Fawcett-Muller 41

Title : Murder for the Bride

Author : MacDonald, John D. 

Cover art : Barye Phillips  

  [[Manchester], UK: Fawcett-Muller, 1954. Printed in Great Britain by Frederick Muller, Ltd.”]. 

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Bride is MacDonald’s second novel and dates from his pre-Travis Magee period. Very much a product of its time, it’s a good example of how the tough school of writers could borrow Red Scare themes and treat them in a hard-boiled style. To wit, Bride is the story of a man who unknowingly marries a communist agent. Many complications follow, one of them being a Spillane-esque denouement in which the hero sniffs out the den of Red spies and has the inevitable confrontation with the bad guys. 

Gold Medal K1537 (1965)

In any case Barye Phillips' cover is a stunner. Phillips usually emphasized glamour in his portrayals of women and this one has the glamour but a sharp edge as well, with the ominous gigantic red hand and shadows in the backgound seeming to suggest the Red Menace.

Gold Medal 767 (1958)

This version is a rare British paperback edition; I don’t recall seeing any other GM books which originated in the UK, and I’m not that familiar with the company’s publishing history to know how this one fits in the mix. Everything seems to be the same as the cover of the U.S. printing except that it happened to originate from the UK. A curious bit of trivia is that my copy didn’t have a GM number. -- BCS

See also : AbeBooks post on Brides' Books Revisited: Weddings in Literature

Presses de la Cité, Un Mystère, 

No. 249 (1956)

Gold Medal 402

Title : French for Murder

Author : Bernard Mara

Cover art : Clark Hulings  

  [Greenwich, Conn. : Fawcett Gold Medal, 1954. Pseud. Brian Moore. Great low-keyed but nonetheless intense cover from far too infrequent vintage pb cover artist Clark Hulings.] 

style *** 

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Review : Parisian French, not Québécois French

Gold Medal k1323 (1963)

Title : Message from Marise

Author : Paul Kruger

Cover art : Stanley Zuckerberg

   [Greenwich, Conn. : Fawcett Gold Medal, 1963. First printing, July 1963. Pseudonym of Roberta Elizabeth Sebenthal.] 

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     Stanley Zuckerberg was among the most accomplished of the James Avati-influenced artists who strove for an emotional-realistic style. But his cover for Message from Marise – a rather late entry into the vintage cover art canon – has a splashy, quasi-expressionistic quality which shows how far the lurid style had evolved by the early 1960s. Nonetheless, the eye-catching design for Gold Medal k3123 represents one of the most unforgettable covers from the twilight era of vintage paperbacks. 

Gold Medal 199 (1951)

Title : Sumuru
Author : Sax Rohmer
Cover art : Barye Phillips
   [Greenwich, Conn. : Fawcett Gold Medal, 1951. No. 199. Paperback original. Mystery featuring the Sax Rohmer character, a Fu Manchu-like enchantress with quasi-supernatural powers who enslaves men and can turn people to stone].

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    The character of Sumuru has always benefitted from colorful front cover art (movie posters too). See here for a sampling. The quintessential Oriental villainess with supernatural powers seemed ready-made for the splashy 1950s paperback treatment, especially with Gold Medal as the publisher, whose stable of very capable artists included James Meese and Barye Phillips.

   At the same time there was a there was a burgeoning lesbian paperback surge in the 1950s* - the novels of Packer, Bannon, et. al were very popular at the time (and much commented on today in the print and online literature). But perhaps even more fascinating though much less frequently referenced is the appearance of lesbian themes and ideas in mainstream novels of the time, a case in point being our present title of interest, Sumuru (inasmuch as stories about Oriental arch-enchantresses with super-human powers could be mainstream).

   The Cover art for GM 199 depicts an exotic-looking brunette (presumably the title character) beckoning with a finger to a half-naked, draped (Caucasian?) redhead, who peers from a distance from behind a half-opened curtain. The Asian woman holds a gold chain in he her left hand and what appears to be an opium pipe in her right hand, while smoke from the pipe gently wafts nearby, all providing a nice atmosphere of forbidden Eastern exoticism (and perhaps eroticism, as well). Barye Phillips' cover art takes the Mysterious East theme a risqué step further by subtly suggesting a hint of lesbianism with the depiction of two beautiful, scantily clad women, the Eastern woman's come-hither gesture, and the other woman's glance back at her.

   I’m not qualified to say whether any lesbian themes actually appear in the novel, as I’ve not read the ‘Sumuru’ stories. But my guess is probably not. This was the vintage pb era, and they tended to put more spice on the covers than in the book's contents. -- BCS

   * With the conspicuous exception of the various sleaze publishing houses, the cover art for books by said and other authors tended to be fairly restrained and tasteful, usually far less suggestive than Phillips’ rather daring imagery for GM 199.

Gold Medal k1503, 1965

Title: The Company Girls

Author: Mona Williams

Cover art: Robert McGinnis[?] 

  [Fawcett Gold Medal K1503, 1965. First printing. "Their office hours were sizzling enough; what went on after hours could only be told in whispers." Front cover art depicts three nude women (partially obscured by strategically placed towels and puffs of steam) lazing in a sauna room. The cover has been attributed to Robert McGinnis and it's certainly his style but no actual credit is given in this printing. Love those 1960s hairdos!].

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“The Company Girls were supremely shrewd, supremely efficient and supremely female."

Gold Medal 921 (1959)

Title : The Wife Next Door
Author : R. V. Cassill
Cover art : Uncredited

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 "They met like two comets in the night - the bored and restless man, the lush and willing woman!" - front cover. 


GM 921 has great racy front cover art featuring the title character in pink negilgee leaning against a chair. She's rendered in a Barye Phillips style, but, alas, no cover artist is credited.

Risqué details aside, for me what's most interesting about the cover design are those red, brick-like shapes sprinkled through the center of the front cover. What exactly are they? Bricks to suggest the houses of the adulterous individuals? (it's the wife next door, after all). Some sort of wacky, cubist/abstract desire motif? Or maybe a hieroglyphic code? (they vaguely suggest some kind of Mayan script). Whatever, it's all great fun in this mild example of vintage sleaze from a mainstream 1950s paperback publisher.

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.