lady in the Lake / Raymond Chandler (Pocket Books 389)

Paperback 738: Pocket Books 389 (4th ptg, 1947)

Title: The Lady in the Lake
Author: Raymond Chandler
Cover artist: [Tom Dunn]

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Not my favorite cover, but I love the movie tie-in angle. Audrey Totter died just last month.
• It's a pretty, evocative cover—I like the way the bubbles and her hair float up in soft curves. I also like how her bright purple dress pops against the blue/yellow/green-ness of the rest of the cover.
• Ten years later, this cover would've been way more sexed-up, which I realize is a morbid thing to say about a cover featuring a corpse, but … you know I'm right.

Best things about this back cover:

• Gah. Nothing. 
• I like "susceptible blondes," but "moves with the speed and general effect of a well-aimed bullet to its suspected target" is noxious, for more reasons than I care to go into.
• If these scans look a little odd, it's just the permagloss, which is fraying (book still in excellent condition, though)

Page 123~

"Women are always leaving their handkerchiefs around. A fellow like Lavery would collect them and keep them in a drawer with a sandalwood sachet. Somebody would find the stock and take one out to use. Or he would lend them, enjoying the reactions to the other girls' initials. I'd say he was that kind of a heel. Goodby, Miss Fromsett, and thanks for talking to me."

So *that's* what he meant by "The Long Goodbye"—it had an "e" on the end, unlike all his other goodbys, which, apparently, didn't.

~RP

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Paperback 736: She Ate Her Cake / Blair Treynor (Dell 186)

Paperback 736: Dell 186 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: She Ate Her Cake
Author: Blair Treynor
Cover artist: Uncredited [Gerald Gregg]

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Hell yeah she did! Good for her.
• She ate her cake, then stood near the window and shot at birds.
• Pretty dang racy for a '40s Dell cover.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Chickens! 
• I'm not sure where to go after "Chickens." Not sure how you top "Chickens."

Page 123~

"Well then, why not come back to Los Angeles when I leave? You can go places with me. Now that Al is gone, I'm Mr. Big."
"Yeah, Mr.-Big-on-the-Lam."

Yeesh, I've heard better gangster patter at crossword puzzle conventions. Come on!

~RP

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Paperback 661: The Cinnamon Murder / Frances Crane (Bantam 130)

Paperback 661: Bantam 130 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: The Cinnamon Murder
Author: Frances Crane
Cover artist: Gillen

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• Nooo! Not Cinnamon! She was our best pole dancer!
• The space priestess kneeled to anoint the body—as The Hat commanded.
• Warren Beatty in "Dick Tracy" called ... yeah, he's gonna need his jacket back.
• Seriously, unless she's going to be hiding among taxis later, that dress is a bit much.

Best things about this back cover:

• HA ha. The hat! — at least I think that's what that drawing by the "M" depicts; unless it's a very knobby hand holding a very stout wine glass. 
• "The Pat Abbotts" sounds like a '50s folk music outfit.
• "Her best John Frederics' hat"! O man, the hat is a character. There's a niche market: hat crime. It's like hate crime, only with a short 'a'.
• I haven't read this, but I'm imagining a very low-rent Nick & Nora. And instead of Asta—a hat.

Page 123~

Mr. Couch's blue eyes rested on me and then, looking back at Patrick he said, "I'm afraid I'm being pretty frank."

Oh, sweet, sweet 'frank.' I've missed you.

~RP

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Paperback 611: TCOT Perjured Parrot / Erle Stanley Gardner (Pocket Books 378)

Paperback 611: Pocket Books 378 (3rd ptg, 1947)

Title: The Case of the Perjured Parrot
Author: Erle Stanley Gardner
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $18


Best things about this cover:

• Perjured Parrot is not lying when he says he will straight-up maul your face.
• I will be seeing those eyes and that "hand" in my nightmares tonight, and every night.
• This book is in near-perfect condition.

Best things about this back cover:

• The oldest pun in the book.
• "Exceedingly profane parrot" = best premise for a mystery I've ever heard. "I will #$%@ up your face and then #$%@ your wife, you #$@%ing #$@%-ass #$@%!"
• "Like a mule-skinner" is a simile that has lost a bit of its cultural resonance. By "a bit" I mean "all."

Page 123~

Bolding pushed back his swivel chair, crossed over to a steel filing case, unlocked the catch and angrily jerked the steel drawer open. "Oh, all right," he said, "if you're going to act that way about it."

He then made a pouty face, stomped off, and locked himself in his room with a copy of "Tiger Beat."

