Hello and welcome to Book Jacket Bios. Every now and then I will post biographies, images, and other information taken directly from books on the shelf. As always, this blog is for informational and educational purposes only. Copyrights remain with their respective holders.
I'll start with book jacket biographies of Betty Millsaps Jones and Gino D'Achille. They come from Ms. Jones' adaptation of King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, published by Random House and its Step-Up Adventures line in 1982. Readers of fantasy will recognize the work of Gino D'Achille. Born in 1935, Mr. D'Achille has been working as a professional illustrator and fine artist for decades. In the 1970s he created the covers for the Martian novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, issued by Ballantine Books. His eleven wraparound covers for the series are striking, evocative, and dream-like. Some are quite eerie, even frightening, perhaps none more so than the cover of The Chessmen of Mars.
Mr. D'Achille is still living and has a website of his own, the self-titled Gino D'Achille. You can see images of his original paintings there. You can see the book covers themselves on any number of websites, including that of Scott Dutton, here.
Gino D'Achille is a world treasure. I wish him continued health, happiness, and success.
Text copyright 2012 Terence E. Hanley
