Friday, June 17, 2011

Friday I'm in Love: The Ladies of Paperback Gothics

Though I've never read a word of these novels, I can't say I'm immune to the darker charms of the vintage cover art of the Gothic-romance novel, so popular in the 1960s and early 1970s. Long after midnight, with their ivory flesh and smoldering eyes, in flowing gowns and shawls, these ladies sweep down castle steps and through foggy moors, flushed with eroticized terror hoping to escape some unnamed threat above. The women evoke Jackie O, Liz Taylor, Barbara Steele, Vampira, Morticia Addams... More, please. If you can't get enough either, see here, here, and here.

12 comments:

Richard of DM said...

These are proof that it's okay for dudes to swoon.

Will Errickson said...

Exactly right, sir!

Luis said...

I would gladly read any one of these novels - great covers! I particularly like the tilted composition on The Girl From Yesterday.

Will Errickson said...

There is a whole series of books from Avon with the same design, Luis...

Kevin said...

II might be misremembering, but I believe under a pseudonym Charles Grant did a couple of these. It's possible that he might have imbued some genuine eerieness into the gothic side of things though I'm not too sure I'd have patience for the romantic bits.

The one Gothic Romance I'd be curious to read is one spotlighted in Bill Pronzini's GUN IN CHEEK books which spotlight so-bad-it's-good examples of crime & pulp fiction.

I forget the name but the Gothic Romance he spotlights has a lengthy subplot about drug dealers using the gothic locale as a hideout that eventually erupts into motorboat chase and running gun battle with our heroine's love interest, which suggests whoever was writing one of these was perhaps a little TOO bored with the formula he had to conform to...

Anonymous said...

Beautiful covers.

Unknown said...

It's when you post stuff like this that I'm reminded how hard it is to find captivating, vivid imagery on book covers these days. They're still out there, but not like this.

Goregirl said...

Love these covers! You almost have a "The Ladies of Paperback Gothic BY The Ladies Of Paperback Gothic" with the exception of Patrick Hamilton and possibly Alix(?).

BLB said...

I remember paperbacks with covers of anxious looking dark-haired women running away from castles atop storm churned coastlines littering my grandmothers house in the sixties. So "Dark Shadows". One of these days I may just pick one up and skim through it. Nice posts. This is exactly the kind of thing I live about your website.

Will Errickson said...

I have read none of these titles, and the couple that I have that are similar--AMMIE COME HOME by Barbara Michaels and SOMETHING EVIL by Arthur Hoffe--vary in quality. Gothic paperbacks followed a formula and a happy ending I believe was strictly enforced. They seem a bit too mild for my taste. But, as you say, one of these days I may just pick one up...

Thalia the Muse said...

I haven't read much straight-up Gothic, but I can recommend the closely related "romantic suspense" novels of Mary Stewart. She writes very well and the books are all set in fascinating locations and full of people getting chased and uncovering dark secrets and eventually nailing the bad guys. Her heroines are smart and have spines, and the romance elements are not over the top. Not horror at all, but great fun.

Barbara Michaels' romantic suspense books are similar, but not nearly as well done -- she tends to throw in not-scary ghosts, and I'm never interested in not-scary ghosts, and her characters aren't believable. I've read one Victoria Holt and it was a super-boring rip-off of Jane Eyre. And that is as far as I've gone in the gothic romance direction, but the covers make them LOOK so appealing!

Graham said...

I think the first book is one of twelve written by Michael Avallone using that pseudonym. What I'm finding is that during the boom in that type of fiction that took place in the late 1960s/early 1970s, several male authors more commonly associated with other genres were hired to write these books.

The most well known case (to me) was Dean Koontz, at the start of his career he signed a deal to write five novels under the pen name 'Deanna Dwyer'. In the 1990 Dean Koontz Companion he confirms that the publisher assigned him a plot template to write from.

The Paperback Warrior blog revealed that Frank G. Smith, a writer more well known for his police procedural novels in the 1950s and 1950s also signed a contract to write five Gothic Romances under the pen name 'Jennifer Hale'.

It makes you wonder how many male genre authors were signed up to write these things. Going from Kevin's 2011 comment it looks like quite a few. I'd love to know the name of the book he mentioned that morphs into a gun toting action piece part way though.