Retro Romance Covers
I have some good news for you guys! About three years ago, I wrote a series of posts about romance cover art, with lots of pics. However, I lost it all when my web provider nuked my blog from orbit (that is why I moved to Tumblr). However, I was able to recover a bunch of posts recently. Here is the first long-lost Retro Romance Covers post, with more to follow!
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Today, I am going to post retro romance covers. With today’s dependence on stock photo, illustrated romance covers are becoming a lost art, which is too bad. Though they were considered laughable twenty to thirty years ago, romance covers, which were illustrated by consummate professional artists like the late Pino Daeni, Allan Kass, Elaine Duillo, and Elaine Gignilliat, were often quite beautiful. Here are a few covers I especially like.
This is the oldest book here– originally published in 1965. As far as I know, this is the cover for the original edition. I have no idea who the artist is, but it’s a fun pic– he probably did a lot of advertising work (like for Coca-Cola, judging by the girl). I love how the guy looks like he has dyspepsia. The spaniel is adorable.
This fantastic cover for Laura Parker’s 1790s era historical “Silks and Sabers” by well-known illustrator Elaine Gignilliat is one of my favorites. The amount of detail in this is really astonishing, and it actually references the print Le Bal Paré by Gabriel Saint-Aubin. It’s too bad the girl in the red dress looks like Raquel Welch from “The Three Musketeers,” but eh, you can’t have everything.
Pino Daeni is one of my favorite illustrators, and partially because of him I was determined to become a book cover artist myself. This is one of his earlier efforts, a first edition of Catherine Coulter’s “Chandra.” The book is not Ms. Coulter’s best, but I’ve always loved this illustration– the moonlight and the cool palette seem to make it especially sexy and evocative.
This was a cute little illo by artist Barney Plotkin done for the profoundly ’80s category romance “Here There Be Dragons” by Marianne Clark. While not up to the likes of Daeni or Gignilliat, I like the mid-1980s soap opera vibe this pic has, as well as the perspective. Drawing a birds-eye perspective on a snuggling couple is not something I could do easily.
Amazingly enough, I actually found the original artwork sold here back in 2009– and it looks like it was even more beautiful in real life. Alas, the final printed cover cut out a lot of the nice details on the painting.
Back in the days when stepback covers actually featured more art, not reviews or a longer blurb, this was the stepback cover for the original paperback edition of Karen Robards’ “This Side of Heaven.” The artwork is by illustration heavyweight Elaine Duillo, first major female cover artist and Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame inductee. There’s so much stuff to look at in this illustration, from the fabrics to the flowers to the landscape; I’m especially fond of the cat.
In 1992, Pino Daeni was getting sick working on covers, with their tight deadlines and lack of artistic freedom, but it’s hard to tell this from his work. Even the jobs he did for Harlequin were beautiful– he had an epic sweep and a feel for history that came through in every cover. I really like this cover done for Mary Daheim’s “Gypsy Baron,” with all the gorgeous and authentic 17th century costume details (though I’m not sure St Paul’s Cathedral should be there in the background for a story set in King James I’s time– but oh well). I especially love the heroine’s awesome Marie de Medici collar on the front. That is not something you see on your average romance cover, and at the time I remember it was very eye-catching.
More covers to follow!
