Paperback 1149: Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective / Agatha Christie (Dell 550)

Paperback 1149: Dell 550 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Rafael de Soto

Condition: 7+/10

Value: $8

[Autumn Leaves, Ithaca, NY, summer '25]

Best things about this cover: 

• Hey, alright, balding middle-aged bespectacled guy gets to be semi-heroic. You don't see that every day.
• This lady is really bringing the hand action. Fear Hand™ reaching out toward us, while the other hand clutches her throat. Meanwhile, the guy's hands are also pretty busy, one of them holding and guiding the young woman, the other holding a handkerchief to his face (surely a more effective survival strategy than self-strangulation)
• I assumed they were fighting their way through poisoned gas, but maybe it's just a smoke from a fire. But if it was a fire, I assume we'd be getting more clearly FIRE iconography. Where are the flames? Since when do fires give off a kind of mauve miasma?
• Rafael de Soto was one of the artists who jumped from pulps to paperbacks, and you can really see the pulp expertise here. So good at conveying drama and action, so many nice little details—the wrinkles in his brow, for instance, or her bracelet, or his surprisingly stylish purple tie. If he's gonna die, he's gonna die in style! 

Best things about this back cover: 

• Mapback! God bless Dell for the Mapback period. Every back cover a cartological adventure!
• If ever there was an image of imperialism ... Great Britain is barely on this map, but the Houses of Parliament, seem to have invaded and absolutely crushed eastern Europe and Russia.
• The iconography is perfect. Paris has the Arc de Triomphe, Britain has Parliament, Turkey's got minarets, Egypt's got pyramids, and then there's Iraq, which is represented, of course, by its world famous bus.

Page 123~

    "Oh, yes! Edward's a perfect angel." She hesitated. "Not, perhaps, very much go to him. Just a little—well, I'd call it strait-laced. Lot of Puritan ancestry and all that. But he's a dear," she added hastily.

"Where oh where did my go go? Why is it so low? I'll never know"—Edward

~RP

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Paperback 1101: Slipping Beauty / Jerome Weidman (Avon 322)

 Paperback 1101: Avon 322 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Slipping Beauty

Author: Jerome Weidman

Cover artist: [Ray Johnson]

Condition: 8/10 (cover kind of warps away from the pages at the corners a bit, but otherwise square and bright)

Value: $15

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA]

Best things about this cover: 

• When you're in the theater with your children and suddenly realize you've misread the marquee... "Mommy, that lady's not sleeping ... mommy ... can I get a cigarette holder?"
• This is really first-rate girl art. I love this dame: sexy, bored, comfortable in her sexy boredness. He does a good job with her body & profile but he does an even better job with her whole Attitude. High-end hardboiled.
• I like the palette on this cover, too. Real cool. The icy blue is unusual, and complements the pinkish lingerie and flesh tones really well.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Loooooove a good author photo, and this one is good. Gotta be smoking, of course, but I love how this is less author photo and more cover adornment. He's *this* close to looking like a logo.
• LOL those *eternal* ellipses in the New York Times quotation. Like the reviewer is thinking of something diplomatic to say and is like "... uh ... meaty? ..."
• "Cataloguer of heels"—if I were Weidman, I'd put that on my business card *immediately*

Page 123~ (from "Everybody Wants to Be a Lady")

Well, my husband Mac, he's the nicest fellah you ever wanna meet and all that, but when it comes to things like this, God bless him, if you don't put the words in his mouth, he don't know what to say.

Ah, to live in a time when people said "fellah" and spelled it with an "h." Glory days. 

~RP

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Paperback 987: New York: Confidential / Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer (Dell 1534)

Paperback 987: Dell 1534 (2nd ptg, 1951)

Title: New York: Confidential
Author: Jack Lait & Lee Mortimer
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $12-15
Condition: 8/10

Best things about this cover:

• Guys! Dolls! Together!
• Robert Stanley's people are always ridiculously rich and creamy.
• Seriously, the art is gorgeous. That dark aquamarine NYC night sky somehow works perfectly.

Best things about this back cover:

• Map! Back! Mapback!
• It's a pretty dang dull map, from a design point of view, but the "Key" on p. 240 is amazing. All those little numbers on the map represent "Hotels," "Night Clubs & Restaurants," "Theaters," and "Shopping":

Also, there are appendices of cool info like "Headwaiters' Names" (!?) and a "Glossary of Harlemisms":



Page 123~

Do not use cheap perfume when night-clubbing (or at any time).

