Paperback 1141: Corruption City / Horace McCoy (Dell First Edition A188)

Paperback 1141: Dell First Edition A188 (PBO, 1959)

Title: Corruption City

Author: Horace McCoy

Cover artist: photo

Condition: 7/10

Value: $20

[The Book Den, Santa Barbara, CA, August 2025]

Best things about this cover: 

• "Take me down to Corruption City / Where the bricks look fake and the hoods ain't pretty..."
• She's got good "Fear Hand"; feels like I haven't seen a good "Fear Hand" in a while.
• This is the kind of photo shoot I wish I'd been present at. It's a pretty complicated pose. I wonder how long she had to hold it. Maybe they actually put the brick background on the floor and shot it that way. There's not a ton of visual interest here, but they make good use of what they've got. The hood is truly shadowy—all hat, no face—the bricks really gleam, and there enough of her (face, hand) to convey terror effectively. Plus.
• This is a first edition Horace McCoy, so assuming it held together and wasn't astronomically priced (check, check) I was gonna buy it no matter what it looked like.

Best things about this back cover: 

• Belts, anyone? 
• Look, I'm no beltologist, but these look hideous.
• "The finest long-stretch elastic ever used in belt-making"! Wow, this I gotta* see! (*do not care to)
• This is the second book in my collection (so far) with this particular belt ad on the back. I don't own any other books with totally un-book-related ads on the back. I guess some guy at Dell First Editions had a bright idea for how to make better use of the back covers ... and then someone higher up was like "fire Belt Boy" and that was that (seriously, this book is numbered A188, the other book I own with this back cover is A185 ... if you told me this belt ad "concept" lasted for only four books, I would have no problem believing you)

Page 123~

"We know how you feel about this, John," Fogel said. "We also know how Nemo Crispi'll feel when he finds out you've pulled off the case."

I'm staying at "Nemo Crispi'll" with a kind of awe. I mean, Nemo Crispi is a Hall of Fame name on its own, but you do that contraction bit there with the apostrophe "L"s at the end and wow. That's hapax legomenon territory.

~RP

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