Publishers are always looking to refresh the backlist of authors and sell more copies. In the 70’s the beautiful painted book covers went out of fashion and photo covers came into vogue. The UK publisher Fontana had paperback rights to many of the well known thriller writers of the time like Desmond Bagley, Alistair MacLean, Hammond Innes, Helen MacInnes and Eric Ambler. I would imagine that if you’re a successful writer for awhile the occasional wonky cover art comes with the territory but these covers in particular were very, very odd. Broken Covers is an occasional series looking at some of these crazy covers.
Find all of the previous posts here and include –Alistair MacLean, Helen MacInnes and Eric Ambler
Desmond Bagley wrote numerous bestselling thrillers throughout his life. The Bagley Brief talks more about them here.
In the 1970’s Fontana took on the awesome responsibility of creating covers that would make his books look tremendously silly. Mission accomplished.
Yeah, those are hideous. Of course, I remember looking at all those Mack Bolan covers in the 80’s and thinking they were cool..poor choice on my part.
Pingback: Broken Covers – John Creasey Part Two – Spy Write
Pingback: Broken Covers – Helen MacInnes – Spy Write
Pingback: Broken Covers – Andrew Garve – Spy Write
Pingback: Broken Covers – Adam Hall – Spy Write
Pingback: Broken Covers – Jack Higgins – Spy Write
Pingback: Broken Covers – John le Carré – Spy Write