We've talked about French author Louis-Charles Royer and mentioned the staying power of his novels, which enjoyed many English language reprints throughout the 1950s. Love Camp is Royer doing what he does best, which is exploring sexual niches and conjuring up romance in far flung locales. The story is as the art depicts—women are chosen for the honor of attempting to mate with Nazi soldiers in order to breed a master race. The program was known as Lebensborn, or Fount of Life, and was under control of the SS.

The book interweaves the lives of characters brought to a lakeside monastery for some state sponsored bonin'. Some of them fall in love, others struggle with shame, one fights to preserve a female friend's virginity, and so forth, while the doctor who runs the show manages to knock up an eager young recruit only to later reject her and blame her pregnancy on another soldier.

It's all exactly as titillating as it sounds, with women paraded naked before men, a lesbian matron having her way with rejected recruits, nude exercise sessions, and other indulgences, all under the dark Nazi aegis. There were many naziploitation books written during the mid-century period, and while it's probably a good thing the trend died, it really did lend itself quite well to exploring perversion and evil. But considering the Nazis' real world toll, such lightweight books can only minimize the horror. The Pyramid paperback you see here is from 1953 with art by Julian Paul.

The 1959 mystery Crime Cop was written by Larry Holden, which was a pseudonym used by author Lorenz Heller. Why he ever used a pseudonym over his real name Lorenz Heller is the real mystery, as that's about as writerly a name as one could hope to have. Actually, he did publish under his own name one time when he debuted in 1937, but soon chose new identities, including Frederick Lorenz and Burt Sims, the latter of which was reserved for his television writing. In this novel cops Flavin and Gilman hunt a strangler. The cover art, which is battered but beautiful (just like us!), is by Harry Schaare.  

“A first novel that holds little promise of a future.” Thus concluded one 1949 review of Katherine Everard's Cry Shame!, aka A Star's Progress. This assessment is funny because Everard was a pseudonym used by American literary treasure Gore Vidal, who'll be remembered far longer than any of his critics. Cry Shame! tells the story of a girl who becomes a stripper in New Orleans at age thirteen, a wife for a much older man at age fourteen, a Hollywood starlet as an adult, and finally—thanks to romantic misfortune—a broken woman. Today's critics claim they can see touches of Vidalian genius in various details of the book. Of course they can. This Pyramid edition comes complete and unabridged—except for the bottom half inch of the cover cut off by some shoddy work at the printer—with art by Harry Bennett. 

Above, a classic piece of good girl art by illustrator Frank Cozzerelli for Si Podolin's Devil's Cargo, 1955, from Pyramid-Giant. The book is about a solder of fortune and an “Arab bellydancer” who team up in Marseilles to smuggle stolen weapons into French Morocco. It was written around the time of a lot of unrest there, which gives it some extra spice, and Morocco finally gained independence a year later. 

That old rascal Louis-Charles Royer is at it again, this time with French Doctor, which appeared as a Pyramid paperback in 1951 and was popular enough to be reprinted multiple times. Originally published in 1942 as Le désir, it’s the story of a French doctor and the internal medicine he provides to three women named Magoune, Elise, and of course, Kitty, because no French sleaze novel would be complete without a Kitty. Royer wrote beginning in the 1920s, and his work proved enduringly popular, with both new novels and English translations of his old books appearing throughout the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s. It’s interesting that as widely read as he was, there’s virtually no info on him. There isn’t even a web page—French or English—listing his full bibliography. Maybe we’ll step up to the plate on that one later. The cover of French Doctor was painted by Hunter Barker, as was the one immediately below. We also found a third American version. And finally, in panel four we thought we’d show you the French paperback, with art by the genius painter Emile Baes.

Update: there is now, a couple of years after we originally wrote the above, a French Wikipedia page, which you can access here.

Italian goldsmith, sculptor, painter, musician, brawler, murderer, duelist and deep dick artist Benvenuto Cellini certainly had a high opinion of himself, judging from his 1563 autobiography. But certainly the book would not have survived four centuries to receive the pulp cover art makeover it got from Pyramid in 1953 if the contents were not riveting. Some of the historical details Cellini describes can be verified; others, like the time he claims to have seen devils summoned in Rome’s colosseum, cannot. Cellini writes: We repaired to the Colloseo, and the priest, according to the custom of necromancers, began to draw circles upon the ground with the most impressive ceremonies imaginable: he likewise brought hither assafoetida, several precious perfumes and fire, with some compositions also which diffused noisome odors. As soon as he was in readiness, he made an opening to the circle, and having taken us by the hand, ordered the other necromancer, his partner, to throw the perfumes into the fire at the proper time, intrusting the care of the fire and the perfumes to the rest; and then he began his incantations. This ceremony lasted above an hour and a half, when there appeared several legions of devils insomuch that the amphitheatre was quite filled with them. In addition to this acid trip—that’s what it sounds like to us—Cellini also writes of duels he won, enemies he outsmarted, murders he committed, and countless women he bedded. The only word that describes his epic existence is “Cellini-esque.” If you see his autobiography on a bookstore shelf, we recommend you pick it up. 100% true or not, it’s quite a tale.