~RP

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Paperback 597: The Blackbirder / Dorothy B. Hughes (Dell 149)

Paperback 597: Dell 149 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: The Blackbirder
Author: Dorothy B. Hughes
Cover artist: Uncredited [Gerald Gregg]

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• I'm no ornithologist, but ... blackbird? Really? Is there a purple-taloned raptor variety I'm not aware of?
• Those are the most intestinal-looking talons I've ever seen. 
• I hope that guy's dead, because otherwise—that crotch-talon, ouch.
• His feet are so dainty. If I don't look at his weird facial expression, I could almost feel moved by his unfortunate circumstances.

Best things about this back cover:

• Well clearly the best things is Jacques (not pictured).
• Ironically, Popin didn't like it when people just popped in. This is why he lives in the middle of fucking nowhere, with only Jacques to ... do whatever Jacques does.
• I like the geographical / regional touches: snow, mountains, adobe house ...

Page 123~

Her skirt was a thin sheet of ice from below her hips.

Well, that's one way to call a woman 'frigid,' I guess.

~RP

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Paperback 572: The Innocent Mrs. Duff / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding (Dell 194)

Paperback 572: Dell 194 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: The Innocent Mrs. Duff
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Cover artist: Gerald Gregg

Yours for: $20
Best things about this cover:

• Love this cover, mainly because I had No idea what I was looking at at first (and still get vaguely confused every time I look at it now). At first I thought the shape inside the bottle was some kind of high-heeled shoe. Then I thought the shot glass was the barrel of some gun that the man had laid on the table. Now I understand that it's really just a depressed drunk guy slouching forward on some kid of bar, but the strange arrangements of shapes is still really intriguing. The twinkle of light on the rim of the glass is my favorite part..
• Also love the extended flourish on the capital "T" in "The"—makes the word seem as if it has emanated from the bottle.
• Ooh, "crime map on the back cover"—let's check it out.

Best things about this back cover:

• Love the excessively detailed Floor Plan. No toilet in the place, but ... minor detail.
• That is a very, very odd place for a carousel. 
• The text boxes marking locations are comically unnecessary. Surprised there aren't "Tree" and "Grass" boxes. Of *all* the things in this painting, the *one* thing I'd expect to get a text box explanation (the carousel) is the one that doesn't have one.

Page 123~

Locked in his room, he lay down on the bed and fell asleep at once. He waked with a start, in a flame of anger against Reggie. She wants to leave me here, does she? All right. Let her go. Let her go to hell.

When I read this, all I hear is the voice of Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Apes."

~RP

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Paperback 519: Liza of Lambeth / W. Somerset Maugham (Avon 139)

Paperback 519: Avon 139 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Liza of Lambeth
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $7

Best things about this cover:

• Liza of Lamboobs!
• Vincent Van Gogh positions himself for optimal boob viewing. "Sunflowers, Shmunflowers. I'm painting these!"
• Vincent Van Gogh, Incompetent Vampire!
• I remember these swirly popsicle thingies that mom used to buy. I associate them with that one time I was so sick (1981) that I couldn't keep much down. Anyway, popsicle color + memory of barfing = where the background of this painting takes my brain.

Best things about this back cover:

• Shakespeare-Head!
• We've seen all this before.

Page 123~

"I never 'ad any money from anyone."
"Don't talk ter me; I know yer did. Yer dirty bitch. You oughter be ashimed of yerself tikin' a married man from 'is family, an' 'im old enough ter be yer father."

This whole scene is like a Cockney Jerry Springer episode.

~RP

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Paperback 508: Dracula / Bram Stoker (Pocket Books 452)

Paperback 508: Pocket Books 452 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Dracula
Author: Bram Stoker
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $20

Best things about this cover:

• Here we see Dracula's famous aversion to Victorian table lamps. "Aargh ... so ornate ... so ... floral!"
• I love how he's enhaloed by some magical unseen light source. Unless he's just standing in front of the TV.
• His hand! Just stare at that thing for a while. It's grotesque and intoxicating.
• This is a famous cover. An iconic horror cover. From the font to the deep, regal purple to the brilliant use of light, it really is a winner.

Best things about this back cover:

• Well, we're off to a good start. Nice tagline!
  I forgot about the hypnotists.
  This is a good back cover, in that it's *really* making want to read the book (again).

Page 123~

He has the sugar of his tea spread out on the window-sill, and is reaping quite a harvest of flies. 

