Nightmare Alleys

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Undated paperback.

My reading this week has been William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley, a novel I’d been intending to read for some time after becoming familiar with the story from the first film adaptation. (I haven’t seen the recent version.) Whenever I’m reading a novel that’s been around for a while I have to see how it was presented in the past by designers and illustrators. Nightmare Alley was published in hardback originally, and the book today is marketed as a literary classic, but Gresham’s account of cheap carnivals and fraudulent mediums is sufficiently lurid enough to warrant a variety of different treaments, including pulp excess. The paperback at the top of this post is an extreme example but the cover could easily be applied to any number of noirish thrillers, there’s nothing in the artwork to suggest the carny world or the Spiritualism that the novel’s protagonist, Stanton Carlisle, mercilessly exploits.

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First edition, USA, 1946.

The first edition isn’t a great design but it happens to be faithful to the core storyline, more so than many of the covers that follow. In the film we’re left to guess what the “nightmare alley” of the title might be but in the novel this is a symbol that recurs throughout the story, a literal nightmare of Carlisle’s in which he dreams he’s being chased down a dark alleyway towards a light that remains continually out of reach. The dream weighs enough on Carlisle’s mind for him to regard it as a symbol of the human condition, or at least his soured perception of the same. The cover of the first edition combines this image with the Tarot trump of The Hanged Man which Carlisle turns up in a reading as a signifier of his destiny. Tarot scholars may quibble with this detail—The Hanged Man isn’t as doom-laden or negative as the novel suggests—but Gresham makes good use of Tarot as a structural element, with each chapter named after one of the trump cards, and with elements of the story reflecting the Tarot imagery. Given all this you’d expect cover artists to use Tarot symbolism much more than they do.

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First paperback edition, USA, 1948.

Another odd omission is the colour of Carlisle’s hair which the novel repeatedly tells us is blond. When Carlisle begins his career as a phony preacher and medium his blue-eyed “golden boy” persona is one of his tools for charming and deceiving wealthy widows. Gresham reinforces this in the chapter named after The Sun trump card by having Carlisle identified with the god Apollo. The film adaptations and almost all of the book covers ignore this detail.

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Film tie-in, USA, 1948.

The 1947 film adaptation was directed by Edmund Golding from a screenplay by Jules Furthman. The storyline is condensed and inevitably sanitised for the screen but it’s still one of the best film noir entries from the prime noir decade.

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Art by James Avati, USA, 1949.

James Avati was one of the great paperback illustrators yet even he gives Carlisle dark hair. I suspect by this point everyone expected as much after Tyrone Power’s memorable performance.

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USA, 1986.

And Power’s saturnine features are still providing the dominant image forty years later.

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Fantagraphics, USA, 2003.

I’ve not read the comic-book adaptation by Spain Rodriguez but the cover shows him staying close to the novel.

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NYRB Classics, USA, 2010.

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Centipede Press, USA, 2014. Cover art by David Ho.

A typically fine cover from Centipede Press who specialise in high-quality illustrated editions. David Ho illustrated this edition along with a related title, Grindshow: The Selected Writings of William Lindsay Gresham.

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Festa, Germany, 2019.

Most of the recent covers work the carny angle, few artists or designers seem interested in the “spook racket” side of the story. The Japanese cover below is an odd retread of the first edition, while the Ukrainian cover appears to have little to do with the novel at all until you notice the Tarot cards decorating the alley walls. The most recent film adaptation prompted a wave of translated editions most of which have better covers than the lacklustre film tie-in published by Bloomsbury’s Raven imprint.

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Japan, 2020.

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Ukraine, 2020.

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Raven Books, UK, 2021.

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Planeta, Portugal, 2021.

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Sellerio, Italy, 2021.

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Gallimard, France, 2021.

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Raven Books, UK, 2021.

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Mova, Poland, 2022.

The most recent edition has a cover that tells you little about the novel in a direct sense but I still like this design. I was hoping to credit the designer but the publisher’s website doesn’t have a credit either.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
The book covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
The Big Noir Book, or 300 films and counting…
Carnival designs from New Orleans

13 thoughts on “Nightmare Alleys”

  1. I really appreciate these kinds of articles, in which you provide some literary and cinematic background on a story with a comparative visual tour of artists’ interpretations. These just make excellent reading.

    I thought “Grindshow…” which collects 24 of Gresham’s short stories would be a good addition to my library, but I soon found that copies for sale online are around 800 US dollars! (Gulp).

    By the way, I quite liked the 2021 remake; I think it’s well worth watching.

  2. Funnily enough, I spent some time last week revisiting ‘Nightmare Alley’ (the ’47 version, obvs) on blu-ray, and going through the accompanying audio commentaries — the main takeaway from which is that I need to pick up a copy of the novel ASAP.

    I can scarcely even dream of course of ever owning one of the beautiful vintage editions you’ve posted above; most likely I’ll end up with that dodgy 2021 tie-in version with the guy in the hat, but c’est la vie.

    It would be great ro be able to pick up a copy of the Spain comic adaptation too – I’ve always loved his artwork, and his take on this kind of subject matter must be a sight to behold.

