Francis Clifford's Honour the Shrine (Cape, 1953) & Helen MacInnes's Pray for a Brave Heart (Collins, 1955) Join Beautiful British Book Jackets

Let's take a look at the two latest additions to the still-expanding (these covers will take it up to 104 entries) Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s gallery – the first one of which I could do with some assistance identifying the jacket designer:

Namely Honour the Shrine by Francis Clifford, published by Jonathan Cape in 1953. There's no credit on either flap and no signature that I can see; I did wonder if it might be by Val Biro, but I put it in front of Val at a Lewes Book Fair last year and he thought not. Mind you, when I asked Val to sign the jacket of Desmond Cory's Secret Ministry at an earlier Midhurst Book Fair, he told me that wasn't one of his wrappers either – until his agent, David Schutte, pointed out Val's signature in the bottom left corner (Val did, after all, design an estimated 3,000 dust jackets). Plus, Val was doing a little work for Cape around this period (as was Hans Tisdall, who also comes to mind as a possible culprit) – he designed the wrapper for the 1953 Cape first of Alan Paton's Too Late the Phalarope for one – so he could have misremembered. In any case, until confirmation is forthcoming, the cover is consigned to the "Designer Unknown" group at the bottom of Beautiful British Book Jacket Design.

No such confusion surrounds the book itself, however, at least not round these parts, because I've blogged about it before, in its 1957 Corgi paperback incarnation. Clifford's debut, and quite uncommon these days (there are barely a dozen copies in any edition on AbeBooks at present, none of those the Cape first), it's one of a number of the author's novels I've spotlighted – see also Time Is an Ambush (1962), The Green Fields of Eden (1963), The Hunting-Ground (1964) and The Naked Runner (1966) – the jackets from the first editions of all four of which are also featured in Beautiful British Book Jacket Design.

And there's little doubt as to who was responsible for the dust jacket design of the second new addition to the gallery, despite there once again being no credit on the flaps:

This is the British first edition of Pray for a Brave Heart by Helen Macinnes, published by Collins in 1955 and bought by me just the other week for two quid in the excellent Tome in Eastbourne. MacInnes's ninth novel, it's one of fourteen MacInnes spy thrillers that Titan Books have brought back into print since last year. The wrapper isn't, as I say, credited, but it does bear a signature: "Petty". That's almost certainly the Australian political cartoonist Bruce Petty, who evidently had a nice sideline designing jackets in the 1950s; other examples of his jacket work include a further three wrappers for Collins in 1955 – Jon Cleary's Justin Bayard, Laselle Gilman's The Dragon's Mouth and Kem Bennett's Dangerous Knowledge – along with Edward Maxwell's Quest for Pajaro (Heinemann, 1957), Tom Girtin's Not Entirely Serious (Hutchinson, 1958) and Robin Maugham's The Man with Two Shadows (Longmans, Green, 1958).

So, two further splendid duotone dust jackets for Beautiful British Book Jacket Design. And I'm not done with the gallery just yet...

Exclusive First Look at New Titan Books Covers for Three Helen MacInnes Novels: Above Suspicion, Assignment in Brittany and Pray for a Brave Heart

Here's a little Existential Ennui exclusive for you, concerning a spy fiction author who I revealed in January would be returning to print this year: "Queen of Spy Writers", Helen MacInnes. Titan Books, who'll be reissuing MacInnes's backlist beginning in June, have sent me the covers for the initial three MacInnes novels they'll be republishing: Assignment in Brittany (pub date 12 Jun; first published 1942), Pray for a Brave Heart (pub date 12 June; first published 1955) and MacInnes's debut novel, Above Suspicion (pub date 12 July; first published 1941). (Those are all UK pub dates, by the way; the books will be arriving January and March 2013 in the States.)

I'm told the quotes may change for the final versions, but other than that, these are the covers you'll be seeing on the web and in bookshops before too long. They were designed by one of Titan's in-house designers, Julia Lloyd, and they are, to my mind, suitably and pleasingly gritty. Incidentally, while there aren't too many decent reviews of Helen MacInnes's novels available online at present – although I'm sure that'll change once Titan's reissues hit – I did stumble across this thoughtful review of Above Suspicion on the In Which I Read Vintage Novels blog. I also found a couple of interesting overviews of MacInnes's life and career – one at the A Woman Reading blog, the other at the Helensburgh Heritage Trust website.

