The Art of Reginald Heade Volume Three

When volume two of this series of books detailing the works of Reginald Heade arrived in 2020, it was widely thought to be the final word on Heade and his career as one of Britain's premier cover and dust jacket artists. Six years later, we have an update that not only offers further insight into his life, his family and the agents and publishers he worked for, but an astonishing collection of previously unknown dust jacket illustrations, most of them dating from the 1930s and impossible to find these days, puzzles, sketches and advertising. 

Some of the images, especially of paperbacks from the Hank Janson-era—although not HJ himself, as that is a separate book, Hank Janson Under Cover (2021)—you'll recognise as having appeared in earlier volumes, but here they are often printed full page and from superior scans. An example is The Tenderfoot by W.H.B. Kent, previously in volume 1 (Special Edition, p.154) which was comparatively dark and muddy up against the new version (Volume 3, p.211). A quarter page scan of Ladies of the Red Lamp by Roland Vane (Special Edition, p.77) is now a full page (Volume 3, p.373) and the quarter page White Slave Racket by Vane (Special Edition, p.79) has now been scanned from the original artwork (Volume 3, p.372).

There are many more full page images this time around, and these images are 15-20% larger than the original paperback covers. I don't have many dust jackets for comparison, but it looks like they vary from life size to a little smaller where the spine image is shown. I'm certainly not complaining, as the reproduction is sharp and someone (Stephen Walker?) has gone to a lot of trouble to make the images free of any defects. All the images are identified and often accompanied with a light-hearted comment—many Heade couples show a tendency for the men to be laser-focused on their lady, while the women seem preoccupied with other things.

Fans of Heade's work will find plenty of new covers that they have never had an opportunity to see before and, even if you recognise the cover, chances are you've never seen it looking so good. The whole thing is an unexpected delight for those of us who thought volume two was the final word.

The Art of Reginald Heade Volume Three. Telos Publishing ISBN 978-1845-83261-2, July 2026, 390pp, £49.99. Available from the publisher and via Amazon.

The Art of Reginald Heade Volume Two

This second volume collecting the works of Reginald Heade offers a far greater insight into the breadth of his career than the first volume, which concentrated primarily on Heade's cover artwork during the dozen years after the Second World War. Little was known about his work prior to this, a situation now amply resolved thanks to the ongoing research of Steve Walker and Steve Chibnall, who also provide a detailed biography of Heade's life.

And a tough life it was, too. The illegitimate child of a barmaid, he was born Reginald Cyril Webb, his birth certificate blank where his father's name should be—although known to be a gypsy traveller named Joseph Heade. To confuse matters further, Webb used the name 'Heade' to sign his work and adopted the name from an early age. He eventually changed his name officially to Reginald Cyril Heade in 1945, but following the prosecution of Hank Janson in 1954, signed his later work 'Cy Webb'.

A talented artist from childhood, his earliest commercial work dates from 1931, his talents used by Faber & Faber, Hutchinson, Foulsham, Hodder & Stoughton and Collins. With the outbreak of war, and the swift collapse of publishing schedules, Heade found work where he could. Still contributing to major publishers—including Mills & Boon where he worked extensively—but also painting children's booklets, jigsaw puzzles and other commercial work.

In 1947, Heade was offered work painting covers by the burgeoning original paperback market. At the time he was struggling financially, raising a young daughter, Sally, with his partner, model Lily (Paddy) Walker. Heade was not a well man, suffering from a heart condition, a breathing condition made worse by his chain-smoking habit, and poor eyesight. He worked constantly, his studio shielded from the rest of the family home by a curtain, tubes of paint and reference volumes scattered around the room.

Then Paddy died and Heade found himself unable to raise Sally himself. Foster parents were found, but Heade would visit her on the south coast and she would spend school holidays with him. This unhappy situation left its mark. Heade was described as troubled and unhappy, his eyesight failing, his artwork attracting complaints for being salacious and the books they covered accused of being obscene. With the boom in paperback originals crushed in 1954 and his chief outlets shut down, Heade reinvented himself to produce increasingly detailed covers for Pan and Panther Books.

Sadly, Heade's career was cut short by a heart attack when he was only 56. Now, over sixty years later, his admirers are still trying to piece together a complete index of his work. The two volumes compiled by Stephen James Walker gather up a huge amount of work, including preparatory pencil sketches and colour roughs of book covers, illustrations and adverts, gold dust to any fan. Reproductions from original artwork mean that these pages contain the best reproductions many will have seen, far better than the often battered copies of books that most of us own.

