Paperback 1073: Girl Out Back / Charles Williams (Dell First Edition B114)

Paperback 1073: Dell First Edition B114 (PBO, 1958)

Title: Girl Out Back

Author: Charles Williams

Cover artist: Darcy

Condition: 7/10

Value: $40-50

Best things about this cover:

• Saw this yesterday under glass at the cash register at a used bookstore in Saratoga Springs and impulse-bought it so fast I almost felt guilty. Paid more than I've paid for a vintage paperback in a while and still paid less than what it's worth. It's Charles Williams, after all, and a first edition, and a Beaut!
• What makes a book desirable may be many things, and this book has a bunch of them. Name author. Paperback original. Great Girl Art. Legible artist signature and/or artist credit (this may not be important to everyone, but it is to me!). Only the tiniest of spine leans. A square, tight copy. I could do without the sticker pull on the price (grrr) and the back (as you'll see) has a top-to-bottom crease, but ... I mean, it's pulp fiction, a little wear/tear gives it some character, imo.
• The print and drape of the dress is fantastic. The cover is not as lurid as the ones I tend to gravitate toward, but it's unusual in appealing ways—a Coke bottle instead of a martini glass, a dock instead of a bar, rural instead of urban, day instead of night. The text prods me to lurid imagination, but that's just it—the painting leaves a Lot of room for imagination. Will she brain that guy with her soda bottle and steal his boat? Will she join him on a fishing expedition? Is he actually three inches tall? Is she 100 feet tall? So many possibilities...
• I love the exposed knee, as well as the hint of cleavage. There is something odd about the left hand. Looks boneless. But otherwise, she's very well put together.

Best things about this back cover:

• He looks like an eighth-grade science teacher
• If the husband makes it through the novel, I'll be stunned
• OK, the weirdo in me is actually most intrigued by "... and an old hermit for a friend." There's a relationship you don't see every day.
• "How You Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Swamp (After They've Seen Barney Godwin)?"

Page 123~

"No," he said. I noticed there was no "sir" now. "I reckon you wouldn't take no chances with me. Goin' to be quite a feather in your cap when you bring me in, ain't it?"

"I'll probably be promoted," I said. "So you just behave yourself, and none of your slippery tricks."

But it was too late. With a snap of his fingers, Cliffords turned himself into an eel and swam away. I shook my fist in impotent fury. "Damn you, Cliffords! First the banana peel on the prison steps, now this!? When will it end!?"

~RP

[Follow Pop Sensation on Instagram @popsensationpaperbacks]