Paperback 1135: The Twilight Lust / Val Arden (Royal Line 105)

Paperback 1135: Royal Line 105 (PBO, 1965)

Title: The Twilight Lust

Author: Val Arden

Cover artist: [photo cover]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $25

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• "Adults Only may see my nipples. Yes, I'm serious, those are the rules. I'm crossing my arms defiantly, so you know that I am serious."
• I want one of you to dress as This Lady for Halloween, insane wig, chainmail underwear, "Adults Only" sign and all. Dying decorative houseplant optional.
• "Twilight" is code for gay/lesbian/queer. Always. Such a great code word. My favorite cover copy word, right up there with "frank" (as euphemism for "dirty")
• There should be more condition ratings for old paperbacks than just Good, Very Good, Fine, etc. There needs to be a word that gets to the specific quality of a book like this, which is unread, square, perfect, but also aged to hell and scuffed and notched by a saw at the top, maybe sun damaged. It's like "Excellent/Poor"

Best things about this back cover: 

• Wow. Wow. . . yeah, wow.
• Who can forget the first stirrings of "girhood?" Not me, that's for sure.
• "Satisfaction in treir seeking." "Treir seeking" was a lesbian spiritual/sexual practice. No one remembers what it was anymore. This book is the only record of its existence. Did they ever find the treir they were seeking? You'll have to get your own copy to find out. 
• It's like someone found a "rejected cover copy" text-file dump and just filed it as final copy. Like, on a dare. "Surely an editor will clean this up." And yet here we are. 
• Somehow the most disturbing thing to me about this back cover is how horribly off-center the copy is. That, and the grime. Oh, and the sad, misaligned final word. Poor "body."

Page 123~

She saw the irritation darkening his face and knew his pride had risen to overrun them. He could not let himself be concerned. He had never come to her with questions. Only with orders. And, certainly, he wasn't about to start now. Especially not now. Finish.

That first sentence starts out great ("She saw the irritation darkening his face") and then just falls off a cliff and never stops falling. This paragraph is like "Notes Toward a Paragraph." I can't stop laughing at "Finish." It's like an annotation or an editor's note that was never supposed to make it to print. Like, "Remember to come back and finish this paragraph because dear lord it is a mess."

~RP

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Paperback 1079: Jonathan Wild / Henry Fielding (Signet CQ660)

Paperback 1079: Signet CQ660 (1st ptg, 1962) (actually 3rd ptg, year unknown, probably early-mid '70s)

Title: Jonathan Wild

Author: Henry Fielding

Cover artist: Milton Glaser

Condition: 7/10

Value: $5

Best things about this cover:

• Another acquisition outside my normal (1939-69) collecting range, but Glaser's covers for Signet are special, so I think I'm going to start making them a special subset of my collection (esp. since they can be found all over and procured for super cheap)
• There's a borderline cartoon quality to Glaser's pop art take on the classics (his most famous work for Signet was the covers of all the Shakespeare plays). Love the intricacy of his designs, and the low-key bawdiness of this particular image—the deep cleavage, the hint of thigh above the stocking, the (I'm guessing) randy bewigged leonine figure standing behind her. . . though if he's randy for anything, it's probably that jewel he's fondling.
• The colors are vibrant and the design on her stockings is absolutely aces. Her shoes are special too.

Best things about this back cover:

• Bah! Mere description! 
• I've never read this novel, but the cover copy here is promising. Love the idea of naming your wild-ass main character "Wild." 
• The book is part biography (of an actual criminal), part social satire, part picaresque novel. Honestly, it sounds amazing, and I am tempted to dive right in.
• Is Gin Lane bad? I want to live on Gin Lane. There's gin there, right?

Page 123~

Wild, immediately at his return to town, went to pay a visit to Miss Laetitia Snap, for he had that weakness of suffering himself to be enslaved by women, so naturally incident to men of heroic disposition.

"Suffering himself to be enslaved" is some choice phrasing, but not as choice as the name "Miss Laetitia Snap"—that is an all-time name. The implications of "Snap" are suggestive but ambiguous ... unlike the implications of "Miss Straddle" (p. 88), which seem pretty straightforward.

~RP

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Paperback 1072: The Sex Cheat / Roger James (Bee-Line 284S)

Paperback 1072: Bee-Line 284S (PBO, 1967)

Title: The Sex Cheat

Author: Roger James

Cover artist: photo!

Condition: oof

Value: sentimental?

