Paperback 65: Wild to Possess / Gil Brewer (Monarch Books 364)

Paperback 65: Monarch Books 364 (2nd ptg, 1963)

Title: Wild to Possess
Author: Gil Brewer
Cover artist: Robert Maguire

Yours for: $35 (SOLD - 4/18/08)


Best things about this cover:

• I have nothing snarky to say - this cover is one of my favorites. This was one of the first books I was lucky enough to come across when I was just starting my collection. Gil Brewer is a very decent crime fiction writer, and Monarch Books is one of the best of the lurid, sex-oriented paperback publishers of the late 50s and 60s. This cover is Gorgeous. A naked redhead with a gun? And it's pointed at me? Dreamy. It's the third Robert Maguire painting I've featured, and possibly the best one yet. Check out the others (see label in the "Labels" for this entry). Doing this blog has given me a renewed appreciation for his mastery of this form. It's remarkably spare and simple, but quite beautiful and evocative - from the look in her eyes to the drape of the striped curtain to the fade-to-white right border. Stunning.
• OK, I'll say one snarky thing: it looks as if she is emerging from a circus tent.
• Oh, I almost forgot - I Love the literary pretension of this title. In case you didn't catch the reference, I hereby present, for your delectation and edification, Sir Thomas Wyatt's "Whoso List to Hunt"

HOSO list to hunt ? I know where is an
hind !
But as for me, alas ! I may no more,
The vain travail hath wearied me so sore ;
I am of them that furthest come behind.
Yet may I by no means my wearied mind
Draw from the deer ; but as she fleeth afore
Fainting I follow ; I leave off therefore,
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.
Who list her hunt, I put him out of doubt
As well as I, may spend his time in vain !
And graven with diamonds in letters plain,
There is written her fair neck round about ;
' Noli me tangere ; for Cæsar's I am,
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'

Best things about this back cover:

• I have always been partial to redheads named FLO
• "Kidnaper" is a horrible-looking word. It looks as if it describes someone who goes around grabbing kids by the napes of their necks.
• "Aroused females on his hands"
• "AMORAL" is a word that my two passions have in common - the paperbacks I collect often tout the AMORAL behavior of their characters, while crosswords simply feature the word AMORAL a whole lot.