Cover Lover - Under the Covers, Lovers!

Cover Lover wants to invite you back to his place for a peek at his etchings. Well, not really. Cover Lover has no etchings—it’s just a clever ruse to get you back to his place and help him lay some ant traps. Not much of a date, you say? What if Cover Lover mentioned that once you were done vacuuming, he’d let you have a peek at his modest collection of vintage sex manuals? Friday night, then? Saturday? It’s useless to resist Cover Lover, unless that stiff white hankie you’re waving happens to be a restraining order.

Post-war era sex manuals typically come in two varieties: dull, dry textbooks with not a lot of interesting diagrams, and salacious, albeit clearly bogus “case studies” designed to appeal to lonely traveling salesmen. For the record, Cover Lover’s interest in sex is more pure than prurient, which is something Cover Lover’s lawyer made up. In truth, the prose is what makes these relics so darn appealing. Here’s an example: “In classical Rome, the attitude with the wife astride was greatly favored.” It just doesn’t get any better than that, does it? And if you think that’s good, wait until you get a load of “abnormalities in the external stimulus.”

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

How to Pick a Mate, by Dr. Clifford Adams and Vance Packard (Dell, 1946) is an excellent starting point. Let’s consider the time period for a moment. World War II was over, there was no Match.com, and only Western Union sent text messages. According to their introduction, the authors had zero competition on bookstore shelves:

As far as we know this is the first time anyone has written a book attempting to put mate selection on a sensible basis, despite the fact that sooner or later almost everybody selects one.

The authors’ “sensible basis” includes 20 fact-filled chapters (“Is it Love—or Infatuation?” and “Nine Dangerous Characters”) along with 15 quizzes for you and your future spouse to complete and compare. Cover Lover and his fiancée took nine tests last Sunday and matched up 90% of the time. How to Pick a Mate may be dated (some of the questions dealt with our fears about the atomic bomb and the growing threat of Communism), but it’s clearly well-intentioned. When the book was written, Dr. Adams was already head of Penn State’s Marriage Counseling Clinic and had interviewed and tested hundreds of couples. Journalist Vance Packard would eventually write The Hidden Persuaders (1957), an early “pop-sociology” title devoted to media manipulation.

Sex & Marriage Problems, as told to E. B. Taylor (Hillman Publications, 1948) purports to be “intimate records of a psychoanalyst,” but Cover Lover was not born yesterday. For the record, Hillman Publications specialized in true confession/true crime magazines, which makes the book a little suspect. That said, how could you not embrace a book that begins like this:

Annette M. was only twenty, but in her eyes was a lifetime of learning about men—the wrong kind of learning. President Harding once said it was a good thing he wasn’t a woman, because he couldn’t say no. That was Annette’s problem too.

The whole book reads like a lurid love noir, with chapters—er, “cases”—such as “The Strange Love Triangle” and “The Frigid Wife.” The analyst is obviously more fraud than Freud, but the book is still a kick.

“Only one generation ago it was impossible for a layman to obtain a frank and scientific treatment of sex except in some exorbitantly priced book concealed behind a bookstore counter.” (from the introduction of The Hygiene of Marriage)

The Hygiene of Marriage, by philosophy professor Millard Spencer Everett (Eton Books,1951) is—according to the back of the book—“an achievement in lay-medical literature on sex,” and darned if it isn’t. Cover Lover is fond of this book because takes marriage, sex, and family planning so seriously, and was happily surprised by the solid information it contains. It goes without saying that this is a stimulating and penetrating read, but Cover Lover enjoys overstating the obvious.

Guide to Sexology, Illustrated was compiled by the Editors of Sexology Magazine (Paperback Library, 1965). That’s right, Virginia—the very same Sexology magazine started by the godfather of science-fiction, Hugo Gernsback, back in the early 1930’s. The book is comprised of short articles (“The Obscene Telephone Call,” “Strange Sex Fixations,” “166 Men in Dresses”) and an entire chapter devoted to fifty “basic” sex questions that would not be out of place in a “Savage Love” column. Endlessly entertaining, if not wholly satisfying.

