Monday, March 7, 2016

Paperback 927: Ashenden / W. Somerset Maugham (Avon PN240)

Paperback 927: Avon PN240 (13th ptg, 1969)

Title: Ashenden
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Cover artist: Uncredited (who does these awesome psychedelic late '60s Avon covers!?)

Estimated value: $15 (bit scuffed, but very tight, square, barely if ever read)

AvonPN240
Best things about this cover:
  • This is like "Being There" meets "Laugh-In" meets "Planes Trains and Automobiles" meets "Monty Python" meets "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor MURDER Coat"!
  • This cover is Milton Glaser-esque.
  • Purple? The spy wore ... purple? Really?

AvonPN240bc
Best things about this back cover:
  • It's like a dream catcher ... for breaths.
  • There's a lot of "Cold" here. Nothing about the color scheme says "Cold." Earth tones never say "Cold."
  • I prefer my dens ruddy.

Page 123~

R. was a soldier and regarded introspection as unhealthy, unEnglish and unpatriotic.

Great sentence, but one that cries out especially hard for an Oxford comma.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

1 comment:

dfordoom said...

What a truly monumentally awful cover! My goodness. It's a great book by the way - one of the most important in the history of spy fiction. I'm just relieved that my copy doesn't have that cover.