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**, BaryƩ Phillips (2), and UNKNOWN (43).
** - Note that the pieces here of McGinnis (a cropped excerpt) and Maguire do not appear 'well-presented' in their own collections on The List.
other paperback cover art collections
The Art Of Romance - Mills & Boon And Harlequin Cover Designs
Breathless Homicidal Slime Mutants - The Art Of The Paperback
   the Steve Holland books
 Feral House's paperback cover art books
Strange Sisters - The Art Of Lesbian Pulp Fiction 1949-1969
  Krause's paperback cover art collections
Young Lusty Sluts - A Pictorial History Of Erotic Pulp Fiction
Paperbacks From Hell
The Art Of Pulp Fiction - An Illustrated History Of Vintage Paperbacks
 Chronicle's paperback cover art collections
The Great American Paperback
Paperbacks, U.S.A. - A Graphic History, 1939-1959 [BELOW THE LINE]
Under Cover - An Illustrated History of American Mass Market Paperbacks [BELOW THE LINE]
SEND US A COMMENT (goes via e-mail - all info kept anonymous, but comment itself may be shared . . .)
|