Cover Lover – Watch This, Guys!

Cover Lover’s father (1928-2003) was an enthusiastic reader of genre novels, particularly hard-boiled mysteries and speculative science-fiction. He grew up during the Great Depression and endured world war, the twin threat of Communism and nuclear annihilation, and the hula hoop. Like so many people of his era, reading was a convenient (and cost-effective) method of entertainment and escape.

When Worlds Collide was written by Philip Wylie & Edwin Balmer and originally published in 1933. Trailblazing for its time, the novel revolves around a pair of planets (Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta) on a collision course with Earth. A group of scientists led by Cole Hendron manages to build a couple of spaceships and evacuate enough survivors to spawn a sequel, After Worlds Collide. This edition from the early 1950’s, with cover art by Robert Stanley, followed George Pal’s 1951 film adaptation.

Cover Lover’s father never wanted to be an astronaut, but he was fascinated with the conquest of outer space. Maybe it represented a pleasant alternative to the planet he was living on, or maybe he was hoping to meet the kind of woman depicted on the cover of Worlds Within (1950). Cover Lover cannot speak to the quality of writing in Rog Phillips’ book—there are characters named Rax Antl and Artaxl and Montakotl and Cover Lover had to stop reading at page 18—but just look at the cover art by Malcolm Smith. Va-va-va-voom!

Donald Keyhoe was a former Marine who became a popular UFO expert in the 1950’s. His first book, The Flying Saucers are Real (1950), was based on an article he wrote for True magazine; it would eventually sell over 500,000 copies. In the book, Keyhoe suggests that the Air Force was concealing the truth about aliens. His follow-up, Flying Saucers From Outer Space (1953), is comprised of interviews and official Air Force reports. The book’s appendices include a list of 51 “official” UFO sightings and a copy of an Air Force questionnaire for witnesses of “unidentified aerial phenomenon.”

“Thrilling Tales of a Time Beyond Tomorrow” is the alliterative promise of Tomorrow, The Stars. Robert Heinlein is listed as the book’s editor, but he was only responsible for the introduction; the stories (from such stars as Asimov, del Rey, Leinster, Leiber, and a 28-year-old Kurt Vonnegut) were actually chosen by Frederik Pohl and Judith Merril. Originally published in 1952, this Signet paperback is from August, 1953. On the book's back cover, Vonnegut fans will recognize the story description “When war is prevented—by dynamopsychism!” as a reference to “Report on the Barnhouse Effect” (later collected in Welcome to the Monkey House).

The Gods Hate Kansas by Joseph Millard was published as a paperback original in 1964, and sports the kind of kitschy cover (painted by Jack Thurston) that designers love to reproduce as postcards or refrigerator magnets. In fact, you can buy a 16” x 20” print of the cover for $39.99. So how’s the book? Nine meteors land in Kansas and promptly explode. Aliens take mental command of the meteorite investigators and will them to build a rocket. Then, the Crimson Plague strikes! The book’s title was even co-opted by a Ft. Lauderdale rock band. Were they hoping for a meteoric rise to fame?

Cover Lover Goes Op Ed - Insidious, Altius, Fortius

Cover Lover is not one for soapboxes, so this will be short like a Bonaparte and sweet like a Napoleon. The 2008 Olympics get underway today in Beijing, and Cover Lover has already had his fill of anti-doping editorials. Every athlete who participates in organized sports knows the consequences of winning an event with a banned substance in their bloodstream. Personally, Cover Lover thinks the games would be more interesting if athletes were allowed to get hopped up on whatever they want in their quest for gold. It’s all right there in the Olympic motto: Citius, Altius, Fortius.

Cover Lover wonders what the world of literature would be like if authors had to pee in a cup before getting published. Would Aldous Huxley have braved a new world without LSD, or been as perceptive without mescaline? Ken Kesey took those drugs plus psilocybin when he volunteered for a government study; he went on to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and pull merry pranks. Opium eaters, laudanum drinkers, pill poppers, weed smokers—the world of literature is crawling with them.

