Can You Ever Have Too Many McGinnises?

(Above) Soft Touch (Dell, 1962), Tim Hewitt’s favorite from among the many covers McGinnis painted for John D. MacDonald novels.

This is day 16 of my extended celebration of artist Robert McGinnis’ 99th birthday in the Killer Covers blog. In a slight departure, I am presenting an essay by South Carolina tech writer-turned-book collector Tim Hewitt, in which he explains how he started amassing his stock of McGinnis paperback fronts (“approximately 700” so far), what lengths (and expense) he has gone to in order to acquire rare works, and which McGinnis editions he still hasn’t been able to find.

Click here to find his answers to those questions—and much more.

Tim has been extremely helpful to me in tracking down both images from McGinnis’ extensive portfolio and information about specific titles. Many have been the occasions of late when I have e-mailed him with one question or another, and he’s responded with unexpected swiftness. I imagined him each time bolting upright from his chair and pawing through boxes of dusty vintage works in order to find the volume about which I had a question. I finally had to ask him how he stores all of his McGinnis-painted paperbacks.

“I don't really do anything special,” he told me. “Our house is full of books, but the paperbacks live in one room (wife’s instructions!), where they’re stored on bookshelves, mostly two-deep at the moment. I keep some of the more scarce titles in plastic book bags, but not all of them. And they’re mostly just slotted in with all the other paperbacks arranged by author. I am hoping this summer to rearrange everything and shelve all of the books by cover artist.”

To me, that assignment sounds like no chore whatsoever, but rather a delight-filled endeavor. Though I can just see myself periodically losing focus on completing the task at hand, and instead opening and reading through books of particular attractiveness, the clock ticking away without acknowledged urgency. I’ll be interested to hear whether Tim spends one summer or several on this big job.