Above is a beautiful cover for La Chance aime le jolies filles, published in 1955 with art by an unidentified genius. The work looks like Jef de Wulf to us, but we won’t swear to it because we’ve guessed wrong before. French book titles can be a bit arcane but not this time—it translates as “luck loves beautiful girls.” Roques was an interesting character. He was both author and publisher of this and other books, running his company out of Boulevard Beaumarchais in Paris. He continually pushed the boundaries of what censors considered acceptable, for twenty years skirting but managing to avoid serious trouble, though books like 1955’s Viol and 1957’s Dit oui, madame were banned. Roques did not skimp on cover art. Every edition we’ve seen from his company is beautiful. In fact, one of our favorite fronts ever came from Roques. See that here, and expect more in the future.