Anyway: onwards. And for my next post, I'll be staying with the attractive book cover design, as I unveil some new additions to my Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s page...

BREAKING NEWS! Queen of Spy Writers Helen MacInnes Returns to Print in 2012, Courtesy of Titan Books!

Interrupting my now-extended series of posts on Desmond Cory's Johnny Fedora spy novels, here's a rather exciting announcement for you. Regular readers may recall my having broken the news in December of Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm spy novels being brought back into print by Titan Books. Well Existential Ennui is first with the news once again, because I'm pleased to report that Titan will soon be bringing another spy novelist back into print – this time an author who was known in her day as the Queen of Spy Writers (as well as the Queen of Spy Fiction and the slightly more cumbersome Queen of International Espionage Fiction): Helen MacInnes.

One of a select band of female espionage novelists (Sarah Gainham being another), MacInnes's career as a writer began in 1941 with the publication of her debut novel, Above Suspicion, which was turned into a Joan Crawford/Fred MacMurray film in 1943. She had a further twenty novels published over the next forty-plus years (and one play), a number of which were also filmed, including The Venetian Affair (1963, the Robert Vaughan-starring movie of which arrived in 1967) and The Salzburg Connection (1969, filmed in 1972; that's the Collins first edition you can see below). Like Gainham's protagonists, MacInnes's leads were usually amateurs rather than professional spies, and her novels were hailed by critics and fans as credible, plausible espionage thrillers.

And starting this summer, MacInnes's work will once again become widely available, as Titan begins reissuing the author's novels. In a press release, Titan Books' Editorial Director, Katy Wild (who knows her onions when it comes to crime and spy fiction, believe me), explained: "I have loved Helen MacInnes's novels all my life. They are exciting stories, immaculately researched, but with immense integrity and heart. I always felt that she had been unfairly neglected in the revival of interest in the classic spy thriller genre, so I was delighted when I was able to enter into an agreement with her descendants. Our agreement with them will enable us to bring the books back into print and e-book formats and show readers what they've been missing all these years."

Quite so. There'll probably be an official announcement tomorrow (so remember where you read the news first), and as ever I expect there'll be further details down the line, so keep 'em peeled. For now, though, it's back to Desmond Cory and Johnny Fedora here on Existential Ennui, with a couple of quite scarce first editions...

File Under Reference: Who's Who in Spy Fiction by Donald McCormick

Here's a book that – as I mentioned in the previous post – I was partly inspired to buy by (buy by? Bye bye! Ahem. Sorry) my friend Roly, who noticed it in one of the second hand bookshops in Cecil Court when we were up in London for the day. I think I'd flicked through it myself when I'd been in that shop before, but if Roly hadn't picked it up and pored over it, I doubt I'd have got round to buying a copy (a cheaper copy, bought online; the one in the shop was overpriced). Therefore, I think I can safely blame this one on him. So what is it? This:

The UK hardback first edition of Who's Who in Spy Fiction by Donald McCormick, published by Elm Tree Books in 1977, with a dustjacket designed by Lawrence Edwards. And it is essentially what the title suggests it is: potted biographies on the then-leading lights in espionage fiction, although as ever with these things it's far from comprehensive: there's no sign of, for instance, Ross Thomas, who by this point had written a number of spy novels. That said, McCormick does admit in his introduction that there are omissions, some due to particular authors not wishing to be identified merely as spy novelists. And even with that proviso, there are still enough intriguing authors included to keep you reading. Speaking of which, can you name all eight writers featured on the cover? (You might need to click on it to see properly; answers at the end of the post.*)

Who's Who in Spy Fiction was part of a series of books published by Elm Tree, each one focusing on a different genre. Brian Ash's Who's Who in Science Fiction preceded Spy Fiction by a year, while Mike Ashley's Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction also appeared in 1977. Sadly I haven't been able to find a trace of perhaps the most interesting of the companion titles listed on the Spy Fiction jacket back flap, Nigel Morland's Who's Who in Crime Fiction, so presumably it never materialised.

