29 July 2020

Welcome to the Crime Club


by
Last year a book by James Curran came out, entitled The Hooded Gunman.  It covers 65 years in the history of Collins Crime Club, a British mystery imprint (not to be confused with the American Doubleday Crime Club).  It tells a fascinating story and it shows that story as well, because it provides the cover of each of the more than 2,000 books published in the series (and even the blurbs from all the covers).

One thing that leaps out is that a lot of the covers were, well, awful.  There were dozens that used the exact same design, just changing the words and the type color.  See Rex Stout below as an example.  No wonder Agatha Christie complained about her covers!

Below are some of my favorites, covers or titles I chose because they were so good or so bad.  Sometimes it was the title/cover combination  that won my heart.  Enjoy.
























Posted by Robert Lopresti at 00:00
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3 comments:

  1. Paul D. Marks29 July, 2020 02:26

    Fascinating, Rob. And while one might not be able to judge a book by its cover, as they say, a cover can intrigue us or inspire us to want to open it and see what's inside. Of the covers you showed I don't think there's one that would draw me to crack it open.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eve Fisher29 July, 2020 10:44

    I agree, Paul. None of them look that great, and some of them look disgusting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Leigh Lundin29 July, 2020 12:45

    I remember a number of those around the house. My aunt probably started the collection.

    ReplyDelete

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