One aspect of the book that we should all appreciate is that the authors are aware that more work remains to be discovered. Colour roughs exist with no accompanying dust jacket, and some publishers are still severely under-researched, thanks in part to copyright libraries removing dust jackets when the books were submitted. The hunt for Heade continues and, with luck, there will one day be enough material to warrant a third volume.

The Art of Reginald Heade Volume Two. Telos Publishing ISBN 978-1845-83155-4, November 2020, 383pp, £50.00. Available from the publisher and via Amazon.

The Art of Reginald Heade (Special Edition)

(* A new edition of this title has been published with some minor changes; see my update at the bottom of this review.)

I reviewed the original edition of The Art of Reginald Heade by Stephen James Walker when it was originally published in January 2017. A bumper compendium of stunning art by one of the best cover artists to grace British books. I said at the time that "this is everything the Heade collector could want," and praised the book for being "astonishingly complete for those covers we know about." Complaints? Some of the images could have been larger and a handful – a small handful – were reproduced from very poor scans.

Well, there is now a Special Edition, which almost doubles the original 168 pages, answering my plea about "wanting more" and fixing most of the reproduction problems with new and better scans. Some images that were small are now larger, notably scarce items such as his colour illustrated Treasure Island, which had 28 plates and a cover spread over not quite two pages, which now appear over eight pages. The reproduction appears better on at least some of the images that have not changed (I've not gone through the whole book with a magnifying glass... but I've gone through some of it).

But the real bonus is the number of additional images, over 400 according to the back cover. While Heade's paperback covers were well represented in the earlier edition, this latest version adds a few previously missing Hamilton and Brown Watson titles, and fills in the gaps left last time in the Timothy Trenton novels published by various printers for Gaywood.

The greatest expansion is probably in reproductions of dust-jackets for adult and children's books. The original book had 18 pages of hardbacks to the Special Edition's 54, and his earliest work displayed now dates back to 1932 rather than 1936. The one thing that might strike you is how accomplished Heade was as an artist from the very start. and how he captured the essence of femininity in his female models. His male models were perfunctory in comparison, usually placed behind the woman who was the focus of the image.

The children's section is expanded from 20 pages to 76, with a great many more reproductions and some interesting examples of unused alternative colour art from a couple of books.

Add a bonus gallery at the end, and the additional 150 pages offer almost a new book's worth of Heade's fantastic artwork. I said in my original review that "To have all these rare book covers in one place fulfills a collector's dream." That now goes (almost) double for the Special Edition.

The Art of Reginald Heade Special Edition. Telos Publishing ISBN 978-1845-83116-5, 24 August 2018, 318pp, £50.

UPDATE - 10 November 2020

The Art of Reginald Heade Special Edition has now been re-released with the slight change in title to add "Vol. 1" to the spine in reference to the simultaneous release of The Art of Reginald Heade Volume Two. The copyright page notes that the reprint has some minor revisions, and it is also worth noting that there is a further improvement to the reproduction of some of the covers, as can be seen in the comparison above. The new printing is on the left, the earlier on the right.

The book is essentially the same – I noticed only one additional image (p.168) – so don't feel that you need to replace your copy if you already have one. However, if you don't have a copy, this is a good opportunity to get this essential book on the art of one of Britain's finest cover artists.

The Art of Reginald Heade Special Edition. Telos Publishing ISBN 978-1845-83116-5, November 2020, 319pp, £50. Available from the publisher or via Amazon.

Michael Storme cover gallery

Michael Storme is one of the authors featured in my new book Forgotten Authors Volume 3.

Make Mine a Shroud
Archer Press, (May 1949), 96pp, 1/6. Cover by Heade

Unlucky Virgin
Archer Press, (Sep 1949), 96pp, 1/6. Cover by Thorpe

Make Mine a Harlot
Archer Press, (Oct) 1949, 128pp, 1/6. Cover by John Pollack

Make Mine Beautiful
Archer Press, (Nov) 1949, 128pp, 1/6. Cover by John Pollack

Make Mine a Virgin
Archer Press, 1949 (Jan 1950), 128pp, 1/6. Cover by John Pollack

Make Mine Dangerous
Archer Press, 1949 (Feb 1950), 128pp, 1/6. Cover by John Pollack

