Most mid-century lesbian fiction was written by men disguised behind pseudonyms. While Sloane Britain was indeed a pseudonym, its owner was actually a woman—Midwood-Tower editor Elaine Williams, who published from 1959 until committing suicide in 1964 at age thirty-three. The Needle concerns a woman who gets hooked on heroin and follows her long and winding road downhill, with the expected stops at dealing, prostitution, withdrawal, and relapse. But there are also a couple of great twists you don't get in typical heroin novels. Considered a classic of the drug sleaze genre, it was published in 1959. This fits nicely with our collection of needle paperback covers from a few years ago, which you can see here. 

Whenever we say “someone” should do something that just means we’re being lazy. A couple of days ago we said we liked therapy sleaze fiction covers and someone should put together a collection. Well, that someone turned out to be us. We took a quick scuttle around the web and the result is this small group of people baring their souls—and sometimes more—to their therapists. In P.G. Wodehouse’s case, the main character of Lady Doctor is actually a medical practitioner, but since others confide in her and the awesome Dutch cover is psychoanalytic in style, we’ve included that. The last three examples come from Killer Covers, which is a site you should get into the habit of visiting regularly. 

Above is another rare double-sided Robert Bonfils paperback cover, this time for Any Man’s Playmate and Strumpet’s Jungle, written by Rubel, aka  James Rubel, and Sloane Britain, respectively. See the first example we shared here. 

Above, a nice cover for Sloane Britain’s, aka Elaine Williams’ Meet Marilyn, from Midwood-Tower, 1963. Originally published in 1960, this is sort of an anthology novel, with various characters populating separate chapters before crossing paths at the same decadent Manhattan party, with the whole web really a set-up for assorted steamy hetero and gay encounters. The art is by Al Wagner.