Cover Lover asks you to consider your favorite wired writer(s) and imagine how their creative lives would have been affected by the absence of controlled substances. Should there be some international committee controlling creativity? Haven’t we got enough hurdles to jump through?

Cover Lover – Poor Old Richard Brautigan, Begin Again

Cover Lover invites you to take a look at this series of books, Writers For The 70’s.



Thomas Pynchon? Check.

Kurt Vonnegut? Natürlich.






J. R. R. Tolkien? Someone tell Cover Lover how they say “yes” in Middle-earth.






Herman Hesse? Died in 1962, but lovingly embraced by the counterculture.






Richard Brautigan? Absolutely.




Richard Brautigan (b. 1935) began publishing his poetry in the late 1950’s. His first novel, A Confederate General From Big Sur, arrived in 1964, but Brautigan didn’t become a household name until 1967, when his second novel—Trout Fishing In America—was greeted with critical and commercial success. It went on to sell 3 million copies and almost surely inspired a lot of awful writing. Like Vonnegut, Brautigan’s prose is deceptively simple. If you’re a fan, it’s not hard to imagine Brautigan captivating an entire coffeehouse or bookstore audience with his poems and (mostly comic) stories.

Between 1968 and 1982, Brautigan published eight novels, five books of poetry, and Revenge of the Lawn, a collection of short stories. What makes all this especially interesting to Cover Lover is that many of Brautigan’s book jackets feature a black and white photograph of Brautigan and a young woman (Trout Fishing in America, In Watermelon Sugar, The Abortion, or (sometimes) just a young woman (The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt, Revenge of the Lawn).

A Confederate General from Big Sur was originally issued with a Larry Rivers painting on the cover, but it was reissued in paperback with the same photograph (of Brautigan and Beverly Allen under an umbrella) that was featured on the U.K. edition. Sharp-eyed readers will recognize Beverly Allen as the girl in the sandbox from Brautigan’s Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt.

The trend began with the cover for Trout Fishing in America. The publishers already had a photo of Brautigan standing in front of a statue of Benjamin Franklin in San Francisco’s Washington Square Park, but photographer Erik Weber encouraged Brautigan to pose again, this time with his “muse,” Michaela Clark LeGrand. Weber convinced Brautigan the new photo would make a better cover, and Brautigan persuaded Donald Allen, who ran Four Seasons Foundation, a nonprofit press. The subsequent cover photos were all taken by Edmund Shea.

Marcia Pacaud, the woman featured on The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, was Brautigan’s girlfriend, and several of the poems are dedicated to her. A solo Brautigan graced the cover of Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork (1971), but it was the last time. Subsequent books like The Hawkline Monster and Willard and His Bowling Trophies featured cover paintings by Wendell Minor. Sombrero Fallout has an illustration by John Ansado. So on. The back cover of Brautigan’s Tokyo-Montana Express has a back cover photograph of Brautigan and Shiina Takako, owner of The Cradle, a Tokyo Bar.

Brautigan’s popularity had waned considerably by the time his last book, So the Wind Won’t Blow It All Away, was published in 1982. Cover Lover discovered the collected works of Richard Brautigan in 1984, the same year Brautigan took his own life with a .44 Magnum. His badly decomposed body was found five weeks later by a private investigator. The note Brautigan left was—like all of his writing—simple and honest: “Messy, isn’t it?”

Cover Lover - The Cover in the Rye

“It’s a goddamn embarrassment, publishing.” --J.D. Salinger
(from At Home in the World by Joyce Maynard)

Cover Lover is going to skip all that David Copperfield kind of crap regarding Jerome David Salinger and get right to the point: has there ever been another writer so utterly contemptuous of publishers as the reclusive author of The Catcher in the Rye?

“Give me two hours in the dentist chair before I’ll spend another minute in a publisher’s office,” he told Joyce Maynard in the early 1970’s. “All those insufferable literary types, thoroughly pleased with themselves, who haven’t read a line of Tolstoy since college. All feverishly courting bestsellerdom.”