~RP

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Paperback 985: Runyon First and Last / Damon Runyon (Graphic 30)

Paperback 985: Graphic 30 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Runyon First and Last
Author: Damon Runyon
Cover artist: Uncredited

Estimated value: $10-15
Condition: 7/10

Best things about this cover:

• I oppose fur but that is a magnificent fur. That is an ostentatious, almost comically elongated sleeve. And shoulder pad.
• I love how she seems to be admiring Runyon's name while poor Slats pleads spectrally in the background.
• Runyon is a really important early 20c. American newspaperman and short story writer. He records and cultivates a certain hardboiled, slangy, colloquial style that ends up being very influential. You may know him from such things as "Guy & Dolls."

Best things about this back cover:

• Runyonese. I like my ham on rye with extra Runyonese.
• The titles of these stories alone are worth the price of admission. Soupbone Pew!
• "Informal Execution" is such a menacing phrase. I'm guessing that one wasn't made into a musical.

Page 123~ (from "Old New Year's")

On this day everybody swears off doing something or other, generally drinking, which is very easy for most people to swear off on New Year's Day, because generally they feel so tough from welcoming in the New Year that they never wish to see another drink again as long as they live, or anyway until they feel better.

I like that usage of "tough." So much more delicately ambiguous than the straight jab of "hungover."

~RP

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Paperback 966: I.O.U. Murder / William Francis (Signet 865)

Paperback 966: Signet 865 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: I.O.U. Murder
Author: William Francis
Cover artist: uncredited

Estimated value: $6-10
Condition: 3/10

Best things about this cover:

• This is pretty brutal. Normally, these dead-ladies-reclining-over-beds-or-couches covers are pretty sexed-up affairs, and there's definitely a sexual element here, but the violence of the scene, particularly her chillingly open eyes, really undercuts the eroticism. Which is probably as it should be.
• That window is oddly free of ... well, everything.
• That circle in the middle—the one that makes her look like she died doing some kind of odd trick with a hula hoop—is not original to the cover. Someone set something circular and tacky on the book, and then yoink: circle. Puts me in mind of a peeping tom's telescope lens. A happy accident.
• I'd've fought hard for keeping "Rough on Rats"

Best things about this back cover:

• A hard-boiled tagline if I've ever seen one.
• Also, nothing says "hard-boiled" like "third-rate Los Angeles bar."
• That last line spirals off into incoherent purple territory. Otherwise, fine, standard-issue crime fiction cover copy.

Page 123~

I waited in the car for Barney. He joined me in a few minutes and we drove back to the office and hauled the case up to my rooms. I paid Barney, and watched the elevator drop out of sight before I went in and locked the doors and opened the suitcase. It was full of round, flat cans, each of which held a spool of film.

The best part of this is that after the first sentence, my mind imagined the entire scene as part of an episode of "The Flintstones."

~RP

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Paperback 872: The Baited Blonde / Robinson MacLean (Dell 508)

Paperback 872: Dell 508 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: The Baited Blonde
Author: Robinson MacLean
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• Mike had his own special way of taking a woman's pulse.
• Mike was never very good at dancing.
• Mike always had trouble getting the store mannequins into naturalistic poses.
• You do *not* want to fuck with Mike's hookah. You just don't.

Best things about this back cover:

• Middle East Mapback! With the Suez Canal inset! Hot.
• "How 'bout instead of Iran … a sad strip club?" "Go for it!"
• Screw you, Cyprus! No pink tint for you!

Page 123~

And after you open a can of salmon you got to do something. 

Best motivational poster caption ever. If you don't use this line today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life, something is wrong with you.

~RP

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Paperback 820: Strangers on a Train / Patricia Highsmith (Bantam 905)

Paperback 820: Bantam 905 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Strangers on a Train
Author: Patricia Highsmith
Cover artist: Stanley Zuckerberg

Yours for: $17


Best things about this cover:

• That dude wins Best Everything at the Paperback Cover Art Oscars. Best Eyes, Best Facial Expression, Boniest Hands, Best Gun-Caressing, Best Damned Trousers On The Planet, etc.
• What year is it? She looks she just walked out of a saloon circa 1889.
• This cover reminds me that I really need a flask. Bourbon is never close enough at hand.

Best things about this back cover:

• Even the handwriting is "tense and frightening."
• "Superbly Revolting" is my new go-to ambiguous pseudo-compliment.
• You can't really see what the original hardcover art was like, but I assure you, it's pretty bleeping ugly. And no Demented Trouser Guy, so … I'll stick with the cheap stuff, thanks.

