{"id":27812,"date":"2025-01-20T16:30:18","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T16:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=27812"},"modified":"2025-01-20T15:47:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T15:47:42","slug":"nightmare-alleys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2025\/01\/20\/nightmare-alleys\/","title":{"rendered":"Nightmare Alleys"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nightmare05.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Undated paperback.<\/em><\/p>\n

My reading this week has been William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley<\/em>, 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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

\"nightmare01.jpg\"<\/p>\n

First edition, USA, 1946.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u2014The Hanged Man isn’t as doom-laden or negative as the novel suggests\u2014but 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.<\/p>\n

\"nightmare03.jpg\"<\/p>\n

First paperback edition, USA, 1948.<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"nightmare02.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Film tie-in, USA, 1948.<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/a> entries from the prime noir decade.<\/p>\n

\"nightmare04.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Art by James Avati, USA, 1949.<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"nightmare06.jpg\"<\/p>\n

USA, 1986.<\/em><\/p>\n

And Power’s saturnine features are still providing the dominant image forty years later.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"nightmare07.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Fantagraphics, USA, 2003.<\/em><\/p>\n

I’ve not read the comic-book adaptation by Spain Rodriguez but the cover shows him staying close to the novel.<\/p>\n

\"nightmare08.jpg\"<\/p>\n

NYRB Classics, USA, 2010.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"nightmare09.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Centipede Press, USA, 2014. Cover art by David Ho.<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"nightmare10.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Festa, Germany, 2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"nightmare11.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Japan, 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"nightmare18.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Ukraine, 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"nightmare12.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Raven Books, UK, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"nightmare13.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Planeta, Portugal, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"nightmare14.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Sellerio, Italy, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"nightmare15.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Gallimard, France, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"nightmare16.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Raven Books, UK, 2021.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"nightmare17.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Mova, Poland, 2022.<\/em><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The book covers archive<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The Big Noir Book, or 300 films and counting\u2026<\/a>
\n\u2022 Carnival designs from New Orleans<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading “Nightmare Alleys”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: Nightmare Alleys","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,12450,4,48,16,38,46],"tags":[3228,6850,13819,13817,13820,4345,552,13818,13778],"class_list":["post-27812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-conjuring","category-design","category-illustrators","category-occult","category-pulp","category-theatre","tag-centipede-press","tag-david-ho","tag-edmund-golding","tag-james-avati","tag-jules-furthman","tag-spain-rodriguez","tag-tarot","tag-tyrone-power","tag-william-lindsay-gresham"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-7eA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27812\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}