In 1967, Corgi Books teamed up with Kit-E-Kat and pet food manufacturers Petfoods Ltd. to offer free books. All you had to do was collect 12 Kit-E-Kat labels and you could select from a range of Corgi paperbacks. I found this little advert tucked away in a copy of Shane, Jack Schaefer's classic Western novel... #4 in Corgi's six good reasons to pick up Kit-E-Kat.
The copy of Shane was the 14th Corgi printing. This was back in the days when paperbacks could sell in there tens of thousands and some hit the magic million copies. It's shocking to think that many charity shops now throw away pre-decimal books and the best-sellers of yesterday are slowly but steadily disappearing into skips.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
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I have a paperback copy of that Jack Schaefer novel, somewhere, Steve, but its not one I acquired via that offer: it has a beautiful 'impressionistic' style cover, which, as I recall, is of the hero on horseback.
ReplyDeleteI've read very few Western novels but thats a beautiful, spare, Masterpiece which compares favourably with any great novels of the 20th Century
The Ad reminds me of my days as a "Buyer" from Rep's at an old English Bookshop...somewhere in Hampshire during the 1970's/80's
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