A Harlequin Valentine from Syd Dyke

Holy Deadlock
A.P. Herbert
Toronto: Harlequin, 1954
Cover: Syd Dyke

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Another Harlequin Valentine

This Year's Harlequin Valentine

A Harlequin Valentine from Day Keene
Romance… Harlequin Romance

Harlequin: The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

In Appreciation of Syd Dyke, Illustrator

Writing here last week, I described Syd Dyke as unappreciated. I stand by that word. Apart from a few pieces posted a couple of years back at Fly-by-night, I've found seen no recognition of the man; and yet he was responsible for so many of the most interesting and attractive Canadian post-war paperback covers. Dyke illustrations are usually easy to spot: look for a peculiar angle and a ridiculous amount of entirely superfluous detail.

Just think how much time went into the staircase gracing He Learned About Women… (Toronto: News Stand Library, 1950). And is that check-in sign really necessary?

Lobby Girl
Gerald Foster
Toronto: News Stand Library

Another book, another lobby, another lobby girl. Unglue your eyes from those gams, head north and a bit west so as to dodge the blonde's bosom and you'll see: a potted plant, a bellhop carrying a hatbox and… what exactly? A crystal ball? And what's up with that that guy's dainty looking ring?

To say Dyke was the finest of the New Stand Library artists is probably not much of a compliment; with Paperjacks and New Canadian Library, NSL is responsible for many of the ugliest, most ineptly produced books to have ever come out of this country.

I much prefer his style to that of prolific NSL regular D. Rikard. The differences between the two illustrators is best seen in their approaches toward Al Palmer's Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street. Rickard's 1949 cover has Sugar-Puss walking beneath a brightly lit marquee, bringing too much light to what is a dark, if somewhat silly story. Dyke's 1950 cover, produced for the American market, better captures the novel's atmosphere, though it does make our two lovebirds, Jimmy and Gisele, look like pimp and prostitute.

Credit goes to both illustrators for capturing Giselle's breasts, "large and firm; a legacy of her Norman ancestry."

Bricks and mortar aside, Dyke shows some restraint in terms of detail with Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street. To be fair, the illustrator would on occasion go for something relatively simple.

Dyke's cover for In Passion's Fiery Pit (1950) by the Joy Brown (later Carroll) is a favourite. Don't blame the illustrator for the cut-off title, it's typical of News Stand Library.

What follows are four more of my favourite Syd Dyke NSL covers.

Never See the Sun
Hall Bennett
1950

Carnival of Love
Anthony Scott
1950

Strange Desires
Alan Malston
1950

Too Many Women
Gerry Martin
1950

He Learned About Women… Too Many Women.

After – perhaps before – News Stand Library literally went up in flames, Syd Dyke began working for Harlequin. There he showed a bit more restraint, but then the titles themselves were less quirky. He provided covers for books by Agatha Christie, W. Somerset Maugham and son of Napanee H. Bedford-Jones, but his specialty was westerns. Of all his Harlequins, my favourite is Hospital Nurse (1954), which fairly anticipates the path the publisher would pursue a decade later.

Hospital Nurse
Lucy Agnes Hancock

Gotta love those floor tiles.

Related post:

Unsettling Garners

Unsettling Garners

Hugh Garner's pseudonymous second novel, Waste No Tears, goes to press next week, returning after a sixty-four year absence as part of the Véhicule Press Ricochet Books series. I'm proud to have played a part in its resurrection, and am particularly pleased with myself for having asked Amy Lavender Harris to pen the Introduction. Anyone at all familiar with her work will understand.

Waste No Tears is not a feel-good novel, but then one would never expect such a thing from a book pitched as "The Novel about the Abortion Racket". The cover, by unappreciated Winnipeg boy Syd Dyke, has haunted me from the day I first set eyes on it.

Published in 1950 by Toronto's New Stand Library, it's a rare book – so rare that two decades later George (then Doug) Fetherling had to give it a pass when writing on Garner for Forum House's Canadian Writers & Their Works series:

It is a novel so scarce that it cannot be found in Canada's largest public library, it's largest university library or even the National Library's copyright deposit.

Odd thing about Garner: his books were graced with some of the most disturbing images. He was, of course, a Governor General's Award-winner, once considered one of our greatest short story writers, but you'd never know it to look at these.

Hugh Garner's Best Stories
Richmond Hill, ON: Pocket Books, 1971

A Nice PLace to Visit
Toronto: Ryerson, 1970

A Nice Place to Visit
Richmond Hill, ON: Pocket Books, 1971

Violation of the Virgins
Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1970

Violation of the Virgins
Richmond Hill, ON: Pocket, 1975

Out of print, each and every one. Well, next month Waste No Tears will be available again, in original cover tweaked to give Garner his due. Pre-orders are being taken by the usual sources.

Can't wait? There's a decent copy of the original New Stand Library edition listed online. But it'll cost you US$249, and it won't have Amy's Introduction.

Related post:

The Return of Hugh Garner's Neglected Novel