“They’ve got to offer up all these bright ideas. Unable to produce a single original line themselves, they’re bound and determined to put their stamp squarely on your work . . . Polite suggestions that I change this or that, put in more romance, take out more of that annoying ambiguity . . . slap some terribly clever illustration on the cover . . .”

Let’s be honest: people do judge books by their covers, especially terribly clever ones. It’s why publishers have marketing departments and graphic designers at their disposal. A good book cover serves the same purpose as a short little skating skirt: it catches your attention. One of the true joys of book collecting is marveling at how authors get reinvented decade by decade, each new cover a reflection of an era, a novel little time capsule. A book like The Catcher in the Rye, which has steadily sold some 250,000 copies per year since the early 1950’s, would normally have gone through a few dozen facelifts by now. Hippie Holden. Disco Holden. Yuppie Holden. It’s enough to make Cover Lover want to goddam puke or something.

Happily, Holden Caulfield remains forever frozen in time. Salinger, completely disenchanted with the way the phonies had packaged The Catcher in the Rye, made certain it would never happen again.












Little, Brown first published The Catcher in the Rye in July, 1951. The front cover—illustrated by Michael Mitchell—features a carousel horse; a photograph of Salinger by Lotte Jacobi takes up the entire back cover. The book was reprinted four times in the first month alone, but Salinger was so unhappy with his portrait that it was removed by the third printing (and from all subsequent editions).

The British version of Catcher (published by Hamish Hamilton) featured a moody Fritz Wegner drawing of Holden in his red hunting hat, watching Phoebe run toward the carousel. A fine first edition of the American version will set you back about $20,000; this British edition--which some Salinger fans prefer--costs about $2500.












This is where things get interesting. When New American Library acquired the paperback rights for The Catcher in the Rye, they handed the cover chores to artist James Avati. According to Avati, Salinger was very reluctant to have any art work on his cover, and would have preferred something more sentimental (another carousel horse, perhaps?). Ultimately, Avati convinced him to go along with the company’s marketing scheme, though Avati himself was unhappy with the way his finished painting turned out. Bowing to concerns regarding Salinger's frank use of language, the cover cautioned readers: “This unusual book may shock you, will make you laugh, and may break your heart—but you will never forget it.” Salinger certainly never forgot it. When New American Library’s paperback rights lapsed after ten years, Salinger sold the rights to Bantam Books, along with his own ideas for future covers.

This Modern Library edition—issued in September 1958—shows just how serious Salinger was about keeping his covers simple.

The combination of yellow letters against a maroon background—as designd by Salinger—first appeared in April, 1964. It was a ubiquitous presence on high school and college campuses for decades, and gained a certain level of infamy when Mark David Chapman was photographed reading his copy after shooting John Lennon in December, 1980.

Nine Stories was published by Little, Brown in April, 1953 and is a personal favorite of Cover Lover. Eight of the stories were originally published in The New Yorker; “Down at the Dinghy” originally appeared in Harper’s. Cover credit goes to Miriam Woods, who also worked on Salinger’s next two books.













Despite Salinger’s feelings for Signet, they issued the first paperback edition of Nine Stories in July, 1954. The figure on the left is a first printing; Cover Lover isn't sure if these variations existed with the first printing or were slowly introduced over time. Note the signature of W. D. Miller, which appears on the first printing but is absent from the other examples.

This Modern Library edition of Nine Stories was issued in 1959.

Nine Stories is known in other countries as For Esmé with Love and Squalor. The designer of this British paperback apparently never got Salinger’s memo.













This Bantam edition was first issued in October, 1964, and—like the maroon version of The Catcher in the Rye—was the only edition available for almost 30 years.

Franny and Zooey was published by Little, Brown in 1961 with one of the most boring jackets Cover Lover has ever seen. Or maybe it’s this one, for Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenter and Seymour: An Introduction. Salinger’s last book was published in 1963, and--like its predecessor--contained previously published material. Bantam subsequently issued both books in paperback, with covers identical to the originals.

