After a longish silence, here you have it, folks… yet another cover scan of an old paperback from my personal collection:
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Look Here: One lovely cover with art by Robert McGinnis
Category: Robert McGinnis
Look Here: Two lovely mystery covers with art by McGinnis
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ABOVE: Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse (Montreal: Pocket Books, 1963), with cover art by Robert McGinnis.
ABOVE: Erle Stanley Gardner, The Case of the the Bigamous Spouse (Montreal: Pocket Books, 1964), with cover art by Robert McGinnis.
Wish the books were in better condition, and cleaner, but cheapskates can’t be choosers. “Buy low, pile high” is my motto. Okay, not really; I just made that up. Clever turn of phrase, though. And true, all too true, too. Just ask my wife.
Look Here: Three more uncredited, vignette-style covers with art by McGinnis
One of the covers displayed below had a spidery splash of red paint over the author’s name in real life so I decided to repair my scan with GIMP; turned out okay, I hope…
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RELATED LINKS HERE AT RCN:
WORD OF THE DAY: PERSEVERANCE
per·se·ver·ance
Noun
- Steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.
- Continuance in a state of grace leading finally to a state of glory.
Synonyms
persistence – tenacity – pertinacity – assiduity
Look Here: Another obscure paperback with cover art by McGinnis
I scanned the following book from my personal collection, as usual, but in the interests of full disclosure, I feel I should warn you that I also did a bit of work on the image with GIMP to remove some unfortunate and obtrusive stains. Here’s hoping that my ham-handed “improvements” don’t spoil your viewing experience…
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Look Here: Five for a dollar
A local seller of used books currently has a sale shelf where everything on display is five for a dollar. Here are the books I selected (where I know the cover artist/photographer, the info is in the file name):
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A couple of the books have a bit of damage, but as a Malzberg collector, I’d have paid five or six bucks for The Spread alone, and as an collector of paperbacks with interesting cover art, I’d definitely have paid a buck or two for Roger Lamanna’s Black Hit Woman. Also, although I don’t usually buy covers with photos on the front, I made an exception in the case of To the Beat of Drum based on a sudden idiosyncratic insight (or delusion) that Dennis Rolfe’s composition is some sort of visual kissing cousin to the famous double portrait of Rene Magritte and his wife Georgette, The Shadow and Its Shadow (1932):
Not to mention Pierre Bonnard’s Nude in an Interior (1912-14):
Needless to say, I left the bookstore that day with a spring in my step — although I must admit, the short stack of SF paperbacks with cover art by Richard Powers that I purchased at the same time might also have contributed to my good mood.
BONUS SCAN:
The list of “Kozy Books” on the back cover of Water Witch is amusing, I think:
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Cozy up with Kozy Books!
Look Here: Six for a buck fifty
The paperbacks at a garage sale I visited yesterday were all twenty-five cents each; I bought these ones:
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If there had been more in a similar vein, I’d have bought them too. But there weren’t, so I didn’t.
Look Here: Two ultra-stylish Perry Mason covers with uncredited art by Robert McGinnis
I only have two of the paperbacks in this series of Perry Mason novels that was published by Pocket Books in the early 1960s, but I would definitely buy them all if I could find them at a good price. They’re lovely.
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Look Here: Trees, fields, and heath by Robert McGinnis
I wish I had the third volume in Conrad Richter’s “The Awakening Land” series — The Town — with the cover by Robert McGinnis, available in my collection to scan and post, but I don’t. In fact, it’s not easy to come by any of the three volumes, with McGinnis covers, at a decent price. So if you have a copy, count yourself lucky. And if you want to scan it and send it to me so I can post it here at RCN, I will happily accept your contribution!
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The credit for the cover of Wuthering Heights reads as follows: “Cover painting by Bob McGuinness.” My assumption is that “McGuinness” is a typo and that the artist is actually McGinnis. But my sincere apologies to Mr. McGuinness if that is not in fact the case.
You will find a different version of the painting, with the woman in the exact same pose, at TIN CAN FULL OF GOLD.
Finally, you can click here to view all of the covers by Robert McGinnis that I’ve posted here at RCN thus far.
Connections: Rockwell (1954) vs. McGinnis (1964)
Take a close look at the full-page picture of the female movie star in the magazine that Norman Rockwell’s Girl at Mirror has in her lap. Now look at the reflection of the woman in Robert McGinnis’s painting for the Carter Brown novel, The Never-Was Girl; see how McGinnis’s model seems to be using her hands as a cover to test how she would look with her hair done up like Rockwell’s movie star; also, simply compare the two faces. Coincidence? I doubt it…
BONUS IMAGE (added 16 January 2014):
ABOVE: Gerald Leslie Brockhurst, Adolescence (1932), etching, 26.5 x 37 cm. Collection of British Council, UK. Via TRANSISTORADIO.
Look Here: Three gothic/mystery covers with art by McGinnis
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The lesson here: if you’re fleeing from danger, or just out taking the air, alone, on the verge of a dangerous precipice, and you’re wearing a dress, you’re going to have to hike it up in front with your hands to avoid tripping headlong into the clutches of an insistent lover or over the brink. Women already know this; men, not so much.
Ragged Claws Network 