Desmond Bagley

My collection of Desmond Bagley's novels is a pretty rag-tag bunch, although I'm pleased with the way the covers cleaned up for this gallery. I'm still missing one title, but I'll find it eventually [two, technically, as I have one only in an omnibus edition]. I liked Bagley back in the days I was reading thrillers and have re-read a couple recently: Night of Error was OK, one of two novels

Desmond Bagley: Bibliography and bonus cover gallery

(* I'm running the cover gallery/bibliography in reverse order so that I don't have to repost it... the main gallery will appear tomorrow.)

In 2009, Harper published a series of eight "2-in-1" omnibus editions, the covers of which I've appended to the following bibliography. Most (if not all) of the books contained additional stories or features by/about Bagley.

Bagley also wrote one short

Henning Mankell: Cover Gallery

Henning Mankell has indirectly been responsible for some of the best television seen in the UK of recent years thanks to BBC Four showing the Swedish TV adaptations of his Kurt Wallander novels starring Rolf Lassgård and the TV series starring Krister Henriksson. However, the first Wallander I actually saw was the BBC production starring Kenneth Branagh which I thought was excellent. All three

Raymond Chandler: The Novels

Raymond Chandler is one of my favourite authors and I've been meaning to put together a gallery of covers from his books for some while. I have to admit that I don't think Chandler was best served by his British publishers. The movie tie-in covers make an interesting set, but I'd would love to have seen Chandler published by Pan or one of the other companies that did painted covers; I imagine

Raymond Chandler: Short Stories and others

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  Trouble Is My Business
Penguin 741, 1950.
----, 2nd imp., 1951; 3rd imp., 1952; 4th imp., 1954; 5th imp., 1957.
----, 6th imp., 1960, 248pp, 2/6, [green].
----, 7th imp., 1962. Cover by John Sewell
----, 8th imp., 1964.
Penguin C741, 1966. Cover: photo
----, 9th imp., 1967.
Penguin 1400-0741-5, [10th imp.] 1972, 248pp, 35p. Cover: photo/des. James Tormey. *MTI.
(

Martin Woodhouse (1932-2011)

Thriller writer Martin Woodhouse died in May but the obituary I penned for the Guardian only appeared on Wednesday this week (and posted online on Tuesday). The paper only used one small cover as an illustration, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to post the four that I sent over.

Tree Frog (London, William Heinemann, 1966)
Pan X605, 1967, 191pp, 3/6. Cover: photo

Rock Baby (as Bush Baby,

Iain Blair (1942-2011)

Iain Blair, the Scottish former actor and author, who died on 3 July, aged 69, had a double life as romance writer Emma Blair. Emma became hugely popular for 'her' 29 bodice rippers with titles An Apple from Eden, Arrows of Desire, Goodnight, Sweet Prince, Moonlit Eyes, Passionate Times, The Princess of Poor Street and Where No Man Cries. The 6' 3" Glaswegian was not your typical romance writer.

L. R. Brightwell

I recently wrote up some notes on illustrator Leonard Robert Brightwell (1889-1962) over on the Look and Learn blog. As part of the digging, I put together the following checklist of his book illustrations; it would be a shame to let it go to waste...


PUBLICATIONS

Books
A Cartoonist Amongst Animals. A book of animal humour. London, Hurst & Blackett, 1921.
The Animals' "Co-op". With Oswald and

John Creasey's Dr Palfrey (Department Z5)

I was a huge fan of John Creasey when I was a kid. When I was young, I used to read a lot of books that my Dad read as he often had paperbacks sitting around; he was a fan of the Inspector West novels and I, too, became a fan. But the ones that I loved were the Doctor Palfrey novels. Our local library let me have an adult ticket when I was still very young as I'd read my way through everything

J. Weedon Birch

J. Weedon Birch is a name I come back to regularly. I've never read a word of his writings but he intrigues me because he was a prolific writer, a publisher and, mostly, because I've not been able to find a trace of him. I've spent hours — days even — trying to find just the tiniest slither of official documentation of his existence, just as others (including Bill Lofts and Derek Adley) did

Frederick E. Smith and 633 Squadron

633 Squadron was the best-selling 1956 novel by Frederick E. Smith, in which a RAF Mosquito squadron undertakes a seemingly impossible mission to bomb a well-protected German factory at the head of a Norwegian fjord. The novel was successfully filmed in 1964.

