Vintage Pulp

January 6 2025

EMBRACE THE MOMENT

Hey! *gasp* Ease off. If you hold me any tighter I'll be behind you.

The passionate embrace is a staple of mid-century paperback art, attempted by virtually every illustrator working at the time, with varying degrees of success. The example above was painted by Robert Maguire for D.H. Lawrence’s The Captain’s Doll, originally a novella published in 1921, with this Berkley edition arriving as a full-sized paperback in 1957.

Lawrence was an interesting writer. Could you call him an early sleaze author? Well, he was better than any sleaze author, but while alive he was persecuted, labeled tasteless, excoriated for being pornographic, and censored multiple times. That sounds like sleaze to us. This cover would have been an attempt to capitalize on his scandalous reputation—successfully, as far as we’re concerned.

It inspired us to compile a small collection of other passionate embraces, which you’ll find below. There are hundreds of such covers out there, and in fact we’ve already shared various kissing collections that have similar moods. But we made sure not to repeat any entries from those (we think). If you want to see them, they’re here, here, and here. Hold on to whoever you care about, but make sure they can breathe okay.

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 19

1976—Gerald Ford Rescinds Executive Order 9066

U.S. President Gerald R. Ford signs Proclamation 4417, which belatedly rescinds Executive Order 9066. That Order, signed in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, established “War Relocation Camps” for Japanese-American citizens living in the U.S. Eventually, 120,000 are locked up without evidence, due process, or the possibility of appeal, for the duration of World War II.

February 18

1954—First Church of Scientology Established

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.

February 17

1933—Blaine Act Passes

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.

February 17

1947—Voice of America Begins Broadcasting into U.S.S.R.

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.

February 16

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

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 cyanideâ€”not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juiceâ€”resulting in his death in late 1937.