They came, they saw, they ran like the Devil was chasing them.
Now where was that stall where they were selling those cursed monkey's paws?
We discussed Agatha Christie’s They Came to Baghdad in July and showed you the Fawcett Crest/Cardinal edition. This is an edition produced by the Scottish imprint Fontana Books in 1954. The cover painting here is of very high quality, and as you can see in the zoom we’ve provided, crosses into fine art. There’s a reason for that. The piece is signed by “Johnston.” On other websites this person’s identity, beyond his last name, is considered a mystery, but not here. He’s Scottish painter Robert Johnston, who was well regarded in fine art circles and whose canvasses are collected today. We’ve provided an example below, and a signature comparison so you can see why the identification is ironclad.
Ancient city makes modern problems for Christie heroine.
They Came to Baghdad was Agatha Christie’s forty-sixth novel, originally appearing in 1951, with this Cardinal paperback coming in 1960 with an uncredited cover. It’s less one of Christie’s mysteries than a straight adventure tale, and a pretty good one, hewing to the classic blueprint of a novice thrown into deep and dangerous water. The novice is London typist Victoria Jones, whose dreams of romance and travel prompt her to finagle free passage to Baghdad, where she lands in the middle of a political murder plot. She’s a winning character, all the more so for the major flaw Christie gives her—she can’t stop telling extravagant lies. Predictably, this weakness serves her well during her wild exploits. In addition to the fascinating Jones you get plenty of exotic color and a dose of capitalist v. commie intrigue. Recommended.
In pulp you're always on the wrong side of the tracks.
We’re train travelers. We love going places by that method. It’s one of the perks of living in Europe. Therefore we have another cover collection for you today, one we’ve had in mind for a while. Many pulp and genre novels prominently feature trains. Normal people see them as romantic, but authors see their sinister flipside. Secrets, seclusion, and an inability to escape can be what trains are about. Above and below we’ve put together a small sampling of covers along those lines. If we desired, we could create a similar collection of magazine train covers that easily would total more than a hundred scans. There were such publications as Railroad Stories, Railroad Man’s Magazine, Railroad, and all were published for years. But we’re interested, as usual, in book covers. Apart from those here, we’ve already posted other train covers at this link, this one, this one, and this one. Safe travels.
Marie de Nervaud, Lawrence G. Blochman, Henry Cecil, Agatha Christie, James M. Cain, Dave Lister, John Prebble, Frederic Dard, Alex Duverney, A.S. Fleischman, The Gordons, Gordon Gordon, Mildred Gordon, Freeman Hubbard, Harry Bennett, Michel Gourdon, Tony Calvano, Martine Fleury, Graham Greene, Pierre Souvestre, Marcel Allain, John Creasy, Bert Hitchens, Dolores Hitchens, Leslie Edgley, Dorothy Cameron Disney, Ethel Lina White, R.L. Laurenson, Leslie Charteris, Robert Schultz, George Gross, Victor Olson, cover art, cover collection, literature
In vintage fiction you really need to watch your step.
The first step is a doozy, as they say, but in vintage fiction so is the last one and all those in between. Above and below are assorted paperback covers featuring characters who’ve had a bad time navigating stairs, a few due to accidents but most via ill intent from third parties. We also have one hardback dust sleeve we added at the bottom because it was so interesting. Just scroll down, but do it carefully.
Julian Symons, Robert Maguire, Anita Boutell, Glyn Jones, Doris Miles Disney, Leslie Ford, Red Burger, H.H. Lewis, Leslie Charteris, Agatha Christie, Day Kenne, Bob Abbett, Kriss Lelerc, Talmage Powell, Lawrence G. Blochman, E. T. French, Maurice Procter, Alan Fair, André Héléna, Helen McCloy, George Bellairs, Michel Gourdon, cover art, literature, cover collection
I love you so much, money—er, I mean honey.
As long as we’re on poster art today, here’s a colorful promo for the 1947 victorian thriller Love from a Stranger, starring Sylvia Sidney and John Hodiak in an adaptation of the Agatha Christie short story “Philomel Cottage,” the second pass Hollywood had taken at the material after a 1937 version starring Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone. The movie is a cautionary example of the dangers of failing to be satisfied with a good thing when you have it. Sidney’s character Cecily Harrington wins money in a lottery and instead of marrying her perfectly adequate fiancée decides to ditch him for life as a one-percenter.
Cue Hodiak, a gold-digger who has already offed three previous wives and gotten away with it. He sets his sights on Cecily—and her pile of cash. She’s oblivious at first, of course, but after the two marry disturbing clues start to pile up. Luckily her jilted fiancée cares enough about her wellbeing to keep a concerned eye on her from afar. Us, we’d never do that. We’d be like, “What? You get rich and then dump me for an obvious serial killer? ’kay, good luck. Have fun during your suspiciously isolated honeymoon.” Decent flick, excellent poster. Love from a Stranger V.2 premiered today in 1947.
Never trust a man in expensive clothes.
