The Girl from Nowhere, vintage paperback
Shocking. Positively shocking.
Please keep your electrical appliances away from the tub girlfriend! And if you must be like the GOOP girl in The Royal Tenenbaums , keep that equipment tied up. That way no “unfortunate accidents” can happen.
For The Girl From Nowhere, S@#$T happens. At least Bayre Phillips was around like a Bobbie Brown mortician to make her look all beautiful for the cover despite electric shock therapy. Mr. Phillips knew how to make dead ladies look super glam. Now how noir is that?
Jackpot! This is worth $$$
Barye Phillips (1924-1969), aka “King of the Paperbacks”, could crank out 4 paperback covers a week in his heyday. No small feat. Back then all artwork was done by hand. . . in oil. One of Phillips’ original pieces of cover art, Satan is a Woman, recently sold for more than $2000 at Heritage Actions in Dallas.
The covers Phillips created for John D. MacDonald are collector nirvana. First editions of the vintage paperback The Brass Cupcake can fetch more than $1000 a piece.
The Girl From Nowhere, Pocket Book 707, First edition, 1950, Fine Copy.
P.S. I do not have The Brass Cupcake. I just have the cheap one.
Death Warmed Over, First Edition
Cover art like this makes me so happy. The colors are pretty to look at and the copy is wonderfully cliche. Is Hugh Hefner the Death Warmed Over murderer? Has Betty Draper realized that the snood is out of fashion? No wonder this cover art was picked for a headline writing contest a couple years ago.
But Wait!!!! There’s more than just a pretty cover here. The author, Mary Collins, was respected and well-received. She wrote 6 suspense novels set in the San Francisco area during the 1940′s. And she had a child. Have you ever wondered what having a baby does to a female authors’ brain? Read on:
“……. In 1944 Mary (Collins) had a baby, and that form of creation drives the loftier faculty into a remote brain cell and padlocks the door–and that padlock has to be wrenched open and the poor dormant ‘creative faculty’ dragged out, coaxed, petted, implored, scolded, abjectly apologized to, before it finally condescends to pour its light through the upper story and get back on the job. Mary is lovely to look at. She is tall and slender, has charming manners and knows how to dress.”–Gertrude Atherton, My San Francisco: A Wayward Biography (Bobbs-Merrill, 1946), p. 136
