Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Paperback 477: Uncle Tom's Children / Richard Wright (Penguin 647)

Paperback 477: Penguin 647 (1st ptg, 1947)

Title: Uncle Tom's Children
Author: Richard Wright
Cover artist: jonas

Yours for: $20


Pen647.TomsChildren

Best things about this cover:
  • Kind of an abrupt shift from all the sexed-up lesbian stuff I've been trafficking in lately.
  • Simple, gruesome, effective cover from "jonas," one of the most important early pb cover artists.
  • Really digging the title font. Also, that dude's pocket square.


Pen647bc.UncleTomsC

Best things about this back cover:
  • Back cover from back when paperbacks still modeled their back covers after those on the insides of hardcover dust jackets. Very straitlaced and informative and decidedly non-sensational.
  • The first recipient of the Spingarn medal was Ernest Everett Just (1915). Trivia!

Page 123~
There was silence. Then Hadley laughed, noiselessly.

Laughed noiselessly? You might want to check that he's not choking.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

3 comments:

Tulse said...

If he laughed noiselessly, would there still be silence?

Brian Busby said...

In other words, the silence was not broken.

D.A. Trappert said...

Surely there is a little more to be said about that back cover, which starts out by talking about his height and his kind, intelligent face. I don't think they would have written about Hemingway that way. And then there is the great line, "...highest award for achievement in the field of Negro interests." Wright was a great writer and deserves a little better than this!