I enjoyed Lee Server’s OVER MY DEAD BODY:THE SENSATIONAL AGE OF THE AMERICAN PAPERBACK, 1945-1955 so much that I ordered and read Server’s Danger is My Business: An Illustrated Histoy of the Fabulous Pulp Magazines: 1896-1953. Plenty of great cover artwork is here in glorious color: Weird Tales, Black Mask, The Shadow, and Doc Savage are well represented. But Server includes some more obscure pulp magazines, too: Ghost Stories, Night Life, and G-Men. If you’re a fan of pulp magazines, you’ll find plenty here to amuse you. Copies can be found online for a pittance.
Sold! Thansk George, sounds marvellous – just for the cover alone I want to get this!
Sergio, I love the cover on Lee Server’s books, too! And there’s plenty more eye-popping artwork inside!
I love those old covers, and this book has a lot of ’em. Great stuff.
Bill, and they don’t seem to publish books like this anymore. I’m glad I stumbled on Lee Server’s books. I don’t know how I missed them when they were first published.
Nice one. I love those old covers too.
My library has Server’s ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PULP FICTION WRITERS as well as his biographies of Robert Mitchum and Ava Gardner, two of my icons. And he edited THE BIG BOOK OF NOIR with Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg.
Jeff, I have Lee Server’s ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PULP FICTION on my book stack. But it will have to wait until Summer vacation.
George, I’m sold on the cover too. I love reading anything illustrated about books and magazines and the eras they were published in.
Prashant, the covers on both DANGER IS MY BUSINESS and OVER MY DEAD BODY are great. I highly recommend Lee Server’s books!
Frank Robinson’s coffee-table books are a bit better, as image collections and as histories (though not factally impeccable themselves, just better than Server’s). I haven’t yet seen his ENCYCLOPEDIA, so maybe he straightened up and flew right eventually. But they are decent selections of imagery, to be sure…
Todd, I like Frank Robinson’s books as much as you do. I haven’t read Lee Server’s ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PULP FICTION WRITERS yet, but I will as soon as I have some vacation time.