"The Art of Romance"

This book is not my usual kind of blog-fodder, but I found it remaindered on the weekend and I couldn't resist:

 

An entire book full of book covers! 

Though Mills and Boon and Harlequin are best known for their romances, it would appear that they published other genres--at least in their earlier days.  From 1950:

Though of course the romances do predominate in every era--as shown by this couple in a steamy clinch in 1976:

There's a fair amount of social history to be gleaned from these covers--from changing standards of what what was acceptable (the covers get steadily raunchier from the 1960s on) to changing fashions in clothes, hair and makeup.  (Could the couple above belong to any decade other than the seventies?)

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!

The Golden Hades by Edgar Wallace (Hodder, 1962)

Another book acquired during my Lifeline Bookfair Crime Spree.  This one I definitely bought for its cover:

 

The banknotes marked with the sinister little yellow sign of the Golden Hades were not just state money. 

Wilbur Smith of the F.B.I. had seen the sign twice before--

The first time they involved a masked gang; the second time, they meant murder.

Edgar Wallace is one of those authors whose life is more interesting than his books.  Born into poverty as the illegitimate child of actors, he became a war correspondent during the Boer War, then took to writing thrillers to make money.  In the 1920s his publishers Hodder and Stoughton began promoting him aggressively, and he pretty much became a one-man fiction factory, eventually churning out around 170 novels:

Needless to say, the quality was NOT high.  This particular example of his work concerns a Satanic cult in New York.  To be fair, a book on a similar theme today would probably have more graphic violence and a lot more sex, but the characters might be equally cardboard.

Wallace eventually died in 1933 of untreated diabetes, and few of his books are in print today.

The Leaves of Time by Neal Barrett Jr (Lancer, 1971)

 

the gorgon 

came from some time line far across the multiple worlds.  It moved among men, looking always as though it was one of them ... but it was not a man.  For the Gorgon was the destroyer of the universe, and with it came death, and destruction.  The alien could not tolerate other forms of life, and would not permit them to exist.  The first a world knew of the beast in its midst was when its citizens began dying... horribly ... and then it was already too late.  For there was no defense for a beast that could assume the shape and identity of any other creature ... until a man whose world had been destroyed was thrown across the time lines, to an Earth whose only defense was the gentle philosophy of a man long dead ...

a lancer science fiction original never before published

This cover is taking a trip.  An acid trip.  And "The Gorgon" appears to have eaten random capital letters on the back cover.

Cover aside, I  usually enjoy stories about time travel and parallel worlds, and this one is a good example of its kind.   There is a hero, a monster, and an interesting world sideways to this one.  What more could a reader want?

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie (Pan, 1958 and 1963)

Here we have two versions of the same book, from the same publisher, but printed five years apart.  They provide proof that while things always change they don't necessarily improve.   First, the version from 1958:

 

THE SECRET ADVERSARY tells how two young people advertise for adventure and are caught in a whirlpool of international intrigue which almost costs them their lives.  A gay and exciting thriller!

 A woman, held at gunpoint, hands over documents to the mysterious figure in the foreground.  The cover doesn't tell you who the woman is, or what the documents are, but it certainly lets you know that what you're about to read is a crime thriller.

Next, the version published in 1963:

Two Innocents in search of adventure.

An Elusive Young Woman holder of a vital secret

A Faceless Man with a Blueprint for Anarchy

The woman being held at gunpoint has been replaced by a picture of a dark and gloomy mansion.  While the art isn't bad, the contents of the book could be anything: a Gothic romance, a collection of ghost stories, and traditional murder-in-a-country-house whodunnit.

At least Pan's copy writers had learned to write snappier blurbs for their back covers--albeit ones with really strange ways of using capital letters!

Headed for a Hearse by Jonathan Latimer (Pan, 1960)

More loot from my Lifeline Bookfair crime spree:

 

SIX DAYS

to go before Westland would go to the electric chair for the murder of his wife...

SIX DAYS

for him to sweat in the death cell--with a gangster and a fiend for company...

SIX DAYS

for private investigator William Crane to flirt with death and find the real killer...

Now this is an example of hard-boiled crime fiction.  Originally published in 1935 it is steeped in Depression cynicism, and filled with characters who are corrupt, cowardly and treacherous.   Innocence is vindicated--eventually--but it takes a lot of bribes and a sharp lawyer.  Oh, and some help from gangsters:

    Butch looked forbiddingly at Crane.  "Connors musta told you about us."
    "You bet he did."  Wind whipped the side curtains against the body of the car and whistled across the back seat.  "He said you boys could muscle your way into heaven and come out with a truckload of harps."
    This was a lie but it satisfied Butch.
    "Connors would have been all right," he said, "if he could of left the coppers alone.  It's OK to knock off a hood or so, but you oughta be careful about shootin' coppers.  It makes the judge mad, and sometimes he won't let ya fix the case."

(Page 110)

Out of the Past by Patricia Wentworth (Hodder, 1959)

I went to the Lifeline Bookfair this weekend, where I turned to crime.  Fortunately it was of the paperback kind:

 

A huge ugly old house, hordes of friends and relations--and a young man with information to sell and suppress.

A perfect setting for a murder--and for

MISS SILVER.

With a cover like this you'd certainly expect your detective to be more than a little hard boiled--drinking neat whiskey in his lonely office between romancing dangerous dames and fighting it out with toughs on the waterfront.  Instead the detective in this story is a retired Victorian governess with a fondness for knitting and Lord Tennyson.

Ah well, at least there's blackmail and murder to liven things up!