Some time ago I blogged about Margaret Campbell Barnes’s historical novel My Lady of Cleves. To my surprise, I saw it the other day on eBay under another name: The King’s Choice. Here’s the cover in its early 1950’s glory, for the princely price of a quarter:
Nice, isn’t it? This book actually credits the cover artist: George Mayers. In the front matter, it also lists not only the publisher, but its president and two of its vice presidents–in case, I guess, a reader didn’t think he’d gotten his quarter’s worth and wanted to go straight to the top.
So that’s supposed to be Anne of Cleves there, with the low-cut dress and lipstick? Interesting. Gotta love those 1950s paperbacks.
Er … very colourful 😉
Oh, I love this one! Thanks for sharing…Lana Turner as The Flanders Mare.
Hilarious.
It’s always interesting to see how books changed over the years. I wish books still were a quarter… but if they were, could you imagine how many I would own? 🙂
Glad you liked it, ladies! It must have taken a brave person in the 1950’s to read historical fiction, with some of those lurid covers.
I expect the brown paper jacket or hollowed-out copy of War and Peace did sterling service.
Does the content deserve the cover? Anne of Cleves as a femme fatale takes some imagining.
That cover gives the impression that Henry was all smitten with his German bride and that’s just so laughably ahistorical. But poor Anne probably wasn’t as ugly as she’s popularly thought. Henry always had a penchant for small, petite women, so any girl with any curves on her just wasn’t his type. I’m sure a lot of men would have appreciated the “Mare of Flanders”! And she was a smart girl, too; managed to keep her head, get a nice little divorce settlement, and outlive Henry. Katherine Parr and she have always been my favorite wives.
Hey, Frank! I agree with you about the wives. I just finished The Ivy Crown, a novel about Katherine Parr–have you ever read it?