The Pulp Intl. girlfriends want more depictions of men on the site. Can we oblige them? Probably not. Vintage paperback art features women about ninety percent of the time, and they’re often scantily clothed. Men, on the occasions they appear, are not only typically dressed head to toe, but are often sartorially splendid. There are exceptions—beach-themed covers, bedroom depictions, gay fiction, and romances often feature stripped down dudes. We’ll assemble some collections of all those going forward, but today the best we can offer is an assortment of g’d up alpha males, with art by Victor Kalin, Robert McGinnis, and others. Enjoy.
I've seen the needle and the damage done.
Today we have another cover collection for you. We’ve noticed quite a few pieces of pulp/sleaze art featuring syringes as a central element, so we’ve gathered up twenty examples, with art by Michel Gourdon and others. Some of these are from Flickr, so thanks to the original uploaders.
Michel Gourdan, Agatha Christie, Emily Harvin, George Harmon Coxe, Albert Broackaert, Evan Hunter, Frances Shelley Wees, William Burroughs, Edgar Rice Burroughs, André Carloff, Don Elliott, Jean Murelli, Ferguson Findley, Nelson Algren, William Lee, Ed McBain, Day Keene, M.E. Chaber, Maurice Derblay, Fan Nichols, Sax Rohmer, James Savage, Sydney Horler, Lew Della, cover art, cover collection, literature
What’s the best kind of pulp? The free kind.
Yesterday we showed you two of the most expensive pulp paperbacks we’ve ever run across. Today we’re going to do the opposite and show you something that was free. Above is the cover of Agatha Christie’s 1950 Miss Marple mystery Se anunucia un asesinato, aka A Murder Is Announced, and we found it in a disused closet in the stairwell of our building. The collage style cover is credited to P. Ramírez, and there are also interior illustrations credited to someone billing himself simply as Moreno. It’s funny that we went all the way to Morocco expecting to find pulp when just one floor below there was a closet stacked high with hundreds of Spanish, English, and French magazines that go back forty years. Most of it seems unremarkable at first glance, but we haven’t had much time to explore, so there’s no telling what we’ll find. Since the door isn’t locked, we’re thinking it all probably belonged to a departed tenant. If not, well, it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
Looks like the “do not disturb” sign isn’t working.
Walter Brooks isn’t mentioned as one of the great paperback illustrators, and he probably wasn’t, but certainly this cover for Harold R. Daniels’ The Girl in 304 is dynamite. From the angled, ominous male shadow, to the stylish font, and the blue color palette with checks of red and a splash of pink flesh and yellow fabric, this one is a winner in all categories. Brooks, who was born in Glasgow, served as president of NYC’s Society of Illustrators, wrote books about painting, and designed U.S. postage stamps. And notably, he was the art director at Dell Publishing in 1958 when he was shown the work of Robert McGinnis by agent Don Gelb. Brooks assigned McGinnis his first two covers, thus helping to launch a legendary career. He also gave William Teason, who illustrated more than 150 Agatha Christie covers, his first shot that same year. So even if Brooks was not a great himself, he certainly knew talent when he saw it. This piece dates from 1956.
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HISTORY REWIND
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1953—The Rosenbergs Are Executed
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted for conspiracy to commit espionage related to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet spies, are executed at Sing Sing prison, in New York.
1928—Earhart Crosses Atlantic Ocean
American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, riding as a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stutz and maintained by Lou Gordon. Earhart would four years later go on to complete a trans-Atlantic flight as a pilot, leaving from Newfoundland and landing in Ireland, accomplishing the feat solo without a co-pilot or mechanic.
1939—Eugen Weidmann Is Guillotined
In France, Eugen Weidmann is guillotined in the city of Versailles outside Saint-Pierre Prison for the crime of murder. He is the last person to be publicly beheaded in France, however executions by guillotine continue away from the public until September 10, 1977, when Hamida Djandoubi becomes the last person to receive the grisly punishment.
1972—Watergate Burglars Caught
In Washington, D.C., five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel. The botched burglary was an attempt by members of the Republican Party to illegally wiretap the opposition. The resulting scandal ultimately leads to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and also results in the indictment and conviction of several administration officials.
1961—Rudolph Nureyev Defects from Soviet Union
Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects at Le Bourget airport in Paris. The western press reported that it was his love for Chilean heiress Clara Saint that triggered the event, but in reality Nuryev had been touring Europe with the Kirov Ballet and defected in order to avoid punishment for his continual refusal to abide by rules imposed upon the tour by Moscow.
- FEATUREd PULP
George Gross art for Joan Sherman’s, aka Peggy Gaddis Dern’s 1950 novel Suzy Needs a Man.
Swapping literature was a major subset of midcentury publishing. Ten years ago we shared a good-sized collection of swapping paperbacks from assorted authors.
Cover art by Italian illustrator Giovanni Benvenuti for the James Bond novel Vivi e lascia morire, better known as Live and Let Die.
Uncredited cover art in comic book style for Harry Whittington's You'll Die Next!
