vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Above: a Monarch Books paperback, Wild Weekend by Henry Ellsworh, about the throngs that flee New York City during summer weekends to the adjacent wilds, in this case to the Bacchus Inn, and the various intrigues and peccadilloes that result. It was published in 1963, and the art, while it resembles that of Robert Schultz, is uncredited.
We have another paperback collection for you today, and this one is a no-brainer for a pulp site. There are hundreds of covers featuring women in bars, many of which we’ve already shared, such as here, here (scroll down), and here. Above and below are more, and as soon as we uploaded them we went to do exactly what the art depicts. Have a happy Friday, everyone.
In Mexico, revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata is shot dead by government forces in the state of Morelos, after a carefully planned ambush. Following the killing, Zapata’s revolutionary movement and his Liberation Army of the South slowly fall apart, but his political influence lasts in Mexico to the present day.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is published in New York City by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Though Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s best known book today, it was not a success upon publication, and at the time of his death in 1940, Fitzgerald was mostly forgotten as a writer and considered himself to be a failure.
American clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., is buried five days after being shot dead on a Memphis, Tennessee motel balcony. April 7th had been declared a national day of mourning by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and King’s funeral on the 9th is attended by thousands of supporters, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to seven years in prison by the nation’s British rulers for being a member of the Mau Mau Society, an anti-colonial movement. Kenyatta would a decade later become independent Kenya’s first prime minister, and still later its first president.
Major League Baseball player Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run, surpassing Babe Ruth’s 39-year-old record. The record-breaking homer is hit off Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and with that swing Aaron puts an exclamation mark on a twenty-four year journey that had begun with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro League, and would end with his selection to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
In the U.S., Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall leases the Teapot Dome petroleum reserves in Wyoming to an oil company. When Fall’s standard of living suddenly improves, it becomes clear he has accepted bribes in exchange for the lease. The subsequent investigation leads to his imprisonment, making him the first member of a presidential cabinet to serve jail time.
