I have recently been looking at the work of Carl Wilton who was a cover artist for Pan and Great Pan paperbacks in the 1950's, especially his illustrations for their series of WWII memoirs. I find them very evocative images, and I have now posted up a page showing the volumes that I own. More will be added as I discover (and buy) them!
Carl Wilton
These are fantastic!
ReplyDeleteI remember the 50's Pans well. Interesting your blogging on the topic as earlier today I was thinking about the startling, at the time, development of Penguin covers in the early 60's. For the first 20 years of the firm's existence, covers generally conformed to a simple, generally unillustrated, format. In the early 60's simple drawings, usually by excellent artists, crept in, and by mid decade, with the Swinging Sixties in full force and under the artistic direction of Tony Godwin and Alan Aldridge, a series of startlingly eye-catching book covers began to brighten bookshop displays.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that there is now a modest collectors' market for the more striking of these mid-60's paperbacks.
Looking at the images you linked to, Lapinbizarre, I realise that I have several of those as well. I'm sure I've an Alan Aldridge cover for "The Wind from Nowhere" by J G Ballard - I shall have to go and check.
ReplyDeleteI quite like the early unadorned Penguins, especially with their different colour codes - Orange for Fiction, Brown for ancient classics, Red for plays etc, and Green for Crime. I have a shelf full of those.
And may have more by the end of the week, for Saturday and Sunday see the great Second-hand booksale that one of the parish churches runs every year, with usually over 10,000 books priced at £1 hardback and 50p paperback. Helping with the stock and sales, I'm in my element. If I ever win a million I shall set myself up in a small second-hand bookshop for my retirement!
It was drinking my coffee from one of these at the doggie park yesterday morning (you collect a load of furry friends if you drink coffee at the dog park) that set me to thinking. Incidentally, would like you to appreciate what a labour of love the above post was. I had prepared the whole thing, links and all, started to click through the links, to check that all were good, and deleted the entire thing. Bad language, [Oxford comma] and then I re-typed
ReplyDeleteOh, Lapin! Where did you get that? I want!
ReplyDeletePenguin sells them, Susan. Since you're in the UK, check eBay & Amazon.uk as well. There are probably cheaper ones there and postage should not be a significant factor.
ReplyDeleteThey are neat, aren't they?
I am not in the UK, Lapin. What gave you that idea? I live in California!
ReplyDeleteTwo more Carl Wilton covers found today at the annual St. James secondhand book sale, and added to the web page.
ReplyDeleteAdvancing senility, Susan. The light dawned on me a day or two after I had posted. I bought mine on eBay (google "penguin" "flask" "Kerouac" & check "international sellers" at foot of page).
ReplyDeleteI had the Russell Braddon title when it was published. There was a big "Jap atrocities" market (also German ditto) in the mid fifties [see Russell of Liverpool's hugely successful "Swastika"('54) & "Bushido" ('58) titles.]
ReplyDeleteNot forgetting the "men's pulps" of the period, mainly American, with their sex & sadism covers, which are pretty astonishing to modern eyes.