Plaidy Goes Slumming

Now, if Jean Plaidy's name wasn't on the cover of this 1952 paperback (a Pyramid Books Giant), would you have guessed who wrote it? Be honest, now.

The front cover isn't the only fun thing about this historical novel (about Jane Shore, of course). The back cover teases us with "From the king's boudoir to a prison for prostitutes!" Inside, there's a short biographical note stating that Jean Plaidy became "a best-selling novelist after successive steps as a secretary, rare gem salesman and housewife."

The back contains even more treats. For those who didn't have the nerve to walk into a bookstore, the publisher offered order coupons to order titles such as Cage of Lust ("The stark human drama of a love-starved young girl's passion and torment for her own father"), Teen-Age Vice! ("Inspired by J. Edgar Hoover of the F.B.I., this book rips the veil off the vice racket, juke joint binges, cabins for the night, prisons that pervert, the smut peddlers, lonely heart clubs"), and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. No, I don't see the connection between Wilkie Collins and Teen-Age Vice! either, except that in 1952 they each cost 35 cents, plus 5 cents for postage and handling.

Things get even cheaper on the previous page, with 25-cent offerings such as French Doctor ("His lady patients tempted him!"), Palm Beach Apartment ("Strange love story of a young girl and her benefactor!"), Farm Girl ("In the city--they would have called her a juvenile delinquent!), The Divided Path ("The story of a homosexual!"), and Blonde Mistress ("Daring expose of illicit love!). Somehow, Guy de Maupassant squeezed his way onto this page with The House of Madame Tellier and Other Stories, which merited the feeble blurb of "An exciting collection by the famous French storyteller!" Coming between Chain Gang ("Our most brutal prison system!) and Swamp Girl ("She had to choose between white man and black!"), poor Maupassant didn't stand a chance.

Plaidy Goes to the Dogs

As you can see, the UK reissue of The Revolt of the Eaglets has quite a clever variation on the ever-popular headless woman cover:



Maybe this will start a trend--I see possibilities for all sorts of combinations here. Anne Boleyn with Purkoy, perhaps.

Speaking of covers, there's a nice gallery of them here at Fantastic Fiction. My favorite is the one from Red Rose of Anjou. It's probably safe to say that the hunky guy on the cover isn't Henry VI.

Dropping By With Some Links

Although I've been a slacker in the Plaidy department lately, others have been reading her. Here's a post from I Heart Books about The Shadow of the Pomegranate, about Katherine of Aragon. It's a UK edition, evidently, with a very pretty cover. (But do pomegranates really cast that large of a shadow?)

And Daphne's been reading Passage to Pontefract, about Richard II and with a delightfully cheesy cover. (Note how much alike "Pomegranate" and "Pontefract" sound.)

Finally, speaking of Richards, here's the cover for the upcoming reissue of The Reluctant Queen, about Anne Neville, Richard III's wife. I rather like this one; although I have it in paperback, I may buy it just for the purty cover.