| Vintage Pulp | Aug 28 2018 |
Maybe I should have listened to my parents and stayed in community college.
Above, a nice James Avati cover for Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham, copyright 1949. The hardback of this came out in 1946, and it was adapted to the big screen in 1947 with Tyrone Power in the lead role, so this art reflects the movie, which is why the cover femme looks like and is dressed like co-star Colleen Gray. This is one of many mid-century novels set in and around carnivals, and it's one of the better ones, we think. The film version adheres reasonably close to Gresham's original vision. We talked about it several years ago, so check here if you're interested. We've also talked about several other carnival books over the years and now we have an idea to put together a cover collection along those lines. We'll have to see if there are any examples left to find. But in the meantime you can see what we've already collected here, here, here, and here.Signet BooksNightmare AlleyWilliam Lindsay GreshamJames AvatiTyrone PowerColleen Graycover artliteraturecinemafilm noir
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 20 2018 |
No, there's two in every town. Unless you showed up here for some other reason, fuckboy.
Above, a Signet paperback edition of James Aswell’s There’s One in Every Town, originally published in 1951, with this edition appearing in 1956. Aswell conducts readers into Erskine Caldwell country with a tale of sex and consequences. This genre was absolutely bursting back in the 1950s. We never stop running across entries that were previously unknown to us. This particular story is about young—very young—Jackie Vose, who by mere association ruins any male who comes near her. She's seen as salvageable by at least one man—or rather boy, since he's the seventeen-year-old heart-smitten narrator. But he never has much of a chance. It's the town doctor who actually gets in too deep, and it doesn't end well. South, sin, and sadness.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 10 2016 |
It ain't your lucky day anymore, is it, mister?
Mafia is a non-fiction rundown of the Italian organized crime rackets up to 1952, which is when the book first appeared in hardback. The above edition from Signet appeared in 1954. Author Ed Reid, who was an associate of organized crime crusader Charles Kefauver, covers cosa nostra personalities such as Vito Genovese, Lucky Luciano, the Fischetti Brothers, Albert Anastasia, and many others. Though non-fiction, Reid presents the information as a narrative, and we gather he took a bit of license. But he was a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter and Mafia was an eye-opener when it was published. Cover art is by James Avati, and serves as a reminder that the person with the pistol always has the best hand.
Signet BooksPulitzer PrizeEd ReidVito GenoveseLucky LucianoFischetti BrothersAlbert AnastasiaCharles KefauverJames Avatimafiacover artliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 12 2016 |
A suitcase and a sense of adventure will take you anyplace you want to go (and some places you don't).
As noted in the above post, we've gotten a trip together for this summer, so we thought we'd inspire ourselves by collecting a set of paperback covers featuring characters with suitcases. Just about anything can happen once you leave the comfy confines of home and we're hoping several of the scenes depicted here come true for us. See if you can guess which. Hint: not the one above—we already did that last year when we got caught in a monsoonal downpour that shut the airport on the day we were supposed to fly. No, we're thinking we want something more like the below cover to happen. And actually, that's a guarantee because the Pulp Intl. girlfriends are coming with us. Anyway, this group of covers serves as a companion set to our hitchhiker collection from last year. Art is by Robert McGinnis, Mitchell Hooks, George Gross, and others.
Paul ConnollyClyde AllisonPeter ShelleyBrian MooreLuther GordonWilliam O'FarrellEugenie GaffneyJack SheridanGerald FosterDay KeeneJim ThompsonMichael AvalloneJames ClayfordKermit WellesAnn BannonMarty HollandScott LaurenceDon BellmoreDante ArfelliNorman BlighAl HineRalph DeanJoe WeissAnna SaundersMaurice DekobraWhit HarrisonJohn O'HaraJoe McDowRobert McGinnisMitchell HooksGeorge GrossVictor OlsonJames AvatiGuiseppe Bertecover collectioncover artliterature
