Friday, January 16, 2009

Paperback 188: Witch of Salem / Benjamin Siegel (Gold Medal 307)

Paperback 188: Gold Medal 307 (PBO, 1953)

Title: Witch of Salem
Author: Benjamin Siegel
Cover artist: A. Sewell (not sure where I got this info ... you can see the initials "A.S." in the bottom left corner)

Yours for: $13


Best things about this cover:

  • The trees. I mean, Goody Housewife is very hot and all, even in the Dracula cape, but those trees are something else.
  • "The exciting story of a woman ... who was concerned that it might be starting to rain."
  • I like that the dying of men and women and the fighting of God and Satan are made to sound like coincidental events. "People were dying everywhere you turned. Meanwhile, at God's house ..."

Best things about this back cover:
  • "The children began it" is a horribly ominous sentence. Also, a horrible sentence. "It?" Man, don't make me go back into the previous paragraph looking for the referent.
  • "Too young for love" was, I believe, a Frankie Valli song from 1962

Page 123~

"Harboring a witch, she was. Two of them. And mayhap she herself is no innocent, though up to now Abigail has made no charge against her."


"Witch of Salem," by Benjamin Siegel. Additional dialogue provided by Yoda.

~RP

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mayhap that's an awfully hot fuchsia lippy for an innocent Puritan housewife.

"Girl-children"?

laura linger said...

Writhing climax.

That's all you need to know.

Anonymous said...

"Too young for love" -- what, did their parents hate them? "Though I be her father, love not I that Abigail, for too few years hath she lived. Older must she be before the balm of parental affection shall touch my heart." What jerks!

Actually, it sounds like this refers to that awkward period so aptly described by that insightful sociologist, Ms. B. Spears: "I'm not a girl, not yet a woman."

(And perhaps that other keen observer of the human condition, Mr. N. Diamond, could provide some comfort with the response: "Girl, you'll be a woman soon.")

Anonymous said...

Thank you Tulse for sticking me with "Young Girl", a song I hate with an intense passion.

Anyway, although I rather like "darkly pious", these Gold Medal back covers are amazingly boring: dull yellow, rounded rectangle with purple-prosed copy, and the Gold Medal guarantee. How about some graphics?

JamiSings said...

How in the world did the trees get so twisted? There must be some major pollution problem there in ol' Salem. Forget about the witch trials, Al Gore's going to be coming down on them with the wrath of Khan!

Chance said...

"The children began it" sounds like a Little Lytton contest winner.

Nicole "Gidget" Kalstein said...

The back cover was all kinds of awesome.

"She was young, innocent...and DOOMED!"

Also, girl-children?

"...moaning of Satan and his battle for their souls..."

Oh, gosh. I think this is my favorite back cover I've ever read.