~RP

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Paperback 477: Uncle Tom's Children / Richard Wright (Penguin 647)

Paperback 477: Penguin 647 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Uncle Tom's Children
Author: Richard Wright
Cover artist: jonas

Yours for: $20

Best things about this cover:

• Kind of an abrupt shift from all the sexed-up lesbian stuff I've been trafficking in lately.
• Simple, gruesome, effective cover from "jonas," one of the most important early pb cover artists.
• Really digging the title font. Also, that dude's pocket square.

Best things about this back cover:

• Back cover from back when paperbacks still modeled their back covers after those on the insides of hardcover dust jackets. Very straitlaced and informative and decidedly non-sensational.
• The first recipient of the Spingarn medal was Ernest Everett Just (1915). Trivia!

Page 123~

There was silence. Then Hadley laughed, noiselessly.

Laughed noiselessly? You might want to check that he's not choking.

~RP

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Paperback 392: The Leather Burners / Bliss Lomax (Century Western 54)

Paperback 392: Century Western 54 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: The Leather Burners
Author: Bliss Lomax
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• It's like two guys at a Flamboyant Ascot convention are having a chummy discussion about fabric texture: "Go on, feel it with your knuckles ... hey, easy, not so hard, I paid 6Gs for this. Persian silk. Etc."
• If this is a fight, it appears to have begun with a drink dispute—specifically, with the question of which is the manlier drink: Miller Lite or a whiskey sour? Unsurprisingly, whiskey sour man is kicking ass.

Best things about this back cover:

• In case you were wondering about the plausibility of my ascot scenario, I give you: Rainbow.

Page 123~

Rainbow saw Lint Granger stumble and go headlong. Grumpy was at the sheriff's side in a flash. Lint was heavy, raw boned, but Grumpy picked him up in a single movement, hurled him forward toward safety.

I wish this book were called "A Man Named Lint." Who *wouldn't* read that?

Not sure what kind of character-naming prowess I expect from a guy named "Bliss."

~RP

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Paperback 353: Blue City / Kenneth Millar (Ross Macdonald) (Dell 363)

Paperback 353: Dell 363 (1st, 1947)

Title: Blue City
Author: Kenneth Millar
Cover artist: Uncredited (a shame)

Yours for: $23


Best things about this cover:

• I'm not sure there is a cover out there that better expresses the idea of "noir." The grimy fatalism of the urban jungle perfectly expressed by that pollution/hand working all the lowlifes like marionettes. That woman's right boob is freaking me out a little, and the gangster's proportions are all wrong, but all the classic vices are on display, and that hand is going to give me nightmares. The skin on the knuckles, my god ...

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Whoever designed that city Really liked right angles.
• Nice detail on the buildings [/sarcasm]
• This book is in a plastic slipcase. I would have taken it out, but I feared I might harm the book in doing so, so parts of the back remain obscured somewhat by the thick plastic strip down the middle. And the ID tag.

Page 123~

"You won't sing," Kerch said, "if what we do to you shuts you up for good. Come along, Floraine. You'll need a coat."

"You'll need a coat" makes me laugh. Cold-blooded hitman worries you might get chilly.

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 54

Title: The Unsuspected (Pocket 444, 4th ptg, 1947)
Author: Charlotte Armstrong
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $10

• Claude Rains will kick your ass in a Dramatic Staring competition ... although the zombie in the prudish nightgown has some serious skills as well.
• Love the fact that the background picture has those horizontal lines that makes it look like it's a photo of an 80s TV screen a la "Max Headroom." Gives the whole cover an awesome '80s music video vibe. It's like when Aretha and George Michael sang in front of giant screen images of themselves. Am I remembering that correctly? ... uh, sort of.

• "Terror and Suspense" = copywriter says "Fuck this shit, I'm going out drinking. Who's with me?"

Page 123~

"My object is ... that you don't die. I believe that if I show this little paper in certain places, it will tend to lengthen your life." He looked at her insolently. No, not insolently, but with a reckless look, a gambling look.

First, what? Second, I love a writer who leaves in her failed attempts at accurate description. "No, not insolently ... what was I thinking? Stupid Charlotte. Stupid stupid ..."

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Book 44

Title: False to Any Man (Bantam 80, 2nd ptg, 1947)
Author: Leslie Ford
Cover artist: "Kohs"

Yours for: $8

• When the Bride of Frankenstein sleeps, she dreams of the facades of junior high schools.
• I sort of like the torn cover effect, but the rest — it's both nonsensical and ugly. The color scheme alone is a nightmare.
• "Colonel Primrose" already sounds like someone I'd like to kick in the balls.

• If only this book were about a "gimlet-eyed" cat.
• Always sad when the original cover is light years better, design-wise, than the paperback.

