An embarrassment of riches: more Molly Clavering dustjackets

After I dedicated a post a couple of weeks ago to some lovely Molly Clavering dustjackets sent to me by Jerri Chase—which, let's face it, due to the scarcity of Clavering's books, we're not going to be able to see anywhere else online—I was delighted to receive scans of the dustjackets of three more of Clavering's books. So, to make all of our mouths water even more for books that most of us will never be able to own (at least with original jacket art), I obviously have to share these with you too.

Almost immediately after my last post went up, I got an email from Geraldine Hogg, a fellow D. E. Stevenson discussion list member (an active one, not a perpetual lurker like me), saying that she had two more Clavering books with jackets and would I like her to scan them. Um, yes, please!

Geraldine's titles are Dear Hugo (1955) and Result of the Finals (1957), and she noted that she enjoyed both of them (she said the only Clavering she's read and not enjoyed was Dr. Glasgow's Family from 1960—just FYI for anyone working on starting a collection).

First, here's the rather lovely front and spine of Dear Hugo:

Then, here are the jacket flaps, with a description of the book and an author bio:

And finally, here's the back cover, which has various blurbs about the earlier Mrs. Lorimer's Quiet Summer (ake Mrs. Lorimer's Family) and Because of Sam:

The other book Geraldine has on her shelves (I've asked her if we couldn't arrange housesitting duties for me for extended periods of time—I would certainly be diligent in dusting all of her books—but pesky things like the Atlantic Ocean and my job keep getting in the way) is Result of the Finals. Here's the charming cover:

And here are the flaps, the front with a description of the story and the back with another author bio—but this one has one of the better quality photos of Clavering that I've seen:

And again, there are enticing blurbs for other Clavering novels on the back:

Geraldine also scanned a notice from the beginning of the book, assuring readers that the match portrayed is entirely fictional:

And just to make us all a bit more jealous of Geraldine's collection, she just happened to mention that her copy of Result is signed by the author:

A couple of days after I heard from Geraldine, I also got another email from Jerri, who had recalled that she also had, in her own collection, a copy of the original edition of Near Neighbours, complete with dustjacket, and sent along scans of that one. Here's the front cover:

And the flaps:

And blurbs for other books on the back:

Strange that Spring Adventure is the only Clavering title we've seen so far that advertised other author's work. It looks like Hodder & Stoughton was focused primarily on promoting Clavering's work, while, for better or worse, when she made the shift to Robert Hale they saw her more as one of a pack of romantic authors in their stable (and apparently they didn't see her as that for long, since, as I forgot to mention last time, Spring Adventure was actually the last of Clavering's novels to appear in book form. She continued, as mentioned in my earlier detailed post on her, to publish serialized novels in The People's Friend, but nothing else was published in book form.)

If anyone has copies of any of Clavering's other books with dustjackets, do let me know and we can continue to flesh out our collection! One wonders if any dustjackets even survive for her earliest novels for John Long, or her works from the 30s for Stanley Paul (under the pseudonym B. Mollett)? If any do, they must be extraordinarily rare.

Thanks again to Geraldine and Jerri for sharing these scans!