Page 123~

He longed to merge his life with hers.

And the winner for Best Euphemism goes to …

~RP

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Paperback 788: Bell Timson / Marguerite Steen (Perma Books P110)

Paperback 788: Perma Books P110 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Bell Timson
Author: Marguerite Steen
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• She is what I'd call "WASP-hot," though she does look a bit like she's been modeled out of Play-Doh, and those are really more flippers than hands.
• Something about her dimensions are just … off.
• This cover does not say "illicit business." It says "some lady, probably a lady named 'Bell Timson'."
• "The Sun Is My Undoing"—damn, that was gonna be the title of my autobiography! I'll have to go with my second choice, "Beyond the Pale."

Best things about this back cover:

• You said it, sister.
• "Ten years too long" made me legit laugh.
• If you named your kids Kay and Jo, you could refer them collectively as KayJo. Like, all the time. I would.
• Who is Bob and how does that relate to Bell's being a (I'm guessing) hooker? I'm really, really hoping that Jo discovers her fiancé once slept with her mom. That would at least be interesting.

Page 123~

"She was supposed to have 'touched pitch' and therefore been contaminated; you know what villagers are." Mr. Somervell laughed shortly.

~RP

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Paperback 732: A Taste for Cognac / Brett Halliday (Dell 10c 15)

Paperback 732: Dell 10c 15 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: A Taste for Cognac
Author: Brett Halliday
Cover artist: Bob Stanley

Yours for: $15


Best things about this cover:

• Red hair. Bow tie. Side glance.
• That ugly booth bench puts her in a rather weird, hunchy, decidedly unsexy position.
• His hand is almost too expertly rendered. Seems like a living thing, operating wholly independently from Cap'n Bow Tie.

Best things about this back cover:

• Psst, Blackie. He's gonna need his face for, you know, talking.
• Love trigger-happy gunmen. So much cooler than gun-happy triggermen. Or gun-shy gunmen—those guys are the worst.
• I am intrigued by the concept of "Night Bus."

Page 23~

"So you think I did it?" Shayne fumed.

~RP

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Paperback 677: Scottsboro Boy / Haywood Patterson and Earl Conrad (Bantam 920)

Paperback 677: Bantam 920 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Scottsboro Boy
Author: Haywood Patterson and Earl Conrad
Cover artist: Joseph Hirsch

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Tagline should probably be a bit more specific: "The Shocking Truth about Black Men in Prison on Charges of Raping White Girls in Ultra-Racist Alabama"
• In case you didn't know, this case is super-famous in the history of Civil Rights.
• I love how this is just a straight-up portrait, and all the drama is in the background details—white lawman with a club; "Alabama" and "South(ern?)" partially blocked by man's head; fittingly Black & White rail crossing guard sticking straight up; etc.
• I like his suspenders.

Best things about this back cover:

• I am unsure how I feel about the characterization "Jungle Conditions"—sounds sympathetic, but "jungle" is one of those words that hovers disparagingly around black people. All the time. I've been deep into 1923 newspapers this month, and I'm more familiar than I'd like to be with the vast and colorful language of racism.
• Interesting to have an Alabama paper blurb this book.
• Like the shadowed font on "Scottsboro Boy" here.

Page 123~

Merle had a funny sense of justice. He didn't want to see anybody injure anybody else. He'd kill the guy that injured the other one.

From now on, violence in the name of non-violence will be called "Merle Justice."

~RP

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Paperback 657: The Red Badge of Courage / Stephen Crane (Pocket Books 154)

Paperback 657: Pocket Books 154 (5th ptg, 1951)

Title: The Red Badge of Courage
Author: Stephen Crane
Cover artist: John Alan Maxwell

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• This book is weird. It's a 5th printing, 1951 paperback, but retains the look of a book from a decade earlier. Perhaps this is because this book is a "classic" or "literary" or whatever—which was the backbone of Pocket's catalogue in the early years, before they figured out, you know, sex sells.
• This book is also in near-perfect condition. Square, bright, barely read. Always feels like a minor miracle to pull a 50- to 60-year old paperback off a shelf and see it so pristine.
• I like how this guy's coming right at you. The tone of the whole painting is very (appropriately) ambiguous. All the storied elements of war (bombs bursting in air and what not) mixed with stumps and sad expressions and a very sickly sky.

Best things about this back cover:

• Pretty straightforward. Nothing to see here.

