Vintage Paperback Books
Cheap Thrills: The Freakish Fantasy Art of Mexican Pulp Paperbacks
By Ben Marks — In the 1960s and ’70s, tens of millions of eyeballs a month looked forward to the latest surreal compositions on the covers of Mexican pulp fiction. Unlike their counterparts in the United States, where depictions of steamy sex and the promise of somewhat-porny scandal sold best, pulp-fiction covers south of the border usually relied on bizarre visual scenarios, whose WTF weirdness was more important than their overt sexuality—although there was usually plenty of that. Take the covers now...
When Being a Lesbian Was Profitable, For Men
By Lisa Hix — The times they are a-changing: Last weekend, lesbian couple Kitty Lambert and Cheryle Rudd made history, exchanging the first gay-marriage nuptials in New York State. Just a few days before, President Obama certified the repeal of the "don't ask don't tell" policy in the U.S. military. But homosexuality has not always been so understood and accepted in U.S. society. In fact, in mid-century America, being a lesbian was seen as aberrant and morally corrupt, and because of its social stigma,...
The Last Word on First Editions
By Ben Marks — Strictly speaking, a book’s edition refers to the setting of the text. So the first time you set the text and print a book with it, and then sell a bound book that you’ve just printed, that’s the first edition, first printing. If you use the same setup of text and print it again, that would be the second printing—a printing is therefore a subclass of an edition. The printing is also called the impression, as in first or second impression. In general, the first edition, first printing...
To Catch A Thief: A Rare Book Expert on His Literary Obsessions
By Maribeth Keane and Anne Galloway — I don’t remember a time when I didn’t read books. In grade school, I devoured library books. I also loved comic books, and was wheeling and dealing them as a child—buying them for a nickel, sell them for dime. Bertrand Smith let me into the rare book room, and I bought a Maxwell Parrish "Arabian Nights." I bought an just for the illustrations. At the time I had no idea the artist was a Welsh woman named Gwynedd Hudson. Turns out she only illustrated two books—Alice and Peter Pan. I fell...