[Another book from the recently acquired Larry D Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• Somebody read the hell out of this book. Or at least handled it ... frequently. I love a beater copy—no worries about condition, just an open invitation to "Read Me!"
• Oh, the wig. Oh. Ow. By the time it leaves her heck and heads toward her torso, it appears to turn semi-sentient, evolving claws, contemplating hellish doings...
• Legit LOL'ing at the how the cover text has to kind of scooch over and make room for her considerable chest. Her boobs just shove those words right out of the way. That's power.
• It's an oddly cheery, wholesome-looking photo for a smut paperback. Fright Wig notwithstanding.
• Ah, the original "... in bed" joke!

Best things about this back cover:

• Sex Game! All caps! You've heard of the TV show "Squid Game"? Well ... this isn't that!
• Cover photo seems so much darker with the poor girls' eyes ripped off
• "Wanton"—there's a word that peaked on paperback covers circa 1967 for sure. Definitely a cover copy writer's second-best friend (after "Sin," of course)

Page 123~ (bracing myself for something awful/wonderful)

Bruce turned completely away from the uncovered, brandishing breast and walked dismally towards his wife.

Yeah, I know, you're thinking "Does this writer even know what 'brandishing' means?" and given what I've read, just on Page 123 ... probably not. Consider: "Her own breasts rose and fell in great, trembling lifts" or "Eva Simmonds quickly recouped the dislodged bra cup over her naked contour and hastily came around from behind the sofa." I mean, that's "brandishing" "lifts" "recouped" and "contour" that he's bungled, all in just one page. Imagine Reading This Whole Book. You guys, there is so much lurid, ornate, comically baroque, borderline monstrous breast writing here. "She pushed the shuddering, irregularly bobbing area of luridly exposed flesh back out of sight and held the sagging cup of the damaged pink bra while she glared at Bruce Grant" yes "shuddering" and "irregularly bobbing" is what my soul is experiencing right now for sure. 

~RP

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Paperback 1050: Bogus Lover / Hy Silver (Newsstand Library U136)

Paperback 1050: Newsstand Library U136 (PBO, 1960)

Title: Bogus Lover
Author: Hy (ho?) Silver
Cover artist: Robert Bonfils

Condition: 8/10
Estimated value: $15

Best things about this cover:

• I love her girl-about-town, devil-may care look. I'm not sure who's throwing bras and mannequin heads at her, but she doesn't seem fazed.
• That blue is exquisite.
• They've certainly, uh, made sure to emphasize her torso profile. The extensive boob shadow is kinda overkill. It's like, yeah, we see. They're lovely.
• The valentine on the mannequin's face is so freaky. What is even happening here!?

Best things about this back cover:

• Argh, too much text!
• I'm pretty sure that "crunched" is the wrong word for what casting couches do when you put your lustful weight on them, but admittedly this isn't really my bailiwick. Maybe someone got sloppy with corn chips?
• "Hey boss, how many 'm's in Peggy's "'Mmmmmmmm?'" "That depends. Is she lustful?" "Oh, yes, sir. Very." "Then ... Eight!" "But, sir, that's ... that's two more than we've ever done. Are you su—" "I'M TRYIN' TO SELL BOOKS HERE, MAN, JUST DO IT!" (/scene)
• Wait. Peggy? Then who's Wanda? We lost gentle Wanda somewhere between paragraphs two and three. Oh, the boss is not gonna be happy about this...

Page 123~

"I guess we're both stupid," he said as he started the engine.

Real talk.

~RP

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Paperback 995: Take Me In Passion / Donna Richards (Domino Books 72-929)

Paperback 995: Domino Books 72-929 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Take Me In Passion
Author: Donna Richards
Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $15-20

[new addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover:

• It was a weird time for metal.
• Opium Addicts Surreptitiously Admire Each Other's Bras
• "Like the wig? It's Bowie's." "Really!?" "No, I found it in a dumpster."
• "Maybe we should've gone with a professional stylist...?" "Shhh ... the panther ... he sees us ..." (seriously, what is that shadow?)
• They had to re-release this book after the original title, Take Me In Indifference, failed to move buyers.
• Love how the "Adult Reading" notice looks much more like "Exciting Feature!" than "Warning!"

Best things about this back cover:

• "They had to choose ... but could they?" Look, make up your mind. Those sad shirtless lesbians either had agency or they didn't.
• No, *you're* the passion's puppet! No puppet, no puppet! (dear future, this is a reference to a 2016 political moment that's probably best forgotten, I'm sorry)
• Wow, it gets unexpectedly Homeric there at the end, with "foreordained" this and "all-powerful, erotic destiny" that. The gods do love laughing at havoc.

