Paperbacks, U.S.A. - A Graphic History, 1939-1959
(1981 - Blue Dolphin Enterprises)

[-BELOW THE LINE-] (by Piet Schreuders) The contemporary British edition was called THE BOOK OF PAPERBACKS - A VISUAL HISTORY OF THE PAPERBACK BOOK (it is said to be identical in content), but the original edition from the Neatherlands carries the same major title & cover as our subject here. Author Schreuders (and a not insignificant number of his countrymen) was an impassioned collector of what was becoming called American 'classic' paperbacks before that was really a thing. So with his international contacts, he combined other's research with what he was assiduously carrying out and pulled it all together with this 292-page volume, simultaneously released in the United States, Britain and his country. Unfortunately, while there are reproductions of cover art throughout, they are presented mostly in black-&-white, with only 32 glossy pages in color. There are but two drawings and eight paintings that are 'well-presented' here, those artists being: James Avati, Rudolph Belarski, Edgard Cirlin, Gerald Gregg, Robert Jonas (2), Leo Manso, Stanley Meltzoff, [unknown] Palacios, and Barye Phillips. Then there are 23 pages that have multiple images. Only a couple of original images are presented, all the rest being the book-covers themselves, with all the titles & typography in place. The book tries to caption all the color images with the artists' identities. Among the text, there are 62 pages which are focused on the cover art and the practitioners that produced them. A very informative tome, if not a particularly good art-presentation.