Paperback 1140: Undress Rehearsal / John Carver (Softcover Library 95265)

Paperback 1140: Softcover Library 95265 (1st ptg, late '60s to 1970)

Title: Undress Rehearsal

Author: John Carver

Cover artist: photo cover

Condition: 9/10    

Value: $12

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• Seems pretty bored for someone at an orgy. "What an orgy!" "Meh, it's OK." Maybe that wicker chair seat just isn't that comfortable to sit in naked.
• What is she holding? A leaf? A shoe? A feather? I also have a follow-up question. Namely, "Why?"
• Those thigh-high black leather fetish boots are shiny and spectacular. I just wish she seemed to be getting any joy from them.

Best things about this back cover: 

• The backs of sleaze paperbacks fall into two categories: brief, enigmatic, typo-ridden prose poems that seem to have been translated hastily from some lost Central European language; or, treatises.
• I took one look at the name "Roz" and thought, "oh that's definitely the requisite lesbian." I was close. 
• "Adults could make love with youngsters"—did that *ever* sound good? "Youngsters?" It's better than "children," I guess, but only barely.

Page 123~

"Filthy. It is even more disgusting in the flesh. A degenerate, characterless story containing the grossest invitations to moral disintegration. I object—and I shall go on objecting."

There's your back cover blurb right there. Just ascribe it to some the head of some fictional Public Morals Org. and you're in business! 

~RP

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Paperback 1137: Tormented Bride / Myron Kosloff (First Niter 218)

Paperback 1137: First Niter FN 218 (PBO, 1965)

Title: Tormented Bride

Author: Myron Kosloff

Cover artist: [Gene Bilbrew]

Condition: 9/10

Value: $100

[Newest addition to the Doug Peterson Collection]

Best things about this cover: 

• OK, we got us a good one here.
• I adore the middle-aged middle school teacher whose spectacles are about to pop off her face. She's so excited about this tight-skirted, belted-coated spectacle of a woman that she's grabbing Betty's arm to make sure she sees. Betty has definitely seen.
• Are the ladies at the bar? Behind the bar? The stools are on this side, but they're on the other side. And the bartender appears to be on the same side they are. At least I think dough-faced hyena man is the bartender. He's got epaulets, which says "uniform," which says "maybe he works here." Anyway, the layout of this bar is all kinds of off.
• Actually, the closer you look, the more things are bizarrely, creepily off. What is our strutting lady doing with her left foot. It's landing at a right angle to her direction, which basically ensures that ankle breakage awaits her in the near future. And those heels. Jeeeeezus. No human could walk in those. She's fully on tip toe and the heel is still on the floor.
• Then there's the inexplicable side of the booth (?!), which creates a huge arced swath of white on this cover—a shit-ton of negative space that adds nothing to the composition and bears no resemblance to anything you'd find in reality. Speaking of "you'd never find it in reality," that blue-faced dude in the bottom-left. That's a lot of face for a seemingly marginal dude. Definitely creeps up the joint even further.
• I think the strutting lady and the bartender have just come from the first and possibly last ever meeting of the "World's Smallest Necktie" club. He's laughing because his necktie was narrower by 3mm. Better luck next time, Tormented Bride!

Best things about this back cover: 

• Oh great, as if things weren't disturbing enough, we're just leading with RAPE
• Thank you, Lord, for granting unto us the phrase "whirlpool of perversia." Your magnanimity is truly overwhelming.
• "Excuse me, can you tell me which way to perversia? ... Just turn left at the light? Great. And do you know if they have a whirlpool there? ... Yes? Excellent." 
• Tracy Gilbert, leather-clad dominatrix. Leather! Lesbians! BDSM! Minuscule neckwear! Is there any kink this book doesn't have?? 
• Why would you try to "escape" the "bonds of lesbianism" with "boyish Olive Thurston"? Who gave you that advice?
• And it all ends in "pie" because of course it does.
• "Twilight World!" My favorite queer codeword is back with a leather-clad vengeance!

Page 123~

    "I—do you want me to do something?"

    He caught his breath. "Like what?"

    She hesitated. Then: "You know. Relieve you."

!?

~RP

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