This dog goes Harf Harf. We like the work of French illustrator F. Harf, but he can be hit and miss and above you see one of his less successful covers, for Le bonheur difficile. What seems to have been difficile here was painting a dog. This is surely the world’s least convincing pooch. If it’s a dog at all. It could be a naked, neutered, armless old man. If you want to see a prettier Harf cover check here. Le bonheur difficile was published by Éditions de la Mode Nationale S.E.P.I.A. as part of their Collection Fama, and it was written by Lidone, who was in reality Marie-Madeleine Lavergne. She wrote quite a few books as Lidone, Magda Contino, Maria Mario, and Jean Namur during her thirty-year career, primarily in the romance genre. This one, also a romance, but hopefully not involving the dog faced man, is from 1956.
Don’t it make her brown eyes blue. We said yesterday that we had located a few more Harf pieces, and here’s the best of the lot, in our opinion, the cover for Louise Toudet’s romance Bleu sur fond noir, which would translate to something like “blue on black background.” It was published in 1956 by S.E.P.I.A. for the Fama series. This is the only book that Toudet ever wrote, according to our research, but we have a lot more great Harf art that we’ll share down the line.
Save the last dance for her. Above is a really nice cover for Marylise Bessières’ 1954 pulp romance Kari la Hungara, which was number 58 in the Fama series published by Société d’Edition Publications et Industries Annexes, aka S.E.P.I.A. Bessières wrote five or six books of this type in the early 1950s, but seems to have had no output after 1954—at least not under that name. The cover is by someone who went only by F. Harf. These French artists and their initials. It would be so much easier to research them if they signed their full names, but c’est la vie. We know nothing about Harf right now, but we’re digging. In the meantime, we found some other excellent pieces from this person we’ll be sharing in a bit, so keep an eye out for those.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1951—The Rosenbergs Are Convicted of Espionage
Americans Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage as a result of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. While declassified documents seem to confirm Julius Rosenberg's role as a spy, Ethel Rosenberg's involvement is still a matter of dispute. Both Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953. 1910—First Seaplane Takes Flight
Frenchman Henri Fabre, who had studied airplane and propeller designs and had also patented a system of flotation devices, accomplishes the first take-off from water at Martinque, France, in a plane he called Le Canard, or "the duck." 1953—Jim Thorpe Dies
American athlete Jim Thorpe, who was one of the most prolific sportsmen ever and won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also played professional baseball and basketball, dies of a heart attack. 1958—Khrushchev Becomes Premier
Nikita Khrushchev becomes premier of the Soviet Union. During his time in power he is responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, and presides over the rise of the early Soviet space program, but his many policy failures lead to him being deposed in October 1964. After his removal he is pensioned off and lives quietly the rest of his life, eventually dying of heart disease in 1971.
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