Sunday 14 November 2010

Harlequin and Awards

Wallace Stegner (1909 - 1993) is the only Pulitzer Prize and National Book award winner published by Harlequin Books. As a young boy Stegner lived in Eastend Saskatchewan and has written "Saskatchewan is the richest page in my memory for that was where ... for a half dozen years, we had ... a house of our own, a united family, and a living, however hard." His first novel, Remembering Laughter (Boston: Little, Brown, 1937) was published by Dell in their 10 cent series the year before the Harlequin. It is interesting to note that Harlequin clearly had the Dell edition in front of them when designing their cover.

Harlequin 149 - January 1952

Harlequin 149 back

Dell 10 cent 17 - 1951

2 comments:

  1. The similarities are quite striking, particularly the red banner and white font. I wonder whether the novel even mentions details like clothing, the unpainted ladder and the yellow barn wall.

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  2. The scene of the two sisters and one husband has no description of the wall, dress, ladder or anything else. No question that the Harlequin appropriated the Dell illustration. I expect not the only time for Harlequin.

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