EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 15 © 2016 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

65 LEFT: Classic Peff cover for 'Moonraker', the actor Dick Orme was the model of choice. ABOVE: Sam also spent time as a boxer, as this photo of him in pugilistic pose with a mass of his boxing trophies attests. a particular talent for illustrating mystery and noir novels, but he also did stunning work in the Western and war genres. Simply put, Sam Peffer was one of the most versatile and prolific of British artists and his paperback cover images have become illustration icons. Sam Peffer studied at the Hornsey School of Art and began his art career in the late 1930s, just before World War II, painting large movie advertisements that were displayed in front of the cinemas during the film’s run. These huge paintings were incredible, classic film ads that, in some cases, were as large as the entire front of the cinema. There is nothing like them today and they are a lost art. After his service in the Merchant Marine in World War II, Peff continued with theatre ads and it was only in about 1954 that he began doing paperback cover illustrations for the many new publishers starting up at that time. I had the good fortune of corresponding with Sam a few years ago and he graciously allowed me to quote extensively in this article from his unpublished autobiography. “Apart from the advertising illustrations I had my first introduction to cover designs for paperback books. On two occasions I did covers for a series of detective stories, published by a company under the name of Milestone Publications. Since the end of the war paperbacks had been making quite an impact on the publishing world.