Smith has written nine sequels to the original 633 Squadron, starting with the 1975 Operation Rhine Maiden and followed, in sequence, by

John S. Margerison

A recent enquiry led me a bit of a merry chase. Who was John S. Margerison? A simple enough question and one that I didn't have much of an answer to. He was a prolific writer for boys and had written quite a few books on the Royal Navy, so there seemed to be a naval/seagoing connection. But we had no dates for him.

My Story Paper Index listed quite a few stories dating from 1916 to 1922 and his

Lt.-Col. Oreste Pinto

Lieut.-Col. Oreste Pinto was a Dutch spy hunter whose books Spycatcher and Friend or Foe? inspired a TV series - also called Spycatcher - was broadcast by the BBC. The show, which ran for 24 episodes over four seasons broadcast in 1959-61, starred Bernard Archard as Pinto. Pinto's exploits were also broadcast on radio.

Pinto was the most widely known Allied counter-espionage agent of the Second

Jack Higgins Cover Gallery

Jack Higgins is an author I've not read for years. Through no fault of the author, I should add: I've been through several periods in my life where, because of work, I've had to cut down on my reading dramatically, or, because of the nature of the work, I've had to concentrate on reading non-fiction rather than fiction.

It was because of this that, some years ago, I decided to revisit some of

Jack Higgins Bibliography

Novels as Harry Patterson (series: Nick Miller)
Sad Wind from the Sea. London, John Long, 1959; as by Jack Higgins, London, Penguin, 1999.
Cry of the Hunter. London, John Long, 1960; as by Jack Higgins, London, Penguin, 1998.
A Thousand Faces of Night. London, John Long, 1961; as by “Jack Higgins writing as Harry Patterson”, London, Pan, 1990.
Comes the Dark Stranger. London, John Long, 1962; as

John Wyndham Gallery 2

The Day of the Triffids
Penguin Book 0140-00993-0, 30th imp., 1980, 272pp, 95p. Cover by Peter Lord

The Kraken Wakes
Penguin Books 0140-01075-0, 21st imp., 1979, 240pp, 95p. Cover by Peter Lord

The Crysalids
Penguin Books 0140-01308-3, 26th imp., 1980, 200pp, 90p. Cover by Peter Lord

Trouble with Lichin
Penguin Books 0140-01986-3, 15th imp., 1980, 204pp, 95p. Cover by Peter Lord

Chocky

Peter Cheyney part 1: The Lemmy Caution Novels

(* As promised in the original post back in January, I'm reposting the three episodes of the Peter Cheyney cover gallery now that I've had a chance to clean up the remaining images. Most of these can be found in parts 2 and 3, which you'll find as you scroll down. I'm still missing quite a few so I'd recommend that you also visit the Official Peter Cheyney website where you'll find an even more

Peter Cheyney part 2: The Slim Callaghan novels

The second part of our Peter Cheyney cover gallery concentrates on his other major character, Slim Callaghan. Criticised for his inability to capture an authentic American gangster drawl in his Lemmy Caution novels—although it made no difference to their terrific sales—Cheyney created Rupert Patrick 'Slim' Callaghan for his 1938 novel The Urgent Hangman. Callaghan's adventures were set in the

Peter Cheyney part 3: Others

OTHERS
Another Little Drink (London, Collins, 1940)
White Circle 336m, Jun 1953
Pan Books G108, (Mar) 1958
----, 2nd imp., 1959, 192pp, 2/6. Cover by Sam Peffer
----, 3rd imp., 1960. [as above]

Dark Duet (London, Collins, 1942)
Penguin 722, 1949
White Circle 319m, Dec 1951
White Circle 348m, Apr 1955
Pan Books G160, (Sep) 1958
----, 2nd imp., 1959. Cover by unknown

The Stars Are Dark (Quayle;

Phyllis Matthewman

Yesterday's mention of  Jacqueline Yorke prompted a note from Jamie Sturgeon saying that Yorke was the pen-name of Phyllis Matthewman.

There are a few odds and ends about Phyllis online but she has a decent entry in The Encyclopaedia of Girls' School Stories which reveals that she was born Phyllis Barton in Leeds on 19 January 1896, the elder daughter of Thomas Barton, an insurance manager, and