Page 123~

The men stared with blank and yokel-like eyes at him. He was obliged to halt and retrace his steps. He stood then with his back to the enemy and delivered gigantic curses into the faces of the men. His body vibrated from the weight and force of his imprecations. And he could string oaths with the facility of a maiden who strings beads.

I'm getting really tired of all this hyper-competent writing. It's throwing me off my game.

~RP

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Paperback 628: Dead Giveaway / Hugh Lawrence Nelson (Dell 520)

Paperback 628: Dell 520 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Dead Giveaway
Author: Hugh Lawrence Nelson
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• Legato-erotic asphyxiation.
• "There was no stool!"
• I love the thick, sweaty, unshaven humanity of Bob Stanley's painting.
• I also entertained "auto-melodic asphyxiation." But I stand by my first choice.

Best things about this back cover:

• When Cartography Goes Bad. A confused and ugly mapback. Too many keys and insets and overlays. San Francisco has never looked more dull.
• If that is the "zany troupe of entertainers" there in the inset, then we have very different ideas about what "zany" means.
• There's someone named "Deasy" in this book? And it's not called "Deasy Does It." The titling folks are slacking.

Page 123~

"And Mr. Gates passing out and going—"

"Thump!" They shouted it in unison.

Abbott jumped.

They beamed with pleasure.

I'm guessing "they" are the "zany troupe of entertainers." And I'm also guessing Abbott shoots them within the next couple pages.

~RP

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Paperback 598: Mingo Dabney / James Street (Pocket Books 819)

Paperback 598: Pocket Books 819 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Mingo Dabney
Author: James Street
Cover artist: Harvey Kidder

Yours for: $7


Best things about this cover:

• And Mingo was his name. O.
• I believe this is the pose for which the expression "Huzzah!" was invented.
• "Who the hell took my castanets?!? I can't do this dance without my castanets!!!"
• Who's the cat who makes all the hijab-wearin' ladies freak out and the grizzled Hemingway impersonators nod in silent admiration ...? — hint: it's not Shaft.

Best things about this back cover:

• Actor Dabney Coleman was famous for getting drunk at wrap parties and insisting that everyone call him "El Dabney."
• "MINGO DABNEY so fly he turn a saint All Woman."—lost '90s rap lyric
• I would like to thank Pocket Books for (fairly) consistently crediting cover artists.

Page 123~

"Listen, Mr. Carson." Mingo ran his fingers through his hair and his fingers were sticky with sweat. "I'm damn near crazy."

Furthermore, in case you missed it: fingers.

~RP

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P.S. Bonus illustration ... author beefcake!

[Street's ahead]

Paperback 550: Yesterday I Died! / John Cooper (World Distributors Nn, 1951?))

Paperback 550: World Distributors Novel (no #) (PBO? 1951?)

Title: Yesterday I Died!
Author: John Cooper
Cover artist: Sure, why not...

Yours for: I have no idea ...


Best things about this cover:

• Him: "Yesterday Day I Died!" Her: "So I smell!"
• Gun v. Nipple face-off.
• Has she got an 8 1/2 x 11 pad of paper in her pocket? 
• Awkwardly positioned gunman wonders "Am I in frame now? How 'bout now?"

Best things about this back cover:

• One of three Awesome ads in this thing.
• Charles Atlas promises you "fresh blood" if you join him and his vampiric children of the night.
• "Joy-killing ailments" is a great phrase. 

Other ads!

• The crossword constructor in me really wishes APAL had caught on.
• How is that drawing of that dude supposed to relate to my quitting smoking. Frankly, it's creeping me out and making me want to light up.
• Hey, "S.A.E." — more crosswordy goodness!

• First, I thought it said "I am Bam-Bou!" and thought "awesome name for a guru." Then I thought it said "Make Money By Growing Babies" and thought "that's ... a new angle."
• It's a well-know scientific fact that bamboo release spores in the form of pound coins.
• The Orientalism here is epic—the sexy East will lay bare her secrets to the hungry eyes of the horny West!

Page 123~ (This Book Has No Page Numbers!?!?!)

So ... Random Page~

Lugs O'Malley said suddenly, "For Pete's sake, Champion ... do something. If you're gonna blow us all to hades with the bomb ... well hell, let's go. But don't forget, you go too."

First, give it up for 'Lugs O'Malley,' which belongs in the Corney Gangster Name Hall O' Fame. Second, who says (uncapitalized!?) "hades" in this context? Normally, I would say: the person who thinks "hell" is a curse word. But ... the next sentence ...

