{"id":89130,"date":"2015-08-24T14:58:19","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T18:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=89130"},"modified":"2015-08-24T14:58:19","modified_gmt":"2015-08-24T18:58:19","slug":"curtains-for-the-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/24\/curtains-for-the-editor\/","title":{"rendered":"Curtains for the Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_89145\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/curtainsfortheditor.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-89145\" class=\"wp-image-89145\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/curtainsfortheditor.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"445\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/curtainsfortheditor.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/curtainsfortheditor-300x223.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-89145\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Editors beware.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Over the weekend, I was attracted by the cover of a 1940s pulp paperback for sale on upper Broadway. The book was called <em>Curtains for the Editor<\/em>, and featured a bleeding body sprawled over a giant manuscript, so obviously I was sold before I\u2019d even picked it up. But then when I turned it over, it was to find that the edition had even more to recommend it than the terrific title and vivid cover art: it was a Dell Mapback!<\/p>\n<p>As any pulp lover knows, Dell produced these thrift editions\u2014often mysteries, often hard-boiled\u2014between 1943 and 1951. Each one was characterized by the detailed map on its back cover: often a \u201cscene of the crime,\u201d showing, say, the layout of a police station, a blueprint of a mansion, a neighborhood peopled with suspects and characters. There\u2019s some variation depending on the artist, the plot, and the era; some maps are more stylized, others more colorful and precise. But all of them are \u201caccurate\u201d insofar as the plot goes, and they do give as good and tantalizing a glimpse into a book\u2019s plot as any more conventional flap copy. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>They\u2019re fun, attractive, gimmicky and distinctive; in other words, they\u2019re kind of a good idea. (See also: any book trailer.) Needless to say, Mapbacks\u2014crossing, as they do, pulp and graphic novels\u2014are collector catnip. Just try to find Mary Renault\u2019s romance <em>Kind Are Her Answers<\/em>, or the first-edition Dashiell Hammett.<\/p>\n<p>Thomas Polsky\u2019s <em>Curtains for the Editor<\/em>\u2014not to be confused with his <em>Curtains for a Cop\u2014<\/em>is not so rare; at any rate, mine did not cost very much. However, it is excellent. It\u2019s the story of a newspaper man (hard-boiled) on the trail of his editor\u2019s killer (unexpected.) Plus, it contains cover and map art, respectively, by the classic Dell team of Gerald Gregg and Ruth Belew. Belew\u2019s map in this case looks like a scale model of the newspaper\u2019s offices, and the different rooms\u2014<small>POP\u2019S SANCTUARY, POWDER ROOM, MORGUE<\/small>\u2014are clearly labeled in yellow.<\/p>\n<p>It seemed to me almost miraculous to discover that you can find many of the Mapbacks online, but of course you can. Almost the entire series is available on <a href=\"http:\/\/bookscans.com\/Publishers\/dell\/dell.htm\">this site<\/a>, and well worth a look\u2014if this sort of thing interests you.<\/p>\n<p>As I was chatting with the book dealer, a very rude guy came up and brayed, \u201cDoes anyone actually buy these things?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re called <em>collectibles<\/em>,\u201d said the vendor coolly, with what I considered admirable self-control.<\/p>\n<p>They are also, of course, called books. And some people do. If only to look at the maps.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review<em>, and the <\/em>Daily<em>\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the weekend, I was attracted by the cover of a 1940s pulp paperback for sale on upper Broadway. The book was called Curtains for the Editor, and featured a bleeding body sprawled over a giant manuscript, so obviously I was sold before I\u2019d even picked it up. But then when I turned it over, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[4228,19243,19239,19238,7002,19241,11106,11982,19242,19240,8207],"class_list":["post-89130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-cartography","tag-collectibles","tag-curtains-for-the-editor","tag-dell-mapback","tag-genre-fiction","tag-gerald-gregg","tag-paperbacks","tag-pulp","tag-ruth-belew","tag-thomas-polsky","tag-used-books"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Remembering the Dell Mapbacks Series<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on an innovative line of pulpy paperbacks that had maps on their back covers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/08\/24\/curtains-for-the-editor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Curtains for the Editor by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"August 24, 2015 \u2013 Over the weekend, I was attracted by the cover of a 1940s pulp paperback for sale on upper Broadway. 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