TRASHY TUESDAY: PERRY MASON COVERS – AUSTRALIA VS USA
I have recently been doing an article on the 37 Penguin books that Australian pulp publisher Horwitz published in the early 1960s. Central to the Penguin collection were eight Perry Mason books by Erle Stanley Gardner, although two of them were actually not Mason books even though they were titled as such.
Each of the books were given a spiced up appearance, at least compared to the Penguin covers which featured no artwork, and most featured an artist impression of Raymond Burr, who was starring in the popular television series at the time. In doing the article I thought it would be interesting to compare the Australian Horwitz covers to the original American Pocket Book ones. I have picked out six below for comparison.
THE CASE OF THE CURIOUS BRIDE
The 1961 Horwitz edition of The Case Of The Curious Bride (copyright 1934) does not feature a Raymond Burr image on the front cover, but it does have a typical Horwitz cover of the time with a busty girl running directly towards the reader, obviously fleeing from some unseen terror. It is very eye catching and probably the pick of the Horwitz Perry Mason covers.
The 1947 American Pocket Book edition is more restrained, but beautifully done. The haunting image of the skeleton in the mirror is very evocative and quite clever. The only issue is that the positioning of the skeleton’s hand makes it look like she is picking her nose.
THE CASE OF THE CARETAKER’S CAT
The above three covers of The Case Of The Caretaker’s Cat (1935) are nicely representative of the different times that they were done.
The Horwitz cover clearly features an image of Raymond Burr on the cover. Burr was enjoying great success as the titular Perry Mason in the television series at the time and even visited Australia in 1961 promoting the show. The cover actually features a scene from the book, and is relatively restrained for a Horwitz cover at the time, with the girl (presumably Mason’s secretary Della Street) demurely dressed in pyjamas. The earlier Pocket Book cover from 1948 features artwork by William Wirtz, who did a number of illustrations for Pocket in the 1940s and 50s. The illustration for The Case Of The Caretaker’s Cat is quite well known and very dramatic, even if the cat is poorly captured.
Robert McGinnis’ cover for the 1962 Pocket Book edition is a classic example of his Good Girl Art and gives the 1935 Gardner book a real 1960s feel. Interestingly, the McGinnis cover is the only one to inaccurately feature a black cat, but why let a small detail like that get in the way of a good cover! McGinnis did over thirty Perry Mason covers, and they are all striking.
THE CASE OF THE STUTTERING BISHOP
Unlike most covers I have seen for The Case Of The Stuttering Bishop, the one for the 1961 Horwitz version does not feature a bishop anywhere. The man also bears no resemblance to Raymond Burr, suggesting that Horwitz just used some generic artwork that they had on hand.
The above Pocket Book covers, and others that I have seen, feature bishops prominently. The earlier 1947 version is quite eerie, although it has no relevance to the story. The 1954 is a pretty standard hand tinted photo cover, which was reasonably common at the time.
THE CASE OF THE DROWSY MOSQUITO
The covers for the two Pocket editions of The Case Of The Drowsy Mosquito (1943), take their inspiration from a scene in the book wherein a woman is woken by a “drowsy mosquito”, and when she looks outside she sees a man who fires shots through the window. Hence the broken glass effect of the later Pocket Book edition.
The Horwitz cover sort of reverses the idea and has a shocked, tie wearing, Perry Mason (clearly Raymond Burr) looking out a window at nighttime and a woman shining a torch towards him. It is not a great cover, but it certainly ties the book into the tv series, which I assume was the purpose.
THE CASE OF THE GOLDDIGGER’S PURSE
The 1961 Horwitz cover for The Case Of The Golddigger’s Purse (1944) is rather bland in comparison to the classic cover Robert McGinnis did for Pocket in 1962. It also wrongly suggests who the murder victim in the book is!
The Horwitz cover seems to have been done by a different artist to that who did the covers for The Case Of The Drowsy Mosquito and The Case Of The Caretaker’s Cat. Interestingly, Horwitz changed the spelling of Golddigger to Gold-Digger on the cover and the spine, but not inside the book.
THE CASE OF THE SMOKING CHIMNEY
Despite the prominent tagline across the top of the book, The Case Of The Smoking Chimney (1943) was not a Perry Mason novel. It, and the similarly packaged The Case Of The Turning Tide (1941), belonged to Gardner’s other series about Gramps Wiggins and Mason makes no appearance in them. The stylish cover, by well known and distinctive Australian cover illustrator Theo Batten, reinforces the Perry Mason link with a good caricature of Burr. I suspect, however, that readers would have been quite surprised to find out that Mason did not feature in the book once they got it home from the shop.
The cover for the 1949 Pocket Book edition makes no mention of Perry Mason and features a very good drawing by Wayne Blickenstaff. Blickenstaff did a number of covers for Pocket, along with other publishers. It is a very good drawing and I particularly like the small details that Blickenstaff has inserted, including the ear-ring, the mechanism for the lamp and the reflection of the dead man with a bullet in his head inside the lamp. It is a good downbeat feel to it, as befits a serious crime novel.
Theo Batten also did the below cover for the other non-Perry Mason book, The Case Of The Turning Tide. It features the Perry Mason tagline and a slightly different caricature of Raymond Burr. It is one of the few covers to actually show the lawyer in action in a courtroom. It is just a shame that he is not in the book.
Theo Batten did numerous covers for Horwitz and most feature his deliberate cartoonish style. Stylish women often featured on the covers. Here is a link to some more: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/trashy-tuesday-australian-book-haul/
The Horwitz ‘Perry Mason’ covers are interesting for their attempt to link the books to the television series, even if it erroneously at times. Although more eye-catching than the original Penguin covers, which featured no artwork, they do tend to pale against the contemporary sexy covers that Robert McGinnis was doing for Pocket Books.