Bonanza in the pocket. Old pocket books with artful cover illustrations are going collectible. Keep an eye on it!

There are people who start collecting books, esp. pocket books, just because of the smart, awsome or thrilling front cover illustrations, says AbeBooks in a special feature on this item. Call me Nostradamus, but in, let´s say, ten years, when paper books will be replaced by e-books, artful and extravagant front cover illustrations even of cheap pocket books will find their niche and become collectible at high prizes. So keep an eye on your pocket book and don´t sell it too early: who waits and sells in time, will maybe make a fortune.

Popular pocket books published in numerous and various editions for decades, have been printed with different covers representing the spirit of a decade: studying pocket book cover illustrations scholarly, tells a lot about culture and society in the years when the book was published.

Especially the old illustrated covers of British Penguin and Pelikan books have got their fans: books were published, magazins edited amazing collections, sets were uploaded at flickr; in 2006, the British Design Museum in London dedicated an exhibition to the national trademark Penguin Books and its gifted illustrators.

My favorite Penguin cover design which I proudly present on this blog, is by Michael Kitson: it was created in the 1960s for a book by H.J. Eysenck: Sense and Nonsense in psychology. It was first published in 1954 with a much more understated cover, still available at Amazon Marketplace. The 1968 edition I have in store is more of the psychedelic and Big Brother department; isn´t the eye awsome? I do love it. Inspite of avid googeling, I didn´t find any facts concerning the artist; what a pity.

The book´s author, H.J. Eysenck, was of German origin and lived and worked in London: the Berlin-born psychologist, who as a young man had left his native Germany in the 1930s because of political reasons (he wasn´t Jewish), was professor at the Institue of Psychiatry and was not the founder of but a major contributor to the modern scientific theory of personality, as Wikipedia tells us; H.J. Eysenk published about 50 books, of which "Sense and Nonsense" became one of his most popular with many editions; he died 1997 at age 81.

Quotation from the book, chap. 3, Telepathy and Clairvoyance, p. 106 of this edition: "According to T.H. Huxley it is a customary fate for new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions."

Who is interested in this copy should send me an e-mail. attention: this old copy has got a certain "smell" of age and longtime waiting for a new and caring shelf.....

On my little Couch. Holly and Carrie, waiting.

I follow PenguinBooks on Twitter and they sent me an email! Asked about my favorite book. Nice guys;-). Here it is: Breakfast at Tiffany´s, of course (why of course??). I adore Truman Capote. When I was young, I loved the movie and Audrey Hepburn (so does my sweet 17 at home: back home from her first trip to New York City with her Dad, she proudly presented her brandnew Audrey-Tiffany´s-Shirt;-)); in my mature years, I think Capote was right to prefer Marilyn as Holly:

Audrey was a Belgian noblewoman with a British father; Marilyn would have been the better choice for playing this broken American country rose, abused as a child, spoilt as a teenager and used as a woman; Audrey, a former professional ballet dancer, is nothing but a pretty face and chic coat-tree and no actress (and she knows); George Peppard is a big pain in the arse, a true joke as Mary Astor´s toyboy and definitly not gay like the guy in the novel; shame on Jerry Lewis as Mr Yunioshi; and - from the point of narrative technique - an important character like Joe, the Bartender that structures the whole story, in the movie is of no importance at all. And I do hate Audrey singing and the Hollywood happy ending crap (Maryilin would have given it the ironic treatment).

Have got a smart and not that often offered copy of this umpteen times edited novel still beloved by readers up to this very day - a British pocket edition of 1961, republished 1962 (twice), 1963, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1969. The cover illustration of an unknown artist is gorgeous, pop art-like and puts it in a nutshell, doesn´t it? The edition is pretty rare and of a good, not quite fine, condition. Collectors interested should contact me via this blog.

At the moment, Holly is taking a nap on my brandnew bookshop couch- together with
Sister Carrie ("abridged for modern readers"), ed. 2nd printing nov. 1962 (first oct. 1962) for the mass market by Pocket Books Inc., Rockefeller Center, NYC (those with "Gertrude the Kangaroo"), published by arrangement with Mrs Theodore Dreiser. With an introduction (with parts of it edited in the New York Times Book Review 1949) by editor Maxwell Geismar, a New York college professor, literary critic and biographer (read about Maxwell Geismar at the New York State Literary Tree); the especially fine, advertising-poster-like front cover illustration is by Roy Price, as the back cover tells me. I found this one by Roy Price at artnet - must have been the same model, maybe his girl! Nothing more is told about this almost forgotten artist on the internet - would like to know more: anybody there who could tell me?

By the way: both pocket books are for sale; the little obviously handmade couch is not: guess where I found it? On the street - waiting all by itself for the bulk rubbish truck! I took it home and will keep it as a resting place for my paper guests on their journey through. This time for Carrie and Holly.

Both books are listed - together with numerous exciting and interesting editions offered by various bookshops from the US, from the UK and from Europe - at Amazon-.

"In your rocking chair, by your window dreaming, shall you long, alone. In your rocking chair, by your window, shall you dream such happiness as you may never feel." Or on my little couch......