 I've brought Madame's cocktails. Is Madame also ready for her daily full body massage and vigorous rear entry coitus? 
This is, once again, Robert Silverberg hiding behind his usual pen name Don Elliott for 1965's Only the Depraved from sleaze imprint Greenleaf Classics. This is the second time we've seen a domestic staffer delivering his employer two drinks at once. That's how we order them too. The cover is uncredited.
 She's great. But you know how they say dance like no one's looking? She can dance only when everyone's looking. 
 A few days ago we shared a book cover inspired by a 1948 Life magazine photo. We wanted to show you a more direct inspiration from that shot. Here you see Tony Calvano's The Hellions, from 1965 for Greenleaf Classics, published by its sub-imprint Leisure Books. Calvano was in actuality Thomas P. Ramirez.
The art on this is by Robert Bonfils, and he basically copied the dynamic figure in the Life photo, and did so brilliantly, making changes to her hair (more and wilder) and bikini (smaller and flimsier). The result is an illustration that's a real eye-catcher. You can scroll down a few posts if you want to see the Life shot in a larger size. It was part of a photo essay on a performative youth movement called Activationism, centered in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
 Oh, look who it is—the neglectful husband I've been hearing so much about. 
Above: a cover for Every Bed Her Own, by Don Elliott for Greenleaf Classics' imprint Leisure Books, 1966. Elliott, in this case, is actually sci-fi author Robert Silverberg, and the art is by Robert Bonfils, the titan of mid-century sleaze illustrators. This is another cover that fits with our collection of cheaters caught red-handed.
 My diagnosis is that you're a nymphomaniac, but I'll need to run a few tests to be sure. 
Psychiatrist sleaze novels are safe havens for us. Whenever we can't think of anything to post, we just grab one of these. They're ridiculous, and easy to riff on. John Dexter's Sin Psycho was published by Greenleaf Classics and it appeared in 1962 with unattributed art. We don't keyword for “therapy” or “psychiatrist,” so we can't point you to all the others in this style we've posted, but you can see most of them by starting here.
 Nicely done. Continuing upward, you may now kiss the royal inner thigh. 
Above: Flesh Countess by J.X. Williams, a psuedonym for too many authors to name, and some that remain unknown, for Greenleaf Classics and Leisure Books. Having read many of these low rent sleaze romps, we'll go out on a limb and say the main character here isn't a real countess, but rather someone of great stature within the easy sex community. The art on this is by Robert Bonfils, and the copyright is 1964.
 Don't worry, I'm the best psychiatrist in the business. I guarantee results or your nymphomania back. 
Above: a cover for Orgy Office by Bill Lauren for Greenleaf Classics' imprint Pillar Books, 1964, with unattributed art. Lauren also wrote such books as Blonde Danger, Burn Blonde Burn!, Fun Girl, Perverted Lover, and On the Prowl. They all sound lovely. We have a lot of these therapy covers in the site and you can see them all by starting here.
 Why are you undressing? I can't offer you any sexual pleasure. My body is immobilized and bandaged all over except for— Oh. I see. 
As the leaves begin to turn brown we turn to Greenleaf Classics, a publisher to keep you warm through the cold months ahead. Above is Sin Pit by John Baxter, 1963, for Greenleaf's Ember imprint. Add this to our ever growing collection of hospital sleaze. The cover has one of paperback history's funniest facial expressions—soon to be smothered by a woman's, er, sin pit, we suspect. As low rent as this illustration is, we don't think even the most acclaimed paperback artists could have nailed this guy's expression the same way. Hell, we can't even convince ourselves Rembrandt or Caravaggio could have done it. It's pure genius—but uncredited, amazingly.
 I was hoping you had time to handle a couple of things for me right now. 
The artist who painted this cover for Curt Aldrich's 1966 sleazer Anytime Girl didn't receive credit, which is not surprising, because it's a simplified copy of a Bob Abbett cover for the 1959 William Campbell Gault novel Sweet Wild Wench. But on the other hand, the cover for Sweet Wild Wench is a simplified copy of a frame from the 1958 Brigitte Bardot film En cas de malheur, aka Love Is My Profession. You'll see what we mean if you look here. We still like this cover, though. Greenleaf Classics and its various imprints—Evening, Candid, Midnight, Ember, Nightstand, et al—had a way of reducing cover concepts to their primal essence. Back then the results were considered tastelessly funny. Probably not so much today, but that's one reason we share these—for the cultural contrast between then and now. If you think society has progressed since then, here's a bit of evidence why that's true. And if you think everyone has simply turned into humorless drones, ditto. Want to see our greatest hits of Greenleaf Classics? Top ten: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Debate and discuss. We'll be back tomorrow to help dispose of the bodies.
 Little Schmo Peep is such a creep and doesn't know how to stop. 
1965's Passion Peeper, for which you see a Darrel Millsap cover above, is another sleaze novel credited to Don Elliott, but allegedly written by future sci-fi author Robert Silverberg. The blurb tells you all you need to know, as a voyeur named J. Martin Crispian gets his rocks off by spying on his female neighbors who live across the courtyard from his apartment. He describes himself as a schmo and a loser unliked by women, though he certainly likes them. Among his obsessions: a blonde who does nude calisthenics every night, a high school aged nympho, and this pair:
They were in a tight embrace. Mr. Crispian watched, startled by what he saw. These two young girls, framed in the window, were unmistakably kissing. [The redhead] began rubbing her hand over the brunette's blue jean-covered buttocks.
Lesbians!
It had to be, Mr. Crispian thought. Two girls who were just roommates or good friends might kiss each other now and then, he figured. But they wouldn't kiss on the lips the way these two were doing. And they wouldn't go in for buttock grabbing and breast squeezing.
That's pricelessly funny. Interestingly, the peeper doesn't appear much through the middle of the story, as Elliott/Silverberg expands his narrative to encompass the lives of other characters. But everything circles back to him, as his spying puts him in the uncomfortable position, Rear Window fashion, of witnessing a possible crime. A clever ending follows, but future sci-fi legend or not, this is mediocre fiction. Silverberg was just trying to pay bills, which we can certainly respect. He later proved he could do much better.
 Sir Squeezalot starts slow but once he gets warmed up he's a hell of a lot of fun. 
1967's Diary of a Dyke was published by Greenleaf Classics for its imprint Pleasure Readers, and the, er, interesting cover was painted by Tomas Cannizarro. The book was written by Robert Silverberg under his Don Elliott alter ego. The distinguished Silverberg is of course famous as the mind behind award winning novels like A Time of Changes and Lord Valentine's Castle, but early in his career he paid the bills by surreptitiously cranking out sleaze classics like LSD Lusters and Sin on Wheels. When these serious writers are outed for their early smut we always picture them reacting like vampires suddenly exposed to the light, shrinking into a far corner and hissing eternal curses. But Silverberg seems pretty chill about having worked in soft porn. He even wrote the foreword to one of the reprints. We'll undoubtedly run across more from him and his worse half later, but until then feel free to click his/their keywords below and explore our previous postings.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.
In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on university property. 1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low
Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again. 1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate
In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy's career. 1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott
In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city's racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city's African-American population were the bulk of the system's ridership.
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