Vintage Pulp

May 4 2025

HONEYMOON IN HICKVILLE

We were that hot for each other when we first got married. 'Course, back then we both had much younger spouses.

There’s no substitute for youth when it comes to keeping the spark alive, but we like to think Ma and Pa still get reasonably freaky. This cover for Robert E. Reynolds’, aka Leo Rifkin’s, rural potboiler Backwoods Bride was painted by George Gross. It’s from 1953, and nicely compliments a rural cover collection here. As well as single posts here and here. And here. And here. And here. Really, since hicksploitation was such a fertile genre, there are too many posts to point toward. We will certainly add more in the future.

Cameo Books, Robert E. Reynolds, Leo Rifkin, George Gross, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

February 3 2025

A JOYFUL OCCASION

Moments like this make the long years of medical school and crushing student loan debt all worth it.

A Girl Called Joy, which caught our eye because of its playful George Gross cover art, was published in 1951 by Cameo Books and belongs to the love novel sub-genre, but which most collectors just call sleaze. The story deals with nurse Joy Durling, hired by rich John Sanford to care for his paralyzed wife Elva, who shows no physical symptoms that would prevent her from walking. So what’s her problem? Psychosomatic paralysis, due to a terrible shock. What was the shock? That’s supposed to be a mystery, but you’ll figure it out right away. Joy has already bedded Sanford by the time Elva suggests that, being unable to function sexually for her husband, Joy should take her place. But Joy cuts John off at that point due to growing a conscience—plus her eye has been drawn by the Sanford family doctor. And on it goes, messy stuff, as usual in a sleaze—er, we mean love—novel. This one was about par for the course.

Cameo Books, Gene Harvey, Jack Hanley, George Gross, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

April 28 2023

HOT FRESH C.O.D.

I don't go home with strangers, mister. So let's take a few minutes and get to know each other.

Our copy of Albert Quandt’s Passion C.O.D. holds together only thanks to the miracle of scotch tape, yet the great George Gross cover still shines through. It’s another masterpiece from him—and another nice addition to our collection. The “c.o.d.” in the title doesn’t relate to Quandt’s story in any discernible way, unless we start speculating that the “c” stands for something other than “cash.” That’s right—we just went there, because this is an unusually lusty novel, considering its 1951 copyright. The main character, the beautiful Sheila Salem, defying norms for literature of the period, gets with multiple men and arrives in the tale with a history of having done so for years. That’s fine—we love lusty women. She also habitually ruins men. Is absolutely driven to do it. Again, fine. Hell, those two elements are vintage crime literature in a nutshell—lusty women; dudes ruined. Huzzah.

But on the down side for modern readers, Sheila believes forceful, even violent men, are “real men.” If any of you are seeking Exhibit A for a seminar on male authors writing female characters as embodiments of sexist mid-century attitudes, this is your baby right here. But we can’t say Quandt is unable to write. For this genre, he’s a better author than most. His story sustains interest. As Sheila discards empty husks of men behind her, gets one guy sent to prison, shoots another, and is soon consorting with criminal types, the only question becomes whether her behavior with these dupes will cost her. In pulp, dupes are expendable, so we were rooting for Sheila all the way. But to find out what actually happens you’ll have to lay out cash for the book yourself.

Cameo Books, Albert Quandt, George Gross, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

January 21 2023

MIDWAY TO TROUBLE

You say I'm beautiful now. But when you find out I have an unabsorbed twin attached to my abdomen you'll change your tune just like every man.

Yup, it’s Amos Hatter again. He makes yet another appearance here, this time with his 1952 carny novel Girl of the Midway. This was a natural: we love carny novels, and Hatter specializes in sleazy quasi-romances, which we also like. In this one a naive young woman named Margy Brophy, who works for her father’s merry-go-round concession at an amusement park called Dreamland, gets involved with a man named Bill Tanner who plans to bring a big stage show onto the premises. The carnies fear the show will put some of their concessions out of business, so Margy’s affair is an uncomfortable case of consorting with the enemy. However, Tanner has no intention of stealing customers. He tries but can’t convince the carnies that, given time, his show will actually increase the patronage at their concessions. The battle lines harden, then the most recalcitrant of the carnies is murdered.

The homicide aspect of the book isn’t much of a mystery. You merely have to look past the obvious red herring and choose the next most unpleasant carnival denizen, which you’ll do automatically. But Hatter isn’t a mystery writer anyway. His jam is sexual titillation, and though he does that reasonably well here, at this point we have to accept that he’ll probably never again approach the heights of his Hawaii-based novel Island Girl. Of course, in general, you’re not looking for nail-biting thrills, deep insight, or remarkable literary style with these types of books. They’re meant to give you a semi-boner or three. There are no boners, semi or otherwise, caused by Girl of the Midway. But there’s a good amount of carnival atmosphere, and that was enough for us to enjoy the book. Even so, we can’t recommend it. We do, however, recommend that you appreciate the cover art by Rudy Nappi. It’s perfection.

Cameo Books, Amos Hatter, Rudy Nappi, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

May 3 2022

PLAYING DOCTORS

Sorry to interrupt, ladies. Just a reminder—senior medical staff considers attendance at tonight's sponge bath seminar mandatory.

We might as well, right? Okay then, quickly, here’s the Rudolph Belarski cover for Sylvia Erskine’s Nurses’ Quarters that he slipped into his piece for Male Ward, mentioned in the above post. Nurses’ Quarters is copyright 1954 for Cameo Books. And you also see the original art.

