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Monday, March 15, 2021

Cover Artist William Teason Born on This Date, 1922

For years I have wondered about the identity of the artist who painted these gorgeous paperback covers for classic Shirley Jackson reprints in the mid-Seventies, from Popular Library. Some time ago a reader commented on a long-ago TMHF post on Jackson that they had lived next door to the artist William Teason (b. Kansas City, MO, 1922-2003) and had modeled for some of these covers. Awesome!

And so that was the clue I needed. I just emailed the family members who run Teason's official website, included the above photo, and simply asked if they could confirm this for me. I thought it was a long shot, but Teason's son replied within a few hours, said he recognized most as his father's work but was unsure about one and that he'd check and get back to me. Which he did. And told me yes—those are all by Teason. Mystery solved!

Quite often Teason signed much of his work, including skillfully working his signature into the wooden boards on the original 1963 paperback cover of We Have Always Lived in the Castle, a personal top favorite (yes, someone "borrowed" this image for Bava's Shock poster). Most of his output was for mysteries and crime classics, titles by Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, but in the Eighties he began producing terrific covers for Zebra. With his long, award-winning career, Teason is without a doubt one of the masters of vintage paperback cover art!

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3 comments:

  1. highwaykneesMarch 20, 2021 at 9:24 AM

    ok , now your talkin Will! That original 63 cover by Teason has loomed large in my love of PB illustration, for it was the one on the ed. when I first Jacksons WHALitC as a kid in 69. I subsequently collected all the Jackson works with his covers, eventhough I might have first read them in earlier editions.I just had to have them in my library. ALL are amazing.I think I like the one for The Road Through the Wall best though.It kind of just tells you all you need to know about that book.

    Ive never read any Zebra titles. I guess Im not fond of the less than subtle skeleton cliche.

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  2. MelissaJune 20, 2021 at 2:55 PM

    It’s so good to finally know the name of the artist for my favorite book cover!

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  3. FulciLivesJuly 9, 2021 at 9:31 AM

    I've often wondered about the genesis of this cover and how it came to be used (although slightly modified) for the Bava film. Glad to finally find out some information. I was unsure of the artist's full name, little alone any information about him, so thank you for this! It would seem that this was done specifically for the book. Still curious about how it ended up on that Bava poster.

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