Solomon and Sheba by Jay Williams (Corgi, 1960)

Another one from the Green Shed, source of many things strange and wonderful.  Judging from the creases on the cover, it's been well read:

 

SOLOMON AND SHEBA

Great king, and beautiful, barbaric queen--the most passionate and sensuous love story of all time.

Does anyone else think Sheba there looks kind of masculine?  Or maybe the dancing girl is Solomon in drag.

Anyway, they don't write 'em like this anymore.  Solomon and Sheba is the sort of historical epic where the characters talk with a twisted Ye Olde Englishe syntax and vocabulary in order to show that they're... well, historical.  Strictly speaking, given the setting, they should be talking in Ancient Hebrew:

"Call me not 'king' this morning, I pray you," he said.  "I have set aside that heavy mantle for these few days.  I will not think of cares; there will be time enough for that when..."  He paused.  And when she looked at him he went on, "When my sister, Balkis, feels that she must return to her own place.  I would that day might be put off forever."

(Page 123)

But as a bonus, this book was turned into a movie, so it comes complete with... stills from the picture!    There are eight pages of plates in the centre of the book.  And look, Yul Brynner has hair!

Creature From the Black Lagoon by Vargo Statten (Dragon Publications, 1954)

Another great find from The Green Shed!

When I was growing up in the seventies and eighties, nearly every popular movie had its novelization.  Videos and DVDs gradually made the genre less popular--though movie novelizations still exist, mainly for those who want to see the characters and the worlds of their favourite films fleshed out.

This novelization of a classic sci-fi movie is a fairly early example of its kind (but not the earliest, as the first movie novelization appeared in 1912!)  Unusually, it's a hardback.  By the standards of 1954, Creature From the Black Lagoon was a glossy and expensive science fiction movie, and apparently the people commissioning this book wanted to keep things (comparatively) classy.  Interestingly enough, this movie was novelized a second time in 1977--this time in paperback as a part of a series of tie-ins to classic Universal horror films.

"Vargo Stratten" was a pseudonym of John Russell Fearn, a pulp writer whose career dated back to the early 1930s.