Francis King died in 2011 after a long and prolific career as one of the UK's best twentieth century novelists. He was openly gay from the 1970s onwards and there are gay themes and characters throughout his novels. The Domestic Animal (1969), pictured below, even has the rather disingenuous blurb on the back, "... this is not merely another homosexual novel...". A number of his titles have now found a new life with the wonderful Valancourt Books in Richmond Virginia but many are still only to be found on the secondhand shelves.
Not only was King writing gay interest novels and stories, he was also writing right through the period that interests us most here on Front Free Endpaper when it comes to jacket design and so it is hardly a surprise to find his jackets making an appearance. Not all are credited but many are now scarce, including the Donovan Lloyd jacket, below, for King's first novel To The Dark Tower. Bigger names also illustrated his covers including Osbert Lancaster in very recognisable style providing a cover for the pseudonymous The Firewalkers and a detail from Duncan Grant used as a cover for A Domestic Animal.