Page 123~

Marty Green waggled his forefinger before the boy's nose. "No . . . you . . . don't! What do you think I am, like that broad I'm looking for? You think I'm queer like her? Well, she's not even my own daughter, what do you think of that? I adopted her, like a damn fool. Imagine? I adopted a queer!"

I know a lot is happening in this paragraph, but I'm kinda still stuck on "waggled."

~RP

P.S. bonus material from p. 123:

"You're drinking nothing! What the hell do you think I am, some kind of a hick? I'm Marty Green!"

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Paperbacks 705 and 706: Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand / La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque / by Anatole France (Livres de Poche 873 and 481)

Don't really have anything to say about these, but they're technically in my collection, and the illustrations are quite beautiful in their way (esp. the "Cyrano" cover), so, here you go—

Paperback 705: Livre de Poche 873 (n.d.) (ca. mid-60s)

Title: Cyrano de Bergerac
Author: Edmond Rostand
Cover artist: Uncredited (signature not legible to me)

Yours for: $12

***

Paperback 706: Livre de Poche 481 (n.d.) (ca. mid-60s)

Title: La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque
Author: Anatole France
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $10



~RP

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Paperback 691: Tutor From Lesbos / A.P. Williams (Beacon B731X)

Paperback 691: Beacon B731X (PBO, 1964)

Title: Tutor From Lesbos
Author: A.P. Williams
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $55


Best thing about this cover:

• OK, Lesson One: how to sit in a chair.
• In order of awesome: sunglasses, butterfly chair, wig, sweater set.
• I'm imagining the frugal parents who are excited about this ad. "'No charge'! What a deal!"

Best things about this back cover:

• The question we've all been asking all our lives.
• "Love" quote unquote hahaha. Oh, Ginny, Ginny, who can I turn to ...?
• "Consider the emotions of..." Well, that's a new angle.
• "Feel the despair of..." Ditto.
• So the dad *watches*? Gross/hot.
• LOL uncontrollably at the last four sentences on this back cover.

Page 123~

[Hamilton] [...] worked at his desk until lunchtime, when he walked into several downtown shops and finally purchased an ugly gray fedora and a pair of sunglasses. These would render him inconspicuous, he figured, and enable him to blend in with the other drinkers at the lesbian bar. He had heard that dark glasses were worn as a badge by the city's questionable element.

Finally I understand why lesbians are constantly hitting on me every time I put on a fedora and sunglasses. Thank you, "Tutor From Lesbos"—aptly, you have taught me so much. Also, I would join a gang / club / sleaze appreciation society called "The Questionable Element."

~RP

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Paperback 626: Sleep-In Girl / Dick Kamp (Midwood 34-896)

Paperback 626: Midwood 34-896 (PBO, 1968)

Title: Sleep-In Girl
Author: Dick Kamp
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $19


Best things about this cover:

• Well, sure. Everyone sleeps in at dick kamp—it's exhausting!
• Sleep-In Girl cares not for comforters.
• Whatever she's wearing is doing odd things to her midriff. I can't quite reconcile her top and bottom halves.
• This cover would be 200% better if that cigarette were lit.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Dangling."

Page 123~

Suddenly I jumped as her tongue flicked against my lips like a searing coal...

You know how, when you're kissing searing coal, there's this, like, burning sensation? It was like that.

Oh man, I want to quote this whole page. It will make you hate sex / descriptions of things. For instance:

My hand moved to her breast and stroked its silken texture (1) and its rounded curves. The I cupped its lovely fullness in my palm, gently squeezed and kneaded its soft resiliency. Between my fingers I caught her exquisite little nipple, rolling it like a pebble and tugging and pulling at it until I felt it come quickly alive beneath my touch, springing up hard and erect (2). She lifted a shoulder from the bed to thrust her breast against me and her taut nipple stabbed into my palm (3). 

(1) "Mmm, your breasts are like tofu, baby."
(2) But it started out like a "pebble." How much harder can it get?
(3) You can tell if she's adequately aroused by looking at your palms. Are they bleeding? Well then, you're good to go!

~RP

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Paperback 620: My Bare Lady / King Coral (Bee-Line 110)

Paperback 620: Bee-Line 110 (PBO, 1966)

Title: My Bare Lady
Author: King Coral
Cover artist: Uncredited

From The Doug Peterson Collection (recent addition)


Best things about this cover:

• Eliza Wear-Little! [pats self on back, whispers 'nailed it.']
• Lose the evil-octopus wig, put the pants *on*, ditch the belly-scratching doofus, and we're in business!
• Best word on this cover: "desert." 
• This cover looks like it's covered in a horrible white film. I know. I KNOW. Gross.
• King Coral! I loved her 1971 album, "Tapas Tree."

