Dell 346 (1953)

Title : No Mourners Present
Author : Frank Presnell
Cover art : Robert Stanley
  [New York, Dell, 1953. Mapback. No. 346.]


style **

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Continuing with the fire/explosions subgenre is Robert Stanley’s fetching cover art for Dell 346, which despite a certain cartoonish, mannequin-like quality to the figures, packs a punch with the fire-draped upturned auto in the background. Overall, this one doesn’t quite have the panache of the previously cited Nightmare at Noon but it’s a strong late entry in the Dell canon nonetheless.

Morrow, 1942

Dell 274 (1949)

Title : The Body Missed the Boat

Author : Jack Iams

Cover art : William Strohmer

  [New York, Dell, 1949. No. 274. Back cover : map of Hillary Judd’s house/scene of murder, in M’Pile, a residential section of Brazzaville, French Equatorial Africa. Inset : map of Africa]. 

style ***

substance **

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I’m not too familiar with William Strohmer, but his front cover art for Dell 274 is a fine example of Dell’s quasi-deco aesthetic in the 1940s -- a highly stylized tableau depicts a woman in front of a casket gazing at a ship on the distant horizon. The bold colors, omnipresent Dell keyhole, and woman’s peek-a-boo see-through dress combine to create an altogether felicitous design.

Dell No. 146 (1946)

Title: The Man in Lower 10
Author: Mary Roberts Rinehart
Cover art: Otto Storch  

Dell 146 is a mystery about a train ride with murder, robbery & romance -- are their any other types of train rides? At any rate, Lower 10 benefits from terrific front cover art by Otto Storch of surrealistic vision of anthropomorphized train. Back cover : map of The Washington Flier – Scene of Murder.

 

style ***
substance **
collectibility *

 

Dell 414 (1950)

Title : Cleopatra's Nights
Editor : Allan Barnard
Cover art : Ray Johnson
  [Dell Publishing Company Inc., New York, August 1950. First paperback edition. Dell # 414. “The Life and Loves of the Queen of Egypt.”]


style ***
substance **
collectibility **

This rare venture by Dell into historical fiction has the added crossover appeal by being a representative – at least marginally so – of that popular if not so easily definable genre of vintage sleaze. However, as was the case in so many paperbacks from the golden era, the racy promise of the book’s cover is never quite delivered in the contents.
Nonetheless, Dell 414 has much to recommend; the various chapters are well-written, even poetic, and Ray Johnson’s lush cover art balances just the right amounts of glamour and luridness, representing a nice departure from Dell’s earlier, non-realistic designs. Best of all, this was one of the last of the company’s famed mapbacks, and this map’s a doozy – the known world, ca. 30 B.C. (i.e. Middle East & the Mediterranean), “where the pagan Queen of Egypt lived and loved.” The usual suspects -- pyramids, sphinx, Paros lighthouse -- they’re all there.

Dell 332, 1949

Title : Fact Detective
Editor : W. A. Swanberg
Cover art : photo of female model
   [N. Y. : Dell, 1949. No. 332. Mapback edition. Edited by W. A. Swanberg. Pin-up girl front cover photo. Titiel page : "These fact detective mysteries were especially written for this book, and are based on true stories of those crimes which were first published in Inside Detective and Front Page Detective magazines." Back cover : map of U. S. depicting the 'scenes of the crime' in the stories within.]

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