~RP

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Paperback 537: Fools Die on Friday / A. A. Fair (Dell 542)

Paperback 537: Dell 542 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: Fools Die on Friday
Author: A.A. Fair (aka Erle Stanley Gardner)
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Yours for: not for sale (donation to the collection), but FYI, it's prolly worth about $30

Best things about this cover:

• Reader K. Harvey was helping clean out the house of a friend's aunt and she came across a treasure trove of old paperbacks. She offered to send them to me. I accepted. So a couple days ago I got a box crammed full of Fair/Gardner books (as well as some Leslie Charteris / "Saint" stuff), all of which are in good-to-great condition. There must be 35-40 books in all. A generous donation, from which we will all benefit—I'll try to post all the covers here, sometimes 2 or 3 at a time (to highlight certain stylistic trends) over the course of the summer, while still moving steadily through my collection (don't want to overdose on Gardner). 
• I lead with this cover because it is legendary. Future editions of this book will button her shirt and hide her panties, making her look far more elegant, far less slatternly. I.e. yawn. Behold:

• "... just enough to cover yourself ..." Well, I guess she's ready then.
• I love old half-face there on the left. In particular, his tie. And his eyes. He's doing that "I can magically see behind me" thing that people on paperback covers and in soap operas sometimes do. He looks like every man Robert Stanley ever drew, i.e. like Mike Shayne.
• If it weren't for the boobs, I'd have to say "cross-dresser."

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• "Real clues" — none of the fake stuff for us, thanks.
• BALLWIN looks allllll kinds of wrong.
• Love the building cutaway—like a giant just tore the top half of the apartment off.

Page 123~

She pushed back her stenographic chair, walked over to a shelf, whipped out a map, and placed it on the counter.

I am slightly in love with the phrase "stenographic chair," which I did not realize until just now was a thing.

~RP

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Paperback 501: The Candy Kid / Dorothy B. Hughes (Pocket Books 845)

Paperback 501: Pocket Books 845 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: The Candy Kid
Author: Dorothy B. Hughes
Cover artist: Edward Vebell

Yours for: $9

Best things about this cover:

• I guess he didn't care for the package.
• "I said, 'Where's the candy, kid!?' I want my fuckin' Reese's back, right now!"
• Some of the best upside-down face art I've ever seen.
• I like that dude's suit.
• Check out the Fear Hand (Extreme Edition) on his lapel!
• Getting Jane to swallow her pills was always a chore.

Best things about this back cover:

• I think the guy on the cover misread this as "Never Balk At Strangling Women"
• Jo Aragon needs to buy a vowel, specifically an "e" to put on the end of his first name.
• If you want to end your teaser paragraph with a bang, I suggest the adjective "tampered-with" be nowhere in sight.

Page 123~

He woke up on coffee and a hamburger.

He rolled over to find Sylvia standing in the doorway, a horror-struck look on her face. "When you said you 'loved food' ... well ... I ... [sobbing] ... a hamburger!? A plain old hamburger!? Is that how easily I'm replaced!?"

~RP

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Paperback 481: The Shame of Mary Quinn / Clifton Cuthbert (Pyramid 28)

Paperback 481: Pyramid 28 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: The Shame of Mary Quinn
Author: Clifton Cuthbert
Cover artist: [Hunter Barken]

Yours for: $11

Best things about this cover:

• The powerful story of a boy who would not give up his beloved chair no matter how many half-naked magic tricks his sister did.
• The shame of Mary Quinn was her gigantic pasties—all the other strippers laughed at her, and even her most loyal patrons turned away in disgust.
• "Climax is tremendous!"—this is why Unnatural Love is so hard to give up ...

Best things about this back cover: 

• Wow. That's frank.
• "This book is about some dirty shit, but it's written in complete sentences and doesn't have curse words, so you don't have to feel so guilty."

Page 123~

They went to the bed and she looked past him to the wall, his embrace impersonalized for her. His painful grasp recalled her, she noticed his loving was rough and ill-tempered, and suddenly she took joy in it.

God, even rough sex can't withstand the withering assault of clunky, amateurish writing.

~RP

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Paperback 440: What a Body! / Alan Green (Dell 483)

Paperback 440: Dell 483 (1st ptg, 1951)

Title: What a Body!
Author: Alan Green
Cover artist: Gil Darling

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

• "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy ... oh, it's just a gun."
• "Hey, easy ... gimme that back. That's my special novelty lighter I got for being second-best regional sales manager in Pensacola."
• "OK, hon, you hold real still ... I'm gonna practice my ninja moves on you now. First, I crouch in plain sight, in broad daylight, in a sky blue suit. Next ..."