Best things about this back cover:

• One of the greatest taglines of all time.
• Ordinary women know nothing of Naked. Nothing! Why, it involves lotions, unguents, pulleys, dry ice, oxen ...
• Teacher of tricks! For my first trick ... Disappearing Dignity!

Page 123~

Light, tender, soft little caresses and moist warm kisses were bestowed and received by our bodys, with no force, and no searching.

Come for the passive voice, stay for the improper pluralization!

~RP

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Paperback 603: Angel Eyes / Robert Dietrich (Dell First Edition B203)

Paperback 603: Dell First Edition B203 (PBO, 1961)

Title: Angel Eyes
Author: Robert Dietrich (pseud. of Howard Hunt)
Cover artist: Robert McGinnis

Yours for: $16


Best things about this cover:

• I call wig.
• It's like there's a giant vacuum just out of frame, sucking the left side of her head away—earring and hair eerily defying gravity.
• She died the way she lived: fondling her bongos.
• She died the way she lived: on a giant magic diaper ride.
• She died the way she lived: one shoe on, one shoe off.

Best things about this back cover:

• Chunky pictorial question mark for the win!
• "I'm Bentley. Steve Bentley." — Steve Bentley, wowing them with his Bond imitation.
• You might ask what / the rationale is for / the line divisions on this back / cover copy

Page 123~

"As for any feeling I have about that little Bolac whore, I could put it all in a thimble and still have room for my finger."

I don't know what "Bolac" means and I don't care—this line is unimprovable.

~RP

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Paperback 457: Seducer's Sin Chase / Roy Merson (Compass Line Novel CL 144)

Paperback 457: Compass Line Novels CL 144 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Seducer's Sin Chase
Author: Roy Merson
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• I should start a tag for my posts called "That Crazy Red Wig," because it keeps coming back.
• That is some awkward panty-taking-off.
• "To keep my figure trim, I do crunches on a pile of sand I have brought in from the beach every morning. It's dirty and inconvenient, but it works!"
• This is what happens when your answer to the artist's question "What should I do with the background?" is "I don't fucking care."
• Roy Merson is among the most pathetic pseudonyms I've ever seen.

Best things about this back cover:

• The right jab of LUST DRUMMER was followed quickly by the lethal left cross of "stud-wise," and then everything just went dark. I see now that LEWDMONGERS were also involved. Bravo! This thing is so self-parodic that it is threatening to suck all meaning from the room and my life, so I'm gonna stop looking at it now.

Page 123~

She loved Steve, loved him deeply, of course, but love had nothing to do any more with why she was here laying between the Osgoods.

I've never been so sad to see the "lying/laying" error, because other than that, this is possibly my favorite Page 123 of all time. My favorite parts are "of course" and "Between the Osgoods," which is a sitcom I would totally watch.

~RP

[Follow Rex Parker on Twitter and Tumblr]

Paperback 455: Erotic Interlude / Bob Elmer (Dragon Editions 143)

Paperback 455: Dragon Edition DE143 (PBO, 1966)

Title: Erotic Interlude
Author: Bob Elmer
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: [SOLD!: 9/9/11]


Best things about this cover:

• OK, I've seen bad wigs, and I've seen Bad Wigs, but this thing wins.
• She took men to her Fortress of Solitude, where she screwed them and then promptly froze them in pillars of ice.
• If you just focus on the upper parts of her breasts and chest, this cover looks nice. But if you move your eyes from that spot even a fraction of an inch in any direction: disaster.
• What's holding up her boobs? Remnants of an old dish rag? Plaster of Paris? A tennis ball that's been cleaved in half and pried open?
• If you're gonna get yourself a sex machine, you need to make sure it's trained. Untrained sex machines can really chew you up. Trust me.

Best things about this back cover:

• "UNIQUE SKILL!" — Nice. Nothing sexier than the language of a job resumé.
• So we're just forgoing indefinite articles in our cover copy now? OK then...
• I've read Mad Libs that made more sense than this—Mad Libs filled out by kids who don't even know what "adjective" means.
• This was one of the earliest efforts at sex novel cover copy writing by Professor Frink's Smut-Bot 5000. When you look at it that way, it's pretty good.

Page 123~

The blonde began blazing a trail of kisses down Delia's body. And then her hand began doing things.

Delia hated it when her lovers surreptitiously played "Angry Birds" during sex.

