The Privateer by Josephine Tey (Pan, 1967)

Thanks to the Green Shed, where I found this one:

The thrilling, swashbuckling story of Henry Morgan...

A freed bondsman, he captured his first Spanish ship with eleven men.

He became the scourge of Spain from the West Indies to Panama. 

He found romance but the sea always called him back to new, ever more daring adventures. 

Set against the stirring background of 300 years ago when dashing privateers risked their lives for treasure and conquest, this exciting book by a famous historical novelist is compellingly readable... vividly alive.

Ahhhrrr!  Buckle me swash, and set me mainsails!  It's a "based on a true story" historical novel, which means most of the people are real, and some of the events, but it's all highly romanticised.  The author, by the way, is better known for her mysteries than for her historical romances!  And a warning—some of the attitudes in this book are not politically correct by modern standards, and may even cause offence.

(The cover looks a bit strange in this scan because a previous owner had covered the book in plastic, and I couldn't remove it without damaging the cover.)

Skylark of Valeron and Skylark DuQuesne by E.E. "Doc" Smith (Pyramid, 1967)

The last two volumes in the "Skylark Series"!

STAR WANDERER

As the mighty spaceship Skylark roved the intergalactic world, scientist Richard Seaton and his companions uncovered a world of disembodied intelligences.  A world of four dimensions where time was insanely distorted and matter obeyed no terrestial laws... where three-dimensional intellects were barely sufficient to thwart invisible mentalities!

My Ally, The Enemy

Dick Seaton and Marc DuQuesne are the deadliest enemies in the Universe -- their feud has blazed among the stars and changed the history of a thousand planets.  but now a threat from outside the Galaxy drives them into a dangerous alliance as hordes of strange races drive to a collision with mankind!

Seaton and DuQuesne fight and slave side by side to fend off the invasion -- as Seaton keeps constant, perilous watch for DuQuesne's inevitable double-cross!

More adventures of Dick Seaton and his merry chums, as they blithely invent new and improved weapons of mass destruction and impulsively leap into interstellar wars.  I could suggest that this is a metaphor for something--but instead I'll just say that the Boys' Own Adventure style of this series and some of the views expressed by the author jarred upon my modern sensibilities.

Like the previous two books in the Skylark series I bought these at the Woden Seniors' Club book fair.  They were printed a few years earlier than The Skylark of Space and Skylark Three and it shows in the cover design.  It also shows in the cover price--which rose by a whole fifteen cents between 1967 and 1970!

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Samuel L. Clemens (Masterpiece Library, 1967)

Found in the Green Shed:

A Bright, Fresh, Summertime World of Boyhood

When "Mark Twain"--as Samuel L. Clemens signed his books--was writing TOM SAWYER, published in 1876, he was already in his 40s.  The carefree days of boyhood in a small Missouri town were already far behind him.  He remembered them sharply, but the years brought a humorous perspective.  He could appreciate all the fun of being a boy.

What did small boys do in a small town so long ago, when there was no television, no telephone, no movie houses?

They went swimming, they whitewashed fences, traded marbles and other prized possessions, they formed secret societies and had adventures filling up every minute of the time.  Tom Sawyer even managed to attend his own funeral, though he was very much alive!

Samuel L. Clemens was born in 1835 and spent his youth in a small town not much different from the one depicted in the book.  Before he died in 1910 at the age of 75, he adventured across the country and around the world, and wrote many books.

 The ghost of Mark Twain looms over an oblivious Tom Sawyer—who incidentally, looks more like a teenager in this picture than a "small boy".   Still, it's a bright cheerful cover that successfully conveys the mood of the classic boys' adventure story.  The really puzzling thing about this edition of Tom Sawyer, is why the editor insists on calling the author by his birth name of "Samuel L. Clemens", rather than his better known nom de plume "Mark Twain"! 

The Mind Brothers by Peter Heath (Magnum Books, 1967)

 

Crossroads in Time

The future of life on Earth is at stake ... now.  A few days, hours, or minutes ago civilization took the wrong turn.  Can the fatal mistake be corrected?  Can the future be changed?