  3. Jim: Thanks. It’s often professional curiosity but it’s also one of those things you can do today with web searches that wouldn’t have been possible in the past. And yes, Centipede Press make very nice books–I’ve appeared in a couple of them–but they’re also costly editions which sell out immediately then command huge prices from book dealers.

    I’ll probably get to see the Del Toro film eventually but I’ve been a bit sniffy towards it since I have a hard time accepting Bradley Cooper in the role of Carlisle. He doesn’t look like an actor with the kind of charisma that Carlisle is supposed to have, he’s more like one of the chumps they fool at the carnival. Tyrone Power is darkly handsome, you can see immediately why women fall under his spell. The rest of the cast isn’t so bad, I’ll watch Cate Blanchett and Willem Dafoe in anything, but Rooney Mara seems miscast as Molly who’s supposed to be a complete innocent when she meets Carlisle. Mara is a good actor but innocence isn’t her thing, she seems to have been cast because she and Blanchett were both in Carol.

    Ben: The novel is really good, better than I expected. I’d like to read more of Gresham’s writings.

  4. I have a copy of that very first paperback shown but still have to read. Also still have to see the Del Toro version (The Power film will be hard to beat)
    But highest recommendation for the Spain adaptation (I am a fan of his):
    >https://gcsalter.wordpress.com/2023/12/20/book-review-nightmare-alley-graphic-novel-by-spain-rodriguez/comment-page-1/
    Speaking of tarot & pulp (VERY loosely):
    Just picked up a paperback of Charles Williams’ THE GREATER TRUMPS out of curiosity. Then reading plot synopsis of Williams novels I was reminded of….Dennis Wheatley–
    Make of that as Ye will

    Geeking out,
    TjZ

  5. By coincidence (or is it? etc), Wormwoodiana posted a piece last month by G. Connor Salter about Gresham reviewing the US edition of The Greater Trumps:

    http://wormwoodiana.blogspot.com/2024/12/william-lindsay-gresham-reviews-charles.html

    I was surprised by the connection, Gresham and Williams are polar opposites in many ways. I’ve read all of Williams’ early novels (still haven’t got round to the last two). I enjoyed The Greater Trumps very much. I think it’s a case of Wheatley being like Williams since the latter published several of his novels before Wheatley got started. Wheatley certainly liked Williams’ books, two of them (War in Heaven and The Greater Trumps) were published in his “Library of the Occult” series in the mid-70s with his introductions. Williams is a much more sophisticated writer than Wheatley even though they share that combination of ordinary middle-class Britons being caught up in occult events. War in Heaven is a little like John Buchan, except instead of the heroes and villains chasing government secrets they’re both after the Holy Grail. Many Dimensions is another good one, borderline science-fiction since it concerns a mysterious stone that allows the owner to travel through time and space.

  6. John – I was also a latecomer to the novel after so many years of loving the Tyrone Power film, but the del Toro version spurred me on and yes, it’s an excellent and well-written book: see how high and man can go, and then see how far he can fall! The newer film has its faults (Bradley Cooper indeed being miscast) but it does stick to the sledgehammer ending of the novel, I think. It’ll never hold a candle to the 1947 version, though, or Powers’ amazingly charismatic performance: “Every boy has a dog…”
    Agree with Jim that your walk-throughs of cover art are always a joy to read/view!

  7. Very good observations of many of the different editions of, “Nightmare Alley.”
    The artwork by James Avati for the 1949 Signet paperback, uses the pose and costume from a 1947 publicity still with Coleen Gray.
    The graphic novel by Spain Rodriguez stays very close to the story, from beginning to end, some of the artwork to some, looks similar to what was seen in 1970s porno and S&M mags.

    Little known/remembered was that the 1946 text/edition was labeled as pornography by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, which banned foreign distribution of the novel, which was among the reasons for later re-edited versions that cleaned up the text.

    Further information about, “Nightmare Alley” and it’s author, can be explored at the William Lindsay Gresham group facebook page.

  8. Diego: Thanks, I was wondering about censorship, the novel is very explicit for something written in the 1940s. It doesn’t surprise me that some of the earlier editions were toned down.

  9. John, if you haven’t yet read Williams’s All Hallows Eve his last novel, I think you will enjoy it. Alongside Williams’ usual concerns he imagines a “shadow” London alongside the London of light, describing how they interpenetrate and the places they do so. His villain, the magician Simon LeClerc, is thought to be Williams’s portrait of Crowley, who he knew in his early Golden Dawn stint. Much of the haunting imagery in the book is derived from Williams’s experience of the blitz.

    And I highly recommend Grevel Lindop’s fine (and revealing) biography.

  10. Oh, I intend to read the rest of the novels, just haven’t got round to them yet. I read the other novels in sequence a couple of years ago then stalled at the last two after feeling in need of a break from Williams’ world. I recently read (and very much enjoyed) Alan Moore’s The Great When which has Crowley himself as one of the characters, as well as being concerned with a different kind of alternate London.

  11. Just to second that recommendation on the Grevel Lindop biography, it’s indeed very good. Though titled for the Inkling’s angle, this forms only a small part of the book, coming towards the end of his life (but does show that the group’s meetings were indeed important to him). The bulk of the book lies outside this, and deals extensively with Williams’ esoteric interests.

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