Paperback 864: A Man Called Spade / Dashiell Hammett (Dell 411)

Paperback 864: Dell 411 (2nd ptg, 1st thus, 1950)

Title: A Man Called Spade
Author: Dashiell Hammett
Cover artist: Robert Stanley

Estimated value: $30

Best things about this cover:

• Spade's tie is super-excited for battle.
• If you looked in a 1950 encyclopedia under "Private Dick": this picture. Chiseled. Determined. Behatted. Textbook.
• Fear Hand Photobomb!
• The scale / perspective is All wrong on this, but given that awesome green shirt, I'm gonna allow it.
• "She screamed as Spade dashed up the stairs"—get it? "Dashed"? Yeah, you get it.
• I have a friend whose kid is named Dashiell. Art Spiegelman's son is named Dashiell. This concludes the Dashiell-shout-out portion of my the program.

Best things about this back cover:

• Mapback!
• Whoa. You know, sometimes we forget that 1940s apartments were all long couches and putting greens.
• Max Bliss is the best unintentional porn name I've come across in a Long time.
• I love a pitcher of Bloody Marys as much as anyone, but maybe ease up on the celery there.
• Wow, Max Bliss's daughter is taking that "50 Shades of Grey" thing a bit literally.

'
Page 123~ (from "Too Many Have Lived")

She was short, square, as if carved economically from a cube. 

Talk about economical. That is some haiku-esque objectification right there. Classic.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]