Make Mine a Corpse
Archer Press, (Jun) 1950, 128pp, 1/6. Cover by John Pollack

Sucker for a Red-Head
Archer Press, (Aug) 1950, 128pp, 1/6. Cover by Heade

Dame in my Bed
Archer Press, nd (1950), 128pp, 1/6. Cover by Heade

Satan Buys a Wreath
Archer Press, 1950 (Mar 1951), 128pp, 1/6. Cover by Heade

Hot Dames on Cold Slabs
Archer Press, (Dec) 1950, 128pp, 1/6. Cover by Heade

Elvira Digs a Grave
Harborough, nd (Mar 1952), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Chicago Terror
Harborough, nd (Apr 1952), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Lovelies are Never Lonely
Harborough, nd (Apr 1952), 127pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Stella Buys a Shroud
Harborough, nd (Apr 1952), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Make Mine a Redhead
Harborough, nd (Oct 1952), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Kiss the Corpse Goodbye
Harborough, nd (Nov 1952), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Baby Don’t Love Hoodlums
Harborough, nd (Mar 1953), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Dragons Come Expensive
Harborough, nd (Mar 1953), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

You’ll Be Better Off Dead
Harborough, nd (Mar 1953), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Sweetheart with a Wreath
Harborough, nd (Jul 1953), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Me and My Ghoul
Harborough, nd (Aug 1953), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Tiptoe Thro’ a Graveyard
Harborough, nd (Aug 1953), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

Baby Don’t Say Goodbye
Harborough, nd (Oct 1953), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

The Devil Has a Racket
Harborough, nd (Jan 1954), 128pp, 2/-. Cover by Heade

(* Some of the scans here are from Stephen James Walker's The Art of Reginald Heade.)

The Art of Reginald Heade

The Art of Reginald Heade has been a labour of love for author Stephen James Walker. Collecting Heade artwork is no easy task, nor a cheap one. As a collector of old cheap gangster digests, I can attest that books were relatively cheap in the 1980s, but began to creep steadily upwards in price in the 1990s. In the 2000s, some Heade books were going for three figures as interest spread to collectors in the USA. Scarcity meant contemporary British digests were also rising in price, but nothing when compared to titles that could boast Heade covers.

To have all these rare book covers in one place fulfils a collector's dream. I can speak with first hand knowledge of how difficult it is to gather all of Heade's covers into one place, having taken over for some years (2003-06) the Hank Janson website set up by Allan Tagg. Heade was a prolific paperback cover artist in the post war years for some of the cheapest, lousiest publishers around, and to lay your hands on a high quality copy of any of his books is nowadays akin to a miracle.

The book is astonishingly complete for those covers we know about. Beginning in 1933, Heade began producing covers for the popular magazine Britannia and Eve, a task he continued for a decade, and dust jackets for hardbacked books. The Second World War cut short what would have been a glittering career. He suddenly faced an uncertain future as magazines folded and book publishing became patchy at best as paper shortages devastated he publishing industry.

It was only in the post-war era of cheap paperbacks that Heade thrived again, painting covers for most of the Hank Janson novels and for many of Hank's rivals. His talents were spotted early by Raymond Locker, who employed Heade for his Paul Renin romance novels and gangster yarns by Michael Storme, Gene Ross and Spike Morelli, amongst others. When the Lockers headed across the pond to set up Leisure Library, Heade was one of their major selling points.

A golden age was dulled by the death of his wife and the enforced departure of his daughter; Heade struggled on even as his publishers were gradually forced out of existence through destruction orders and prosecution. He resurfaced as Cy Webb, painting covers for Panther Books and Pan Books, but his health declined and he died at the age of 56.

For the most part, the book is everything that fans will want. Short bursts of text give context to the various sections the book is broken down into (Hank Janson, Locker & Co., US editions, harbacks, periodicals, etc.) with the bulk of the book's 168 pages given over to cover reproductions. The majority are presented four to the page, with selected covers shown full page. His fully-illustrated children's books (Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe) are reproduced at much smaller size, which is a shame, as they are uncommon and deserve to be seen at their best.

Whilst larger reproductions in places would be nice, it is a case of wanting more rather than problems within the book.* If I have any complaint to make, it is that the scarcity of some books has resulted in a number of rather poor scans being reproduced. The low quality of the original printing and paper doesn't help matters, but some scans have obvious jpeg artifacts, notably Plaything of Passion (p.53), Girl of the Bordellos (p.78), Don't Fall Sucker (p.98) and elsewhere.

Overall, this is everything the Heade collector could want. There is an author's note at the back in which author Walker mentions a number of titles that might be Heade and a second noting a handful of titles that have escaped his efforts to find. I've racked my brains trying to think of any covers that are missing from the book and I can think of only one – it's unsigned but I suspect this could be Heade.

The Art of Reginald Heade by Stephen James Walker. Telos Publications ISBN 978-1845-83115-8, January 2017, 168pp, £26.99. Available from Telos / Amazon.

* I've found only one actual error: p.106, The Two Red Capsules by David Lindsay was published by John Hamilton rather than Hamilton & Co., the commonly-used abbreviation for Hamilton & Co. (Stafford) Ltd., as used elsewhere in the book.