Page 123~

"He sure am smart, ain' he?" William said, with quite genuine enthusiasm.

In case you were still entertaining some idea of actually reading anything written by this woman...

~RP

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57 Books from the University Book Sale: Books 8-11

A Mess of March ... I'm moving all the NGAIO MARSH titles to the front of the queue (literally, Roger Daltrey sang the word "queue" as I typed it just now ... freaky coincidence) because one of my readers seems to have a thing for her :)

Book 8: Singing in the Shrouds (Berkley, 1960)
Cover artist: photo?

• A book that takes on the collapsing telecommunications system, apparently
• Her miniskirt has its own miniarm.

• Finally, someone has tamed the wild, native, animalistic mystery novel and made it "civilized literature." Where's my houseboy with the tea!?

Book 9: Death of a Peer (Pocket 475, 1947)
Cover artist: Aargh, uncredited

• This lady's got Fear Hand (TM). In fact, she appears to have a double case of it.
• Ouch. Skeleton key to the eye. That's gotta hurt.

• Well if it's WEALTHY, of course we care...

Book 10: Death of a Fool (Avon T-254, late '50s)
Cover artist: Uncredited

• Fear Hand! (TM)
• Jenny recoils in horror as she sees that her gardener has failed to blow all the leaves off her front lawn. And squirrels on her bird-feeders!? Oh, the humanity.

• Inspector Alleyn arrives to cut through the heathen nonsense of the simple souls. Civilization! God save the Queen, wot!

Book 11: Swing, Brother, Swing (Pocket 762, 1951)
Cover artist: Lew Keller

• "Swing, Brother, Swing ... for Hepcats only, man!"
• Secret ingredient to all good mystery cover copy — just add "... with DEATH!"

• I'm sorry, I started laughing at "accordion" and haven't stopped yet

~RP

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Paperback 291: The Maltese Falcon / Dashiell Hammett (Pocket Books 268)

Paperback 291: Pocket Books 268 (1st ptg, 1944)

Title: The Maltese Falcon
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: Leo Manso / Stanley Meltzoff

Yours for: Hell no

The following is so self-evidently awesome that I refuse to sully it with my usual commentary:

Here's the original 1944 cover:



And now here's the cover of the DUST JACKET (you heard me) they issued several years later (this image went on to grace the cover of a later Permabooks edition)



Page 123:

"Morning, Sam. Set down and bite an egg." The hotel-detective stared at Spade's temple. "By God, somebody maced you plenty!"

~RP

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Paperback 242: Kid Galahad / Francis Wallace (Bantam 133)

Paperback 242: Bantam 133 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Kid Galahad
Author: Francis Wallace
Cover artist: Charles Andres

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• Unlike most Good and Bad Angels, Kid Galahad's Good and Bad Angels chose to reside in his armpits, not on his shoulders.
• Love how heads are crammed into every crevice of the painting. My favorite is the sweaty, neck-wiping Tintin lookalike (under the Kid's right glove, which appears to have been fashioned from the remains of an old football).
• This Kid has apparently been waxed within an inch of his life. "Behold my glistening torso!"

Best things about this back cover:

• LOVE the numbers of the ref's count on the ropes. Dramatic.
• Check out how lame the cover of the Little, Brown edition was!
• Jeez, first line of copy makes this novel sound like a slasher film. Or a tale of surgery.

Page 123~

She looked at him coldly. "Don't flatter yourself. I don't care whether you burn or freeze."

~RP

Paperback 228: Crucible / Ben Ames Williams (Popular Library 113)

Paperback 228: Popular Library 113 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Crucible
Author: Ben Ames Williams
Cover artist: uncredited

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• "Crucible," Or "The Andrews Sisters Go To Hell"
• Sadness! Fear! Uh ... Sultry Boredom!

Best things about this back cover:

• Ugh, text. And not even a break or indention to separate the paragraphs. So lazy.
• If those three on the cover are "Mary, Phil and Barbara" ... I might have to read this book. I need to know more about "Phil"
• I can only hope that Ben Ames Williams went on to write a novel called "Leave the Strange Woman to Heaven"

Page 123~

Q. You went into the office? A. I stood in the doorway and reached the switch.
Q. Did that light the hall? A. Yes, enough.
Q. Did you see anything? A. I saw a woman lying on the hall floor.
Q. And you did what? A. Turned on the hall light to look at her.

"If you love page after page of mundane interrogation transcripts, you will love ... Crucible! If you loved Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," on the other hand ... well, that's historically impossible. It won't be performed for the first time for another six years."

~RP