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Above is another fun cover from Société d’Éditions Générales, or SEG, for its series Service Secret 078. Graine d’espion translates as “spy seed,” another inscrutable title, which by now you know is par for the course when it comes to French paperbacks. Francis Richard was in reality Paul Bérato, who you can learn a little bit more about here. As usual with SEG, the art is uncredited.
This is such a macabre image, a man stuffing a woman’s corpse in a crate, that we probably should have posted it around Halloween. 1958’s Et un cercueil pour Cecilia was written by Francis Richard, aka Paul Bérato, for Société d’Editions Générale and its collection Service Secret 078. This is one of those tales where the author pretends to be the hero. In other words, it was written by Bérato as Francis Richard, but the main character is also named Francis Richard, and he’s a globetrotting spy who heads to Chile on a mission, where the villains apparently crate up corpses. Though the grim art on this is not attributed, others in the series were signed E.G. or F.G. and the style here is similar. Unfortunately, we don’t know who E.G. or F.G. is.
When it comes to French pulp, the cover art will often be uncredited. Such is the case with this attractive front for the thriller Quadrille d’Espions, published in 1956 by Société d’Éditions Général, aka SEG, for its popular series Espionnage/Service-Secret. The book was written by Francis Richard, which was a pseudonym used by Paul Bérato, who also wrote as Yves Dermèze, Paul Béra, er al. We dug deeper into the identity of this artist, to no avail. Someone out there knows, though, and with luck, we’ll hear from them.
This novel has a rather funny title—Vide ton sac… hé means “Empty your sack… hey!” It was written by Louis de la Hattais for the Allo Police series published by SEG, aka Société d’Editions Générales, 1957 copyright. We didn’t know who painted these covers when we first posted from this series, but now know it’s Auguste Liquois, who did a lot of work for SEG. Learn more about de la Hattais and Allo Police here.
Above: seven covers from Editions Société d’Éditions Générales’ series Le Maître de l’invisible, aka The Master of the Invisible, which was written by Edward Brooker from 1945 to 1947, relaunched in 1953, taken over by Sam Norwood, and finally shelved in 1956. Both Booker and Norwood were pseudonyms, neither conclusively identified at this point, although Booker may have been Austrian born Edward Ostermann. The title character of these books, Pao Tcheou, or Chao Pao, is a creation right out of the psycho-cultural Yellow Peril fever dreams of the era, a Chinese villain who can turn himself invisible, and in order to fulfill his dreams of global domination employs methods as diverse as giant monsters, killer robots, nuclear weapons, and general oriental cunning. He’s of course opposed by a group of upstanding Westerners.
We said we’d get back to Louis de la Hattais and today we’re keeping our word. Above you see four book covers from French author Jerry Lewray, who was a pseudonym invented by de la Hattais, and used by him and possibly other authors who churned out thrillers for Société d’Editions Générales’ Interpol and Allo Police series during the 1960s, as well as stand-alone novels of his/their own. But it turns out Louis de la Hattais wasn’t real either—he was a pseudonym of author and editor Louis Fournel, who, starting in the 1940s, wrote under the names Louis Delaht, Anne-Marie Delfour, Jean Delhat, Lew Dolegan, Anne-Marie Fervel, Louis Hellais and several others. Confused? You’re not alone. But as the mystery deepens, we keep digging. It’s not just educational—it’s fun!
Here’s a little artifact from our trip to Paris last year, which we picked up from one of the booksellers by the Pont Neuf. It’s a Louis de la Hattais novel from 1957, part of the “Allo Police” collection printed by Société d’Editions Générales. It’s called Des Mégots pour al Petit!, which means Cigarette Butts for the Little Girl. De la Hattais was a prolific mid-century pulp author, and we’ve actually seen a lot of his books around, although we suspect he was actually a pseudonym. We’ll find out and get back to you on that. As far as the art goes, while it may be less masterful than that of pulp icons such as Aslan and Robert McGinnis, we find it quite effective. So much so that just for your visual pleasure this Wednesday, we’ve posted a few more “Allo Police” covers below. Enjoy.
The first Scientology church, based on the writings of science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, is established in Los Angeles, California. Since then, the city has become home to the largest concentration of Scientologists in the world, and its ranks include high-profile adherents such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.
The Blaine Act, a congressional bill sponsored by Wisconsin senator John J. Blaine, is passed by the U.S. Senate and officially repeals the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aka the Volstead Act, aka Prohibition. The repeal is formally adopted as the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933.
The state radio channel known as Voice of America and controlled by the U.S. State Department, begins broadcasting into the Soviet Union in Russian with the intent of countering Soviet radio programming directed against American leaders and policies. The Soviet Union responds by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts.
Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanide—not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juice—resulting in his death in late 1937.
In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.
