Please don't die. I promise from now on instead of going hiking we can sit on the sofa and watch sports.
With winter slipping into spring we thought we'd share the above cover of someone who possibly slipped into the great beyond. The 1951 novel Le forces de l'amour was written for Éditions Mondiales Del Duca's popular Collection Nous Deux by Italian author Lucienne Peverelly, who also published as Luciana Perverelli and Greta Granor. We said a while back we thought she might be Lucienne Royer too, but we found no evidence to confirm that. Peverelly was a prolific writer who churned out more than 300 novels, always of the romantic and adventure type. She also served as editor-in-chief of the Italian weekly Il Monello starting in 1933, wrote for many women's magazines, daily newspapers like Il Tempo, and movie periodicals like Stelle. Del Duca didn't credit this cover, so it goes in the unknown artist bin.
Cino Del Duca and the Nous cool.
This cover for Lucíenne Royer's Toi ma folie (You My Madness) was published in 1950 as part of Éditions Mondiales Del Duca's popular Collection Nous Deux. The company was owned by Cino Del Duca, who we wrote about several years back, after learning about him thanks to a trip to Paris. Shorter version: French resistance hero, publishing genius, movie mogul, and more. We love the Nous Deux aesthetic, particularly that of Nous Deux the magazine. Much of our appreciation has to do with Aslan, aka Alain Gourdon, and Giulio Bertoletti painting numerous stunning covers for the publication. We put together a collection of those a while back. Look here and prepare to be impressed. What would be nice is if Del Duca had decided to credit the above art. No such luck.
Out of the fires of war came romance.
We’re sharing one last item from our France trip before moving on to other items. We haven’t run out of Parisian purchases, though—we’re just saving the rest of our finds for later. Above is another cover of the photo romance publication Nous Deux, which we mentioned was a French version of an Italian magazine put together by the brother of the two Italian publishers. That brother was Cino Del Duca, who was a major cog in the French Resistance during World War II, and earned the Croix de Guerre for his efforts. After the war he launched a small publishing house in Paris and built that into a successful business. Later he diversified into cinema, and extended his publishing arm into West Germany, Great Britain, and his native Italy, building an empire in the process, and using his ample profits for philanthropic pursuits. When he died in 1967 streets were named for him in Paris and Biarritz, and today a major French literary award bears his name—the Prix Mondial Cino Del Duca. The cover of this Nous Deux, with its happy and colorful holiday theme, is by Aslan, a prize-winner in his own right (he was given the prestigious Commandeur des Arts et Lettres in 2003). Some online sources say his covers appeared on the magazine only in the early 1960s, but 1968 is the date on this, and it’s one of his more beautiful pieces, we think. Now it’s time to put our French material aside and focus on other countries the way Cino Del Duca did. We’ll have more from him and Nous Deux later.
Deux for the price of one. The above photos show the wares of one of the vintage booksellers known as “bouquinistes,” Parisian vendors found on the right bank of the River Seine from Pont Marie to Quai du Louvre, and on the left bank from Quai de la Tournelle to Quai Voltaire. Amazingly, they have been there in one form or another since the 1700s. We were lured to this specific bouquiniste by some issues of the weekly Nous Deux and grabbed a couple at half the asking price. Nous Deux was a version of a wildly successful Italian magazine called Grand Hôtel, and was established by the brother of the two men who had launched the Italian imprint. The cover art on Nous Deux is always spectacular. Since it was a reiteration of the Italian magazine, the art was often Italian in origin, mainly by Walter Molino and Giulio Bertoletti, and inside each issue appeared a few more illustrations and twenty pages of photo fiction. This particular cover from 1951 is by Bertoletti for the story “Incident sur la Canebiere,” and features the charming scene of a woman with her heel stuck in a trolley track being rescued by a passing stud. Interestingly, later issues of Nous Deux were illustrated by Aslan, and those are rare indeed.
You can't spell romance without Rome. Nous Deux was an ongoing concern that spawned dozens of romance novels. Éditions Mondiales Del Duca put out a Collection Nous Deux, of which the above, Sous les platanes de Rome, aka Under the Trees of Rome, is number 95, appearing in 1958. It was written by Lucienne Peverelly, aka Luciana Perverelli, aka Greta Granor, who penned several Nous Deux novels. Peverelly was possibly the same person as Lucienne Royer, but we’re still trying to confirm that.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit
American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records "Strange Fruit", which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history. 1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail
American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West's considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy. 1971—Manson Sentenced to Death
In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed. 1923—Yankee Stadium Opens
In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House that Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It is eventually replaced by a new Yankee Stadium and closes in September 2008.
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