LIST 72 | 56 Pulp Novels |
Pulp novels, printed on dirt-cheap paper (hence, the name) and selling for a trifle, are an extinct genre of American writing/publishing. The golden age of the pulps was pretty much 1945 to 1955, but they were around for over a decade before and after this period. A tiny portion of this throwaway lit is still remembered and read today; Louis Lamour, Dashiell Hammet, H.P. Lovecraft, and Ian Fleming are among the few pulpsters who rose above the genre. But they wrote pulp that is still acceptable “genre fiction”—science fiction, horror, Westerns, spy novels, mystery fiction, etc.
What have been almost completely forgotten (except by collectors, bibliophiles, and pulp cultists) are the exploitation pulps that dealt with sex (orgies, adulterous spouses, homosexuality, promiscuous women, etc.), drugs, and violence, sometimes in combination, almost always with as much sensationalism as possible. Sure, 98 percent of the writing was hackneyed and the content didn't live up to its titillating promise, but those lurid titles, taglines, and covers are worthy of immortality.
1. AC-DC Stud
author J.X. Williams
tagline: “A lover and his lady…and his laddie!”
2. Acid Orgy
author: Tony Calvano
tagline: “Psychedelic sin-trippers…way out and wanton!”
3. All on Sunday
author: Don Elliott (pseudonym of Robert Silverberg)
tagline: “The family shame was their only fame!”
4. Basement Game
tagline: “Your children know—but they won't tell you!”
5. Beatnik Wanton
author: Don Elliott
tagline: “She lusted in sin orgies and reefer brawls!”
6. Blondes Are Skin Deep
author: Louis Trimble
7. Boss Lady
author: Ursula Grant
tagline: “How could she expect a teenage stock-boy to sense her shameless need and shocking desires?”
8. By Love Depraved
author: Arthur Adlon
tagline: “Portraying the frightening spread of lesbianism among the white women of modern-day Africa.”
9. Call South 3300: Ask for Molly!
author: Orrie Hitt
tagline: “A candid novel that takes you behind the scenes at those sales conventions!”
10. Campus Kittens
author: Joan Ellis
11. Chain Gang
author: Don Holliday
tagline: “Their sins were the shame of a changing society!”
12. The Cheaters
author: Orrie Hitt
tagline: “Can an unhappy wife be a happy mistress?”
13. Farm Girl
author: Anneke de Lange
tagline: “She lived like a wicked, little animal.”
14. Freakout on Sunset Strip
author: Nick Rogers
tagline: “Fags, freaks and the famous turn the street into a hippie hell.”
15. Go Down, Aaron
author: Chris Davidson
tagline: “Third-sex slave to the Third Reich's brutal lust!”
16. H is for Heroin
author: David Hulburd
tagline: “A teenage narcotic tells her story.”
17. High School Jungle
author: Alex Carter
tagline: “Debbie's date in the park turned into gang rape…And her friends wouldn't let her forget…”
18. Hill Billy in High Heels
author: Jeff Boga
tagline: “She was sixteen…and true to the code of the hills…ripe for love!”
19. Home to Harlem
author: Claude McKay
tagline: “Love was cheap and life was high in the torrid zone of ‘little old’ New York.”
20. Hypno-Sin
author: J.X. Williams
tagline: “You feel very, very…sexy!”
21. If the Coffin Fits
author: Day Keene
22. Into Plutonian Depths
author: Stanton A. Coblentz
tagline: “An exciting science-fiction novel of a world with three sexes on a faraway planet!”
23. It's My Funeral
author: Peter Rabe
tagline: “Never give a killer an even break—shoot first and the blonde's all yours.”
24. Jailbait
author: Jason Hytes
tagline: “She wouldn't stay out of his bed…no matter what he said or did to her!”
25. King of New Lesbos
author: Curt Aldrich
tagline: “Every man's day dream came true for him!”
26. Kiss My Fist!
author: James Hadley Chase
27. The Leather Girls
author: Una Mujer
tagline: “She had the face of an angel, the body of a devil—and the passions of a lesbian!”
28. Lez on Wheels
author: Dan Rader
tagline: “They were she-studs in a free-wheeling trailer of depravity.”
29. Lovemaster
author: Lambert Lacy
tagline: “LSD plunged them into an orgy of violence….”
30. Lust Is No Lady
author: Stephanie Davis
31. Luther: Amber Satyr
author: Roy Flannagon
tagline: “A swamp Negro…A White trash woman…A tragic hunger.”
32. Marihuana
author: William Irish
tagline: “A cheap and evil girl sets a hopped-up killer against a city.”
33. Marijuana Girl
author: N.R. DeMexico
tagline: “She traded her body for drugs—and kicks!”
34. Mulatto
author: Joan Ellis
tagline: “She played upon men's lusts to get anything she wanted…then she tried to cross the color line”
35. Murder Is Dangerous
author: Saul Levinson
36. Musk, Hashish and Blood
author: Hector France
tagline: “The adventures of a modern man among the cruel men and passionate women of Algiers.”
37. Naked She Died
author: Don Elliott
38. Nautipuss
author: Clyde Allison
tagline: “Agent 0008 battles the temptress of the deep!”
note: This was part of a James Bond spoof series featuring the voluptuous but deadly Agent 0008.
39. The Needle
author: Sloane M. Britain
tagline: “Man or woman, sister or brother: her lust knew no bounds.”
40. Older Woman
author: Sheldon Lord
tagline: “Where could this woman-boy love affair lead?”
41. Perfume and Pain
author: Kimberly Kemp
42. The Petting Generation
author: Lucius B. Steiner
tagline: “The fine art of petting, completely described with authentic case histories.”
43. The Price of Salt
author: Claire Morgan (pseudonym of Patricia Highsmith)
note: Generally considered the first lesbian pulp novel with a happy ending.
44. Queer Patterns
author: Lilyan Brock
tagline: “A delicate theme, treated honestly and candidly.”
45. Rally Round the Fag
author: Don Holliday
note: This was part of a series spoofing The Man from U.N.C.L.E., called The Man from C.A.M.P.
46. Satan Was a Lesbian
author: Fred Haley
47. Shayne
author: John Burton Thompson
tagline: “A nymphomaniac who turned men into sex candles and burned them at both ends. Then she fell in love…”
48. The Sins of Seena
author: Don Elliott
49. Slum Doctor
author: Matthew Clay
50. Tender Torment
author: Randy Salem
tagline: “Her marriage was born in hell—her husband was a woman!”
51. Those Sexy Saucer People
author: Jan Hudson
52. The Trailer Park Girls
author: Glenn Canary
tagline: “Their love was as mobile as their home and just as carefree.”
53. TV Tramps
author: Walter Dyer
tagline: “On camera they violate the Code of Decency. Off camera they violated each other.”
54. Widow's Delight
author: J.X. Williams
tagline: “She wore black…but not much of it!”
55. Women's Barracks
author: Tereska Torres
tagline: “The frank autobiography of a French soldier girl.”
note: This book was condemned by name by the House Un-American Activities Committee.
56. 69 Barrow Street
author: Sheldon Lord
tagline: “Their love was right! But their sex was wrong.”