The Look of Love

by Jennifer McKnight-Trontz

Princeton Architectural Press, New York. Tall trade-size paperback, 144 pages. Color illustrations throughout. The history of the romance novel during the vintage paperback years. A 30-page introduction outlines the "rise" of the romance paperback (in fact, paperbound romance novels had been around since well before the turn of the century). She gives a pretty good overview of most of the big names in the genre during the 40's and 50's ( Baldwin, Norris, Gaddis, Del Mar, etc), and hits all the major publishers.

The book has an interesting "feel" to it. The pages are of especially heavy paper stock, and some of the full-page illustrations feel almost like over-sized postcards. Bright and colorful. A nice volume on the history of the romance novel during this period.