TRASHY TUESDAY: JULY BOOK HAUL

My recent book hunts and gifts from friends have produced a real mix of trashy covers from the 1950s to the 1970s, including a popular television tie-in, some war and POW titles, a British edition of a Carter Brown book and a couple of classic Pan covers.

World War II POW books were very popular in Australia and the United Kingdom in the 1960s and were usually graced by graphically violent artwork covers that highlighted acts of sexual violence on female prisoners. This photographic cover on the British edition (Mayflower, 1972) of The Camp On Blood Island, lacks the blood and nudity of the illustrated covers, but is still very attention grabbing. It also manages to include the two main tropes of the illustrated covers: a mean looking Japanese guard and a samurai sword.

Here are some links to earlier articles on POW covers: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/trashy-tuesday-pows-and-the-war-against-the-japanese/ ; https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/trashy-tuesday-japanese-horror-camps-the-john-slater-pow-novels/

The Horwitz covers on J. E. Macdonnell’s war novels featured some terrific military action drawings and this one on The Convert (1966), is particularly good, with strong use of colour and a nice sense of depth.

The ‘Sapper’ novels are probably unreadable today, but they did come adorned with some really nice covers. This 1955 edition of The Female Of The Species has a striking portrait on it by an uncredited artist. It is a very classy cover.

I also really like this 1957 Pan cover on The Island Of Terror by Sapper. The artwork is by Derek Stowe (D A Stowe), who did a number of covers for Pan, including a striking one featuring Audie Murphy for Destry Rides Again. There is plenty of good action and detail in this one, from the anguished look on the armed man in the foreground, to the unrealistically drawn snake, to the dark figure watching from the jungle. I also like the dabs of colour from the exotic jungle flowers.

I am not sure of the artist of the cover artist for Arthur Upfield’s Bony And The White Savage (Pan, 1961), but is it quite striking. The use of splotches of colour in the background was typical of several Pan covers from the period.

It would not be a trashy cover book haul without a Carter Brown book and this 1968 NEL edition of Girl In A Shroud provides a fairly typical Carter Brown cover by an uncredited artist. It is a solid cover, although the girl is a bit lost against the heavy blue backdrop which captures the eye rather than the illustration. It also lacks the panache of Robert McGinnis’ cover for the same book (below).

Finally, a 1994 Titan edition of The Avengers tie-in book: Dead Duck.