Paperback 674: The Red House Mystery / A. A. Milne (Dell D321)

Paperback 674: Dell D321 (1st ptg, 1959)

Title: The Red House Mystery (The Dell Great Mystery Library Number 25)
Author: A. A. Milne
Cover artist: William Teason

Yours for: $6


Best things about this cover:

• Bored? High? Dead? High? Mannequin?
• Yes, that A. A. Milne.
• You might remember this as one of the mystery novels that Chandler absolutely decimates in "The Simple Art of Murder"

Best things about this back cover:

• Mmm. Key porn.
• The nightmarish carpet pattern continues.
• "The Dell Great Mystery Library" was decidedly conservative, their covers respectable and dull.

Page 123~

In the time at his disposal, he could have done no more than put it away in a drawer, where it would be much more open to discovery by Antony than if he had kept it in his pocket.

The "it," of course, is a tube of KY—the slipperiest McGuffin.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 175: Murder After Hours / Agatha Christie (Dell 5922)

Paperback 175: Dell 5922 (1st ptg, 1965)

Title: Murder After Hours
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: William Teason

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• Worst Weapon-Hiding Place Ever
• "Hey, watch me make the horse shoot bullets out his butt!"
• This cover was painted using primarily leftover "Exorcist" vomit
• Teason specializes in these odd little still lifes featuring unlikely groupings of objects. There appears to be, in addition to the horse sculpture/gun, a riding crop, a rag, a tabloid story about someone who was "MURDERED," and a bent playing card (King of Hearts)

Best things about this back cover:

• They always suck me in with their geometry teasers: "It looked like an ordinary triangle ... but it was scalene!"
• Apparently the "triangle" is a sculpture of human flesh
• "Sculptress"! Remember when the idea of a woman's doing anything of note outside the home, especially anything creative, was so unusual that it required flagging with a suffix? Why they don't call Christie an "authoress," I don't know.

Page 123~

Oh no, thought Midge, it can't be true. It's a dream I've been having. John Christow, murdered, shot - lying there by the pool. Blood and blue water - like the jacket of a detective story. Fantastic, unreal ...

~RP

Paperback 164: The Boomerang Clue / Agatha Christie (Dell D340)

Paperback 164: Dell D340 (1st ptg, 1960)
Title: The Boomerang Clue
Author: Agatha Christie
Cover artist: William Teason

Yours for: $10


Best things about this cover:

• Well, there's something you don't normally associate with Agatha Christie: BONDAGE.
• I love love love how her arms coupled with the back of the chair form a (very ironic) valentine! The red background only heightens the effect. Don't even get me started on how she kinda looks like a Catholic school girl who is at least mildly ashamed of the predicament she has gotten herself into... Or is that a look not of shame, or fear, but of coyness? Clearly, I have my own, private version of the story of how she came to be in that chair.
  
• Most of my Teason covers (lots of late 50s/60s Dells) don't have people on them. Clearly he should have done more people. The hands alone are gorgeous.

Best things about this cover:

• More broken windows!
• Random rope - did she escape!?
• I love how the copy on the back cover is typeset as if it were a poem

Page 123~

"To begin with," said Bobby, plunging [ed.: !?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!], "I'm not really a chauffeur although I do work in a garage in London. And my name isn't Hawkins - it's Jones - Bobby Jones. I come from Marchbolt in Wales."

The story of a golfing legend gone deep, deep undercover.

~RP

Paperback 117: Bodies and Souls / ed. Dann Herr & Joel Wells (Dell 0656)

Paperback 117: Dell 0656 (1st ptg, 1963)

Title: Bodies and Souls
Editors: Dann Herr & Joel Wells
Cover artist: Teason

Yours for: SOLD 9/18/10


Best things about this cover:

• Finally, a paperback that deals seriously with the lingering problem of the Manichean Heresy.
  
• "Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him, [Willard / Ben / Templeton / other rat name you can think of]"
• Hmmm ... uh ... I guess this cover's got a rat. And a skull. And a candle. Those elements hold a certain visual interest.
• If you like brown, this is the book for you.
• This book is another good example of why paperback design starts sucking some time around 1960. Art becomes more like stock footage. Text starts dominating the cover in un-thought out and ugly ways. Quit shilling for the "Doubleday Crime Club" and give me the beautiful cover art I deserve! 50 cents for a paperback?! What am I, a Rockefeller?

Best things about this back cover:

• When I want an authoritative literary opinion, I always turn to [squints to read fine print] the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer!
• This reviewer is sadly and humorously unaware that "catholic" in fact means "universal." I know the reviewer meant "Catholic" in religious terms ... but precision of word choice matters, even if you do only work for the Columbus Daily Muffin.

Page 123~

from "The Finger of Stone" by G.K. Chesterton

"Have you heard the news I say," rapped out the doctor. "Boyg is dead."

Gale stopped in a sentence about Gothic architecture, and said seriously, with a sort of hazy reverence:

"Requiescat in pace. Who was Boyg?"

~RP