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Dollar Double 950 - Pillow Tramp / Lash of Desire (tête-bêche)

March Hastings - Pillow Tramp / G.H. Smith - Lash of Desire

Dollar Double Books 950, 1962

Cover Artist: Robert Bonfils

 

The term tête-bêche is used to refer to a single volume in which two texts are bound together, with one text rotated 180° relative to the other, such that when one text runs head-to-tail, the other runs tail-to-head. Etymology: from French meaning "head-to-toe", literally referring to a type of bed.

Books bound in this way have no back cover, but instead have two front covers and a single spine with two titles. When a reader reaches the end of the text of one of the works, the next page is the (upside-down) last page of the other work.

The format became widely known in the 1950s, when Ace Books began to publish its Ace Doubles. This was a line of tête-bêche format paperbacks that ran from 1952 until the early 1970s. The Ace Doubles binding was considered innovative, if somewhat gimmicky, at the time; the 18 October 1952 issue of Publishers Weekly describes it as a "trick format".

 

The tête-bêche format has been used for devotional books since the nineteenth century, and possibly earlier.

 

Perhaps that's why Dollar Double sarcastically chose that format for its first sleazy publication.

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Uploaded on June 15, 2016