Here’s part two of my pulp cover round-up, featuring the titles in the Mid Twentieth-Century Love Stories unit of my reading list. (Last week I shared covers for the Romantic Precursors.)
Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Mitchell’s novel is nearly overshadowed by its blockbuster film adaptation, so it’s no surprise to see Gable and Leigh on this cover. This is the most mid-century treatment I could find — everything else is focused on the title of the novel, an easy sell since it is so well known.
Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
There’s lots of pulp to choose from for Rebecca. Here’s a good one — but wasn’t Rebecca’s portrait in a white dress in the book? Changing it to black is a pretty obvious choice for the gothic pulp look, however, and it’ll be a long day if I start getting upset about every cover that doesn’t 100% accurately depict the contents of the book inside!
I also like the desolation of seaside Manderley, as shown in this 1940s edition.
Forever Amber, by Kathleen Winsor
There are so many to choose from for Amber, since the novel was at its height in the beginning of what I think of as the pulp era of the 1950-60s. I used several in my post reviewing the book, but this time around I’m sharing the covers for the two-volume edition by Corgi Books. They feature Amber’s breasts quite prominently, which I think she would have appreciated, and the heavy 60s eye-makeup which I want to see in a pulp cover of this era.
Désirée, by Annemarie Selinko
Like Gone With the Wind, covers of Désirée were influenced by the film adaptation. Since she was an actual person, there are a lot of modern covers using historic portraits, but for the pulp era we have two very similar Jean Simmons covers. First, with a Brando-Bonaparte scowling in the background.
Second, no Napoleon and her dress isn’t falling off her shoulders, but it’s still pretty obviously Jean Simmons.
Angelique, by Sergeanne Golon
Finally, Angelique, who set me off on this tangent because there is not apparently a dress that will contain her bosom. There is, of course, an extensive fan website for Angelique and her adventures, and it says there that the works of Anne Golon have been put out by 320 publishers in 63 countries. The contributors to the site have also helpfully pulled together an extensive collection of the covers for different editions in different years. The super bosomy ones I was originally looking at are actually from the early 80s, like this cover for the first of the series. Her nipples are covered, but only until she moves her arms…
The first edition cover (US & UK) in 1959 is also alluring, but a whole lot more demure. And somewhat gothic, with the dark background and the looming castle behind her.
Since Angelique was the inspiration in my search for pulp cover editions of my reading list, I’ll share one more. This is for a later book in her series, but fulfills my pulp dreams quite nicely. HALF ANGEL HALF DEVIL WHOLLY WOMAN. I also note it’s from Pan, the same publishers as my first selection for Désirée .
If you’ve enjoyed this, definitely click on over and check out all the different Angelique covers on the “Angelique: In the World of the Sun King” page. There are so many! And next week I’ll have my thoughts about the words behind all these variant covers…
_01.jpg){kind=link}