Weiss, Joe [Joseph D.]
 
Passion Blues (First Edition, 1953)
 
New York: Woodford Press, 1953. Octavo, 221pp, original dust jacket. First Edition, May 11, 1953. Jazz in NYC & Catskill mountain resort, "hot trumpet players and the stimulations they needed to make their trumpets hot...", gangsters, bars, cafes, female singers, slight lesbian theme, love triangle. Weiss also wrote "How Rough Can It Get?" (1951, Woodford Press).
 
Hardcover sleaze (essentially romance pulp novels lacking certain 4-letter words) saw popularity in 1930s, later published in 1950s by Arco, Argyle, Balzac, Brookwood, Key, Signature, Vixen, Woodford Press, many being conglomerates or managed by same individuals, notably Signature & Woodford Press. Jack Woodford, sleaze pioneer & Baltimore mainstay, wrote successfully about writing, publishing, & romantic pulp fiction, employing a number of pseudonyms. 
 
A complete bibliography of hardcover sleaze has yet to be furnished, however. Most titles are well-built books, if one can overlook the cheap ink & paper stock. The advent of legitimate paperback sleaze of 1950s-60s signaled the end of classic hardcover era. Many titles were inevitably banned, as many saw reprints by publishers like Beacon Books, who reprinted this title late 1950s (BB145).
 
Very Good Plus in Very Good Plus dust jacket. Faint pencil price to front endpaper, brief dampstain to lower board corners; jacket w/ same dampstains, light bruises/scratches & edge wear, a few tiny tears.  [Book ID 125994] [Literature (LT)]