This Penguin U.K. paperback from 1964 manages to marry Penguin orange with the American artwork, which somewhat amuses Cover Lover.

In the early 90’s, Little, Brown published all four of Salinger’s books with the same black and white covers. Cover Lover has no idea if that bright idea came from Salinger or not.

Cover Lover - A Clockwork Orange

Welcome to our first post from Cover Lover -- our book-collecting expert on covers from the past.

Every now and then, a filmed adaptation of a popular novel gets everything right. It’s near impossible to read Harper Lee and not picture Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, and—regardless of whether you give a damn—Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh literally burn down the house in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind. Dustin Hoffman looked nothing like the blond, good-looking grad student Charles Webb wrote about, but Hoffman will forever be Benjamin Braddock. And when Stanley Kubrick made up his rassoodock and cast Malcolm McDowell as Alex in his real horrorshow version of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, he crafted something malchicks and devotchkas are still keen on viddying almost 40 years later.

The hoodlums depicted on the first Ballantine paperback edition of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange look nothing like the cinematic incarnations of Alex and Pete and Georgie and Dim. There were four delinquents on the U.S. hardcover edition, but this paperback version is clearly one droog short—perhaps the publishers thought placing a female on the cover might sell the idea of the old “in-out-in-out” a bit better. The back of the book carries quotes from such admirers as William Burroughs and Roald Dahl, and positive reviews from Time and The New York Times. The cover promises a “terrifying shocker of a world dominated by teen-age gangs” but I bet more than one mid-1960’s reader tried to recoup his sixty cents after sitting down with Burgess’ book and—even with Stanley Edgar Hyman's helpful glossary—just scratched his greased head.

This psychedelic (cycle-delic?) artwork came along a few years later. Our Pop Art Alex—seen bursting out of the top of his own head—seems more interested in “turning on, tuning in, and dropping out” than “the old ultra-violence.” The cover still promises a “terrifying shocker of teen-age gangs” but there’s no question that this Alex—despite the relative innocence of his John Lennon glasses—is no stranger to the Korova Milkbar. Easy Rider has eclipsed any lingering images of The Wild One.

By 1971, director Stanley Kubrick had already sealed his popularity with the counter-culture by delivering the one-two punch of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He was no stranger to literary adaptations either, having licked Lolita (oh, grow up!) in 1962. So great was Kubrick’s popularity that his name was mentioned above the book’s title, alerting potential readers that this novel was “soon to be Stanley Kubrick’s first motion picture since 2001: A Space Odyssey.” Notice how the artwork from the previous cover has been toned down, to make room for Kubrick.

It’s interesting to note that after debuting as a mass-market paperback in September 1965, sales didn’t warrant a reprint until February of ’68. The third printing appeared the following September, followed by a fourth printing in June, 1970. Let’s see: that makes intervals of 29 months, 19 months, nine months, and 16 months. This particular printing of the Burgess book—the fifth—arrived in October, 1971. Within three months, more had to be printed—this time, carrying glowing reviews of the Kubrick film from both Time and The New York Times on the back cover.

This last cover illustration—from 1972—was designed by David Pelham for the Penguin UK paperback and remained in use for over a decade. Kubrick’s take on the novel had become so firmly engrained in our consciousness that the book’s title on the cover seems almost redundant.

Nobody thinks director Robert Mulligan “wrote” To Kill A Mockingbird and Victor Fleming could never take Tara from Margaret Mitchell. In the rare case of A Clockwork Orange, however, Stanley Kubrick didn’t simply do justice to his source material. He brought Burgess’ novel to life on the big screen and his powerful vision still lingers in our gullivers. He placed his grazhny rookers over every frame of his film, and in doing so, effectively rivals Burgess for co-authorship of the book.

Cover Lover is currently researching a book on the role of masculinity in the works of Mark Twain, tentatively titled In No Sense A Broad.