Best things about this back cover:

• Well, it's legendary, and you can see why.
• I can't even snark this. It comes pre-snarked.
• The best part about this chart is the arbitrary numbers. I mean, is there really an 11% chance I'll be able to place my date in my overcoat pocket? One in ten of my dating prospects is roughly the size of a ferret? That number seems awfully high.
• Was there ever a time where that woman looked appealing? Her boobs are non-existent, which is fine—no reason every woman should be busting out of her clothes—but she also has this odd growth on her head and she appears to have just strangled some poor scraggly bird. She looks like she's on her way to a funeral, or to worship Satan.

Page 123~

Prune-juice fancier that he was, he went on sipping staring into the hypnotic depths of the swimming-pool.

That is surely the only time in the history civilization that that particular opening clause has been used. And for the record, that sentence is punctuated *precisely* as it appears in the book, however unbelievable that may seem.

~RP

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Paperback 430: Free Woman / Katharine Brush (Dell 10c 18)

Paperback 430: Dell 10c 18 (1st ptg., 1951)

Title: Free Woman
Author: Katharine Brush
Cover artist: Barye Phillips

Yours for: $12


Best things about this cover:

• This cover never fails to make me laugh—it's such a simple, visually succinct statement of the evils of the Career Girl. "Why does mommy hate us, daddy?" "Because she's a selfish harpy, Timmy. All women are. You'll learn."
• Or maybe she's just trying on a new suit at the department suit. "How do I look, dear?" "Well Timmy hates it, right Timmy?" "Something's wrong with my right foot, daddy."
• I like her gloves. A lot. I also like how she's verrrry subtly giving those two the middle finger.
• She is literally looking down her nose at them. "You two—bring the car around."

Best things about this back cover:

• "Jon is not your son. He sprang forth fully formed from my head. Now, bring the car around!"
• "At the height of her success, disaster struck, and she was ruined." Spoiler alert!
• "Like any unruly horse, she was broken by a man..."

Page 23~

She had finished school in June, and in September the first fruits awaited her—she was to be Director of Athletics, spelled that way in capitals, at a fashionable school for girls in Pennsylvania.

Oooh, capital letters. That *is* fashionable.

~RP

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Paperback 414: The Sex Habits of American Women / Fritz Wittels, M.D. (Eton 102)

Paperback 414: Eton 102 (2nd ptg?, 1951)

Title: The Sex Habits of American Women
Author: Fritz Wittels, M.D.
Cover artist: N.A.

Yours for: $7

[Cloudy parts are just peeling Perma-Gloss...]

Best things about this cover:

• Ugh. Way to make sex habits look austere, old, and dusty, Eton Books. This looks like the basement office door in some long-forgotten Institute of Bygone Studies.
• Well, if any name screams "authority on female sexuality," it's Fritz Wittels ("ahem, Dr. Fritz Wittels") (which really should be the name of some anti-hero in an underground sex comic of the early 70s; in fact, I'm pretty sure R. Crumb drew a Fritz Wittels at some point in his career: "Vood yoo like to taste my Vittles?" he'd ask...)
• I was going to mock like crazy the title given to Albert C. Rosenthal ("Planning Director of Graphics Institute"), especially after opening the book to a random page and finding this less-than-inspiring graphic offering:

Terrible stuff, if only because that graphic is totally racist ... but then, I came across an undeniable graphic gem—the kind that gives you remarkable insight into the human condition with just one glance:


Such realism! I mean, first off, that's the onesie *I* wear to bed. Second, what better way to illustrate the three classic post-coital moods: zonked out, playing air piano with one hand while staring at the ceiling, or curled up like Demi Moore when she freaks out near the end of "St. Elmo's Fire." Dig deeper inside, and you find more graphic classics (or "grassics," as I now like to call them). There's the "happy orgasm slide vs. my fat slob of a boyfriend came and then fell out of bed" graphic:



... as well as the "I learned about sex from an older lesbian" graphic:

[Hell yeah, Chart XXX!]

And many more! Now the back cover:


Best things about this back cover:

• I can barely read it through the damned hazy permagloss. *$%& it!

Page 123~

Lesbians are not as obnoxious as a couple of men in love with each other.

In 1951, I believe this attitude was known as "progressive."

~RP

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