Jason Starr, genius, found himself the focal point of a complex Communist plot against America...and as a thoroughly discredited scientist, there seemed nothing he could do about it.

Not until he was joined by Adam Cyber, that is.  Adam Cyber: last man--or superman--to survive in that bleak future; and Jason Starr's Mind Brother.  Cyber returned through millenia to try to change Earth's course.  And when the Mind Brothers met, computers went crazy, all predictions were worthless--and a new kind of spy was born!

This book is the weird love child of the 1960s spy craze and science fiction.   A time traveller comes from the far future to prevent the world being taken over by AI... and tags along on an adventure involving secret weapons, beautiful double agents, underground cults in the back-streets of Delhi and Communist mad scientists working from hidden bases in Tibet.   In other words, this book has everything but the kitchen sink (and if a kitchen sink had been included you could bet on it being some kind of Bondian espionage device!)  And at the end of it all, I still couldn't figure out the action related to the dystopian future our time traveller was trying to prevent.

At Some Forgotten Door by Doris Miles Disney (MacFadden-Bartell, 1967)

Bought at the closing down sale of one of my favourite bookshops:

 

STARK TERROR NAILED HER TO THE SPOT

They stood facing each other, her enormous eyes reflecting the fear for her life--the greatest fear she had ever known.

Neither of them moved or spoke, testing the unique bond between them, the bond of murderer and intended victim.

He broke the deadly silence. "If you'd listened to reason..."

She saw his hands clench and unclench.  She could almost feel them at her throat.  She saw him stiffen with the resolve to get it over with.

Hetty hurled the lamp into his face.

... And I don't blame the heroine for being scared of the house - look, there's a giant head growing out of it!

Seriously.  This was sold as crime fiction, but it's much closer to being a gothic romance.  There's a sinister house - check - an orphaned heroine - check - and vague intimations of something being wrong before anything actually happens.  There's a charming young man whom the heroine insists on marrying even though everyone warns her against him.  And it's not until the very last chapter of the book that the heroine goes exploring and discovers a secret room filled with dead bodies.

Lastly, At Some Forgotten Door is set in the 1880s.  This came as quite a shock to me when I opened the book, because there is nothing on the cover to indicate that it is a historical novel!

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan (Pan, 1967)

From the Green Shed:

 

THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS

a story of adventure which for sheer excitement has never been surpassed

'Remains the definitive story of espionage, intrigue and pursuit - terse, taut, endlessly inventive, and as delightfully fresh as the day it was written'

NEW YORK TIMES

Pan doesn't bother describing the story on the back cover of this book. After all, the plot is well known--having been adapted for film, television and radio. Instead it tells potential readers how good it is.  And it is--one of the classics!

Nine Dragons: An Encounter With the Far East by Sally Backhouse (Hamish Hamilton, 1967)

I love vintage travel books, because they enable me to travel in time as well as space.  I found this one in a Salvos store:

Sally Backhouse went out to the Far East with few prejudices and fewer illusions, prepared for almost anything.  In this book she records her life in Hong Kong and her travels in Japan, Korea and China.  Intending tourists will find a fascinatingly personal commentary on such sights as the Great Wall of China, the Forbidden City, Hiroshima, the temples of Kyoto; but the book is not a guide in the ordinary sense.  Everyday life in the Orient proved quite as extraordinary as its architectural and historical wonders, and the enchantment , shocks and surprises experience by the author are conveyed in a series of vividly observed and sometimes hilarious encounters.

Her curiosity about the people among whom she lived and the differences made by varying cultural attitudes is as lively as is her enjoyment.  How does the Communist school system work?  What is the Far Eastern attitude to women?  How do they feel about us--the "big noses" of the West?  These are some of the questions asked and answered in a shrewd and sympathetic look at a part of the world which is still shrouded by false glamour or sheer ignorance, but it is undeniably vital to understand.

(There will be a lot more of these coming up--I found an bagful at the Green Shed the other day!)