The Look Of Love - The Art Of The Romance Novel
(2002 - Princeton Architectural Press)

(by Jennifer McKnight-Trontz) A fun book to flip through, though the editors were very, very generous with the negative space. Out of the book's 144 pages, there are 75 that each feature a single romance novel cover reproduction - at roughly paperback dimensions, though they could have been larger since the book itself is slightly bigger than 9-by-6-inches. I will say that ten of those pages each spotlight a full-bleed excerpt of a collected novel and twice that again take their paperback and frame it in a complimentary color. Anyway, another 27 pages display two smaller paperback cover reproductions. There are 35 text pages providing context about romance genre itself, as well as the major publishers and examples of the promotional blurbs, but to its credit, a third of those pages are covering the art & design features of the covers. All the covers are captioned with the books' titles, authors, publishers & release years, along with the covers artist's name, if known. Unfortunately, having said that, it's disappointing how many remain unidentified. Sure, those illustrators are rarely given credit in the volumes themselves and surviving record-keeping is non-existent, but I see at least a couple of instances where the artist's signature is in plain sight, but apparently not followed-up on by the organizers. The images are gathered into chapters, which, after the introduction, are entitled Happily Ever After, Passions Aflame, Woman On Her Way, Bad Girls & Good Girls, Loves Of A Nurse, Hometown Doctor, Time Passages, and Exotic Encounters. The following represents the 'well-presented' painters that currently can be identified: Robert Abbett, Dave Attie, John L. Baker, Harry Barton, Rudolph Belarski, Earle Bergey, Elaine Duillo, Norm Eastman, Bill Gregg, Gerald Gregg (3), Cy Heal, Mitchell Hooks, William George Jacobson, Alan Kass, Robert Maguire (3)**, Robert McGinnis**, Baryé Phillips (2), and UNKNOWN (43).