~RP

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Paperback 449: Starlet Sinner / Carl Mando (Pillow Book No. 1102)

Paperback 449: Pillow Book No. 1102 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Starlet Sinner
Author: Carl Mando
Cover artist: Uncredited (I've never been so sad about uncredited artwork ...)

Yours for: a short essay explaining how this young woman came to be in this (exact) position (essay must account for a. the hair; b. the ... coloring?; c. the bangles; and d. the giant slug she appears to have mounted.

[My friend Doug Peterson brings me vintage paperbacks almost every time we see each other (usually at crossword puzzle tournaments), and last weekend in NYC was no exception. His offerings this time were especially juicy, and this book may be the juiciest of the bunch.]


Best things about this cover:

• This picture looks like a shape-shifter caught midway between human and sea lion.
• I know the shading on her body is supposed to represent a tan line, but I swear it looks more like residue from an explosion. Like ... she was in her apartment in just her underwear and a bomb went off and then she thought maybe her underwear was burning her so she tore it off and started to run outside but felt naked ('cause she was) and so threw on an oversize wig and hugged a throw pillow to her chest and ran outside but then she tripped. That's where we came in...
• Or maybe she has oxidized, somehow. It does say she was "Rusty."
• The title page of this book claims that this book is "A Pillow Book Limited Edition"; and you can see why. It's not often you get the chance to get your hands on the Worst Girl Art Of All Time.

Best things about this back cover:

• Wow, she really doesn't get any better up close. And moving those breasts in closer to me is indeed distracting, but not in the way the cover probably intends. The only thing they've aroused is mild revulsion.
• The typesetter must have had a "Justify—Random" setting.
• "Reputed" makes me laugh every time I look at it. Kind of a hi-falutin' word for a sleaze paperback. Or ... wait. I think technically, mathematically, that's "negative Reputed"

Page 123~ (please be terrible please be terrible...)

The warmth of the emotion began to work over me to finally erupt into a searing flame that drained me to the depths [1]. Arla was life itself [2], everything that was living centered within her and she lived this moment through to its fulfillment. The film ended and there was a moment of contentment between us before we began to get ourselves back into shape and back into the realm of reality [3].

[1] I don't know how a searing flame drains you, but I do know that the full extent of their touching at this point is hand-holding. I read and re-read the preceding material, and he is either emotionally overwrought or comes really, really easily.

[2] Let us pause to acknowledge the awesomeness that is the name "Arla" ... OK, that's enough.

[3] This reads exactly like every other bad porn passage I've read from 60s sleaze novels (fuzzy on the details, hackneyed in its imagery, written by someone who appears to be being paid by the word, etc.), but again, I'm telling you, I Can't Find Anything Sexual That Happened. To be specific, in the preceding paragraph, he puts his hand on her knee, she puts her hand on his hand, and then, in a gesture that is probably supposed to be erotic but just sounds weird and awkward [a theme of this book, if the cover picture is any indication], "she began to squeeze [his] fingers, each pressure being stronger than the one that preceded the one before" [sic sic sic!]. His fingers. Is that a metaphor? A metonym? Are his fingers his penis? His penises? I think this is probably the most thought that has ever been put into the literary interpretation of "Starlet Sinner."

~RP

P.S. a pretty major media outlet wants me to put together a slideshow of 12 of my Pop Sensation paperback covers, to be published on their website. If you have any particular favorites you think deserve wide exposure, let me know (in comments section, or by email). Thanks.

Paperback 178: The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution / Donald Westlake (Ballantine 3307)

Paperback 178: Ballantine 3307 (1st ptg, 1973)

Title: The Curious Facts Preceding My Execution
Author: Donald Westlake
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $22


Best things about this cover:

• "The Curious Crap I Found In My Closet"
• This is in contention for the single ugliest cover in my collection. Exhibit A: Mustard. Exhibit B: a mass of objects pulled in one lump from the bottom of some (crazy) lady's storage chest. Case closed.
• Somehow the wig makes the whole object lump much, much worse. Who thought this was artful!?
  
• And yet, while ugly, this is also a very memorable cover. Indelibility: The Up-Side of Ugly.
• That is a stubbed out cigar in the middle of the rubber mask's forehead. There's also a wig, a diamond necklace, three guns, and a blue thing (gum wrapper?)

Best things about this back cover:

• "a-burgling"

Page 123~

From "Never Shake a Family Tree"

"Ah," he said. "Forgive my telephoning, please, Mrs. Buckley. We have never met, but I noticed your entry in the current issue of Genealogical Exchange -"

~RP