Donald McCormick wrote a variety of non fiction books, among them works on the British Secret Service, the Israeli Secret Service, and Ian Fleming, alongside whom he worked at The Sunday Times in the late '50s/early '60s, where McCormick was Assistant Foreign Manager. His relationship with Fleming stretched further back than that though, to the Second World War, during which McCormick served in the British navy and undertook field work for Fleming, who was Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence. So McCormick certainly knew his stuff vis a vis espionage, and was better placed than most to pen potted appreciations of the authors toiling in the at-the-time massive spy fiction market. (Tellingly, his piece on Fleming closes with the prediction that "It is as an extraordinarily good Assistant to the DNI that he will ultimately be remembered". Er, or not.)

Anyhoo, Who's Who in Spy Fiction should come in handy for a number of forthcoming espionage-related posts on Existential Ennui...

* Those cover stars are, top row: Somerset Maugham, John Buchan and John le Carre; middle row: Ian Fleming, Helen MacInnes and Eric Ambler; bottom row: Len Deighton and John D. MacDonald. Collect 'em all!

Three for Four: Agent in Place by Helen MacInnes, Let's Hear it for the Deaf Man by Ed McBain, and The Looking-Glass War by John Le Carré

So then, I know I stated I'd be blogging about new book acquisitions in the order they've been arriving, as I attempt to catch up with myself following my recent drift into the arena of the unwell, but I've changed my mind. I'm a mercurial beast like that. Instead, I've decided to leave the Westlake Scores (for there are many) and other Westlake/Stark business till next week, so you can expect another Westlake Week in just a few days' time. Unless I change my mind again – I've got other books to blog about too, plus I'd like to write something about Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth's Stumptown comic book series, which has just completed its first arc – in which case, you, er, can't.

Either way, that's all in the future. For now, I thought I'd showcase a handfull of books purchased in an honest-to-god, bricks-and-mortar, proper, physical, actual, real bookshop, of all things. I often have a rummage in Lewes' various bookshops, and on the way home from the doctor's last week I popped into A & Y Cumming, up on the High Street near the castle. Like all of Lewes' second hand bookshops, their stock doesn't change that much, but they have a decent selection of reasonably priced modern firsts (among other things), and they're always worth a browse. On this visit, however, I discovered that their stock had suddenly gone from 'reasonably priced' to 'really rather cheap', and I ended up walking out with three first editions at four quid a pop (plus another four-quid first, Iris Murdoch's The Book and the Brotherhood, for Rachel). None of these books are particularly scarce or valuable, but even so, that's a real bargain.

First up, there was this:

A UK William Collins 1976 hardback first edition hardback of Helen MacInnes' Agent in Place, dustjacket designed by Futura Arts. I was only dimly aware of MacInnes when I saw this on the bookshelf; dubbed variously 'the queen of spy writers' and 'the queen of international espionage fiction' (both rather cumbersome tags, and not a patch on, say, Grahame Greene's description of Patricia Highsmith as the "poet of apprehension") MacInnes wrote over twenty books from 1941 to 1984 (she died in 1985), many of which were very well regarded, mixing romance elements in with the thrills. Like a lot of thriller/espionage writers, she's increasingly overlooked, and a lot of her back catalogue – possibly all of it – has fallen out of print. This particular novel is about a Nato memorandum that's fallen into the wrong hands and subsequent efforts to minimise the damage. Sounds good to me.

Next:

A UK Hamish Hamilton 1973 first edition hardback of Ed McBain's Let's Hear it for the Deaf Man, one of McBain/Hunter's umpteen 87th Precinct Mysteries, with a dustjacket designed by Colin Andrews and that rather cool author pic on the back by Richard A. Kenerson. This one features occasional recurring nemesis the Deaf Man, a criminal mastermind who first appeared in 1960's The Heckler and who has a habit of sending misleading clues to the detectives of the 87th Precinct. And in Let's Hear it for the Deaf Man, we the reader get to see those clues, which for the most part are pictures, too:

As I mentioned a month ago, I haven't read any McBain books yet, so this may well be my first experience of his work (at some point in the distant future, the way the books are piling up at the moment).

And finally, and the pick of the bunch:

A UK Heinemann 1965 first edition hardback of John le Carré's The Looking-Glass War, his fourth novel following Call for the Dead (1961), A Murder of Quality (1962) and The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963). The dustjacket on this one's a bit battered, but the book itself is in very good condition, clean and un-foxed, and at four quid I can't really grumble too much. The only problem is, I'm now in two minds over whether to read this first or Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974), as both feature spymaster George Smiley (although to a much lesser degree in The Looking-Glass War). Hmm. Chewy one.