Cameo Books, Sylvia Erskine, Rudolph Belarski, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

November 30 2021

LOVE AT FIRST NIGHT

They say true love lasts forever. But why can't it be brief? Like, a few hours? A few intense, very steamy hours?

You’re not seeing double. This cover for Gene Harvey’s The Loves of Alice Brandt is almost identical as the Howell Dodd art from Luther Gordon’s Free and Easy, which we showed you recently. This novel, published in 1951, is aka Office Hussy, 1957, by John Hunter. Both Hunter and Harvey were pseudonyms of Jack Hanley. The art is unattributed, but it isn’t by Dodd unless he was in a rush. Everything is a bit less detailed, a bit less dimensional—the hair, the dress, the background. But as a brazen copy of Dodd, you have to admire the mystery painter’s bolas. You see the original art below.

Cameo Books, Gene Harvey, John Hunter, Jack Hanley, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

August 23 2021

LOVE ISLAND

In Hatter's novel Hawaii is blue in more ways than one.

Amos Hatter, aka Ben West, aka James Lampp, originally published Island Girl as Island Ecstasy in 1952. Most copies of Island Girl are from a couple of years later, but somehow ours is also from 1952. The art, which is identical for both titles, is uncredited but very nice. The novel is about a Hawaiian beauty named Consuela Marlin, Connie for short, who takes a liking to a WASPish researcher named Jay Carter, and determines to win him over by any means necessary. Surprisingly for a 1952 novel, that leads to Connie bedding him—repeatedly.

Jay’s a haole in Hawaiian lingo, a non-islander, which makes the romance a culture clash. It’s also a clash of substance—Connie’s relatable in every way, while Jay’s goodhearted, but infuriatingly laissez-faire in his romantic attitudes. A complication soon arises in the form of a one percenter who lands on Oahu and decides he wants and is entitled to Connie. Forced kisses, stalkerish schemes, gaslighting, and browbeating are his tools, but this being a mid-century book, Hatter doesn’t write him as a particularly bad guy, so much as a determined rival. What are the results of this shitty behavior? He gets what he wants—repeatedly.

These vintage sex dramas are strange as hell sometimes, but you know that going in, so you roll with it. Hatter’s depiction of Consuela as independent yet submissive is dubious, but is in no way a surprise in a genre built around the supposed easy availability of women. We’re just glad we didn’t live during the era when men who were violent toward women were considered to be “a little forward” or “within their rights.” All that said, Island Girl is well written and worth a read, if for no other reason than the generational and sociological differences of the era it highlights.

Hawaii, Cameo Books, Amos Hatter, James W. Lampp, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

September 10 2020

PAILS BY COMPARISON

All these books are on our bucket list.

When you look at paperback covers every day it’s interesting the common elements you notice. Of late, we’ve noticed buckets. They pop up on backwoods and rural sleaze novels, usually in amusing fashion, often in the possession of hardworking women going about difficult chores while nearby men don’t do dick. We’ll just tell you—that’s not the way it works around our place.

Venus Books, Cameo Books, Carnival Books, Signet Books, Gold Medal Books, Pyramid Books, Peggy Gaddis, Harry Whittington, Amos Hatter, Silvia Erskine, Stuart Engstrand, William Brown Meloney, Jacques du Bout, cover art, cover collection, literature

Vintage Pulp

September 24 2017

LOFT EXPECTATIONS

There's nothing quite like a roll in the hay.

You’d think we’d eventually run out of themes in mid-century paperbacks, but the possibilities are seemingly endless. We can add illicit love in the hayloft to the many other time honored subjects exploited by paperback publishers. We’ve already shared several covers along these lines, such as this one, this one, and this one, but today we have an entire set for your enjoyment. Personally, we’ve never had sex in a hayloft—in fact, we’ve never even had the opportunity—but we imagine that once you get past the smelly manure and the scratchy hay and the jittery animals it’s pretty fun. Or maybe not. There are also numerous books, incidentally, that feature characters trysting by outdoor haystacks, but for today we want to stay inside the barn. Thanks to all the original uploaders of these covers.

Vintage Pulp

August 27 2017

BARN TO BE WILD

My pa shouldn't be back for hours. But just in case he does show up, do you prefer burial or cremation?

A double shot of rural sleaze today, Norman Bligh’s Once There Was a Virgin, 1950 from Exotic Novels, and Gail Jordan’s The Affairs of a Country Girl, 1952 from Cameo Books. George Gross provided the art for these covers, which are cropped differently, but between the two you see pretty much the entirety of the original piece. We think this is one of his better efforts. We’re putting together a small collection of paperback covers set in barns and haylofts, so consider this a preview, along with the covers here, here, and here.

Cameo Books, Gail Jordan, Peggy Gaddis, George Gross, Norman Bligh, William Neubauer, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

June 19

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.

June 18

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.

June 17

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.

June 17

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.

June 16

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.

INSATIABLE APPETITE

George Gross art for Joan Sherman’s, aka Peggy Gaddis Dern’s 1950 novel Suzy Needs a Man.

TIT FOR TAT

Swapping literature was a major subset of midcentury publishing. Ten years ago we shared a good-sized collection of swapping paperbacks from assorted authors.

TO DIE FOR