What I'm Reading This Month

Here's an interesting little vintage paperback novel that I stumbled across on a sale rack at my local library. The beautiful cover art is what really caught my eye, so evocative of cinematic adventure and mystery in an exotic and remote Shangri-la. I especially love the neat little map on the back, which illustrates the main setting of the story.

Inside is a brief synopsis of the story, a list of the cast of characters and a "List of Exciting Chapters". The copyright is dated 1937 by the author, Edison Marshall (a popular writer of adventure fiction from the 1920's until the end of the 1950's), though no publishing date is given.

From my research online, the book is actually only one of around 600 "mapback" books published by Dell from 1943 to the early 1950's, all with wonderfully rendered covers. The mapbacks were mostly mysteries, but Dell published a number of science fiction and humour novels in this format as well. Some of the authors represented were Dashiell Hammett, Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie, H.G. Wells and P.G. Wodehouse. Apparently the series is highly collectible, with some titles selling for $100 or more.

These books were made to last too, with sturdy, pliable covers and tight bindings. The copy currently in my possession is a little worn, and some of the laminate is peeling from the cover, but the pages were just made for years of thumbing through, and it gives off a slightly musty, though rather pleasant, woody smell, like the old libraries I remember from my childhood.

I can't help but try to imagine how many people over the last 60 years must have curled up with this very book, either in a cozy chair beside a fireplace, or snuggled up in bed, propped up by pillows, and reading just one more chapter before going to sleep. Before TV's were common, and especially cable, someone in a hospital bed might have had this book to keep them company during the long hours between sponge baths, temperature takings and visits from family and friends. Perhaps this book was someone's indispensable companion during a long, cross-country train ride. Or maybe, less romantically perhaps, the book merely sat, gathering dust on a shelf for decades, unread and unappreciated.

Here is a link to a site which shows the covers and maps of most of the early Dell titles:

http://www.dell.bookscans.com/dell.htm

I think you'll agree that artistically and stylistically, this is a uniquely beautiful series of books.