This weeks Hans Helweg artwork is for ‘Song of the Undersea’ by Ronald Kirkwood. Ronald de Levington Kirkbride (01/02/1912 to 23/03/1973) was a Canadian writer of escapist romances, westerns, and mystery novels. He was probably best known for his novel ‘A Girl Named Tamiko‘ first published in 1959 which sold one million copies worldwide and a screenplay based on the novel become a film in 1962 with the same name directed by John Sturges. I’ll feature ‘Tamiko‘ next week. I’ve also included the cover of the first UK edition of ‘Song of the Undersea’ in hardback as I love the slightly raunchy cover which certainly sets the scene better than the PAN cover. I’ve also included the first US cover based on the UK but sadly ruined but that’s just my opinion.
Disappointed to see this on their Facebook page last week ‘Pop Up Bookshop Wolverhampton October 28th Sadly at the moment there isn’t a shop available to rent in the Wulfrun centre and the one in the Mander Centre is too small. We are still hoping a shop comes available in the next few weeks… keep your eye on this page. Jude and Steve’ In some ways this is actually good news in that a) they like to think big when it comes to shops and b) shops are being relet although I suspect a lot are for just the run up to Christmas. If they do manage to find premises I’ll be there to report back. UPDATE They have just posted they can’t get a shop this year but fingers crossed for next.
Whie sorting the Jean Plaidy titles I found there was a series that PAN did not include but was published by ‘STAR’, the paperback divison of W H Allen & Co. Ltd, namely three titles in ‘The Spanish Inquisition‘ series. I will revert to the PAN titles shortly as still checking I have all the ones they actually published plus trying to ttrack down the artists.