Avon Books 47 (1944)

Title : Shoe the Wild Mare
Author : Gene Fowler  
Cover art : uncredited


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Continuing with mare-titled books, we offer Gene Fowler's Shoe the Wild Mare, a rare instance in which the cover stands out not for its beauty or outrageousness, but rather for its singularly dull and unattractive qualities. All the more unfortunate in that this aesthetics-of-the-ugly entry represents an early Avon release and as such is at least marginally collectible. But nothing about this cover works, from the unfortunate color combination of yellow, black and purple to the man’s floating head between two women's heads facing each other. I can’t comment on the literary qualities of the book – for all I know it’s Faulkner in disguise – but with a cover like this I’m not really interested. 

Fawcett Gold Medal No. 644 (1957)

Title : Ride the Gold Mare
Author : Ovid Demaris 
Cover art : Barye Phillips

  [Greenwich, Conn. : Fawcett Gold Medal, 1957. No. 644. First printing, February 1957].

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Ride the Gold Mare is a thriller about drug running in Southern California. Characters include a loose cannon cop, a drunken reporter “without a conscience,” and assorted bad guys. Barye Phillips contributes one of his most unforgettable covers with this elegant take on the sexy dead girl formula. A partially clothed dead woman is positioned in the center of the cover, with gloomy cityscape and gigantic hand superimposed menacingly behind her. Very effective use of the multi-layered collage type of cover art graphics popular in the late 1950s.

Bantam No. 730 (1949)

Title : Dark Interlude
Author : Peter Cheyney 
Cover art : C. C. Beall

   [N. Y. : Bantam, 1949. No. 730. Also released as : The Terrible Night. Atmospheric, film noirish cover art by C. C. Beall. Vintage cover art has been kind to Peter Cheyney. See here for an eye-popping sampling of covers, both Anglo/American and European].

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Site of the Month

  
Reading California Fiction : Perusing Stories of the Golden State. This site offers book reviews for fiction set in California and written between 1890 and 1959. There's strong coverage of crime fiction and vintage pb’s  & lots of high quality cover scans. But the site is possibly most noteworthy for its inclusion of offbeat and little known authors like Florence Stonebraker. 

Berkley Books G-168 (1958)

Title : Renée
Author : H-R Lenormand

  [N. Y. : Berkley Books, 1958. No. G-168. 2nd printing, September 1958. 'Complete and unabridged.' First published, Paris, Flammarion, 1949, as Une Fille est Une Fille. Translated from the French by Frances Frenaye. Cover photo of title character, clad in pajamas, looking out window of Paris flat of vista of the city. 'An uninhibited girl of the Paris streets.' - front cover].


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Popular Library No. 327 (1951)

Title : Stranger and Alone
Author : J. Saunders Redding
Cover art : uncredited
  [N. Y. : Popular Library, 1951. No. 327. “Special abridged edition.” “He couldn't escape the color of his skin." Novel about a guy with a white father & black mother who feels alienated from both races. [Anon.] cover art pictures the novel’s hero in foreground facing another guy nuzzling a black woman in low cut green dress].


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Dell D375 (1960)

Title : The Obituary Club
Author : Hugh Pentecost
Cover art : Robert Maguire
  [N. Y. : Dell, 1960. #D-375. Pseud. Judson Philips. Cover : Robert Maguire. “First Dell printing, August 1960.” Maguire comes through with another knockout cover, this one using a favorite vintage paperback cover theme, that of the beautiful woman opening or peeking through a curtain. Great use of bright reds for the woman's dress, high heels and lipstick].

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