Today I'm looking back at a rather forgotten pulp genre... swamp pulp!

Raw nature was the main theme of swamp pulp; a world where the heat and the smell of brackish water had driven the locals wild with desire...

Swamp Girl, by Perry Lindsay. Intimate Novel no 11, 1950.

Swamp pulp normally involved an 'innocent bad girl' protagonist. The narrative premise was often "on the make but out of her depth."

Swamp Sister, by Robert Edmond Alter. Gold Medal Books, 1961.

Swamp stories were a kind of Western in some ways, but in the bayou it was sex rather than violence that led to fame, fortune or sometimes revenge.

Swamp Girl, by Evans Wall. New English Library, 1971.

There's an element of voyeurism in swamp pulp, along with sexual taboo-breaking. You're being invited to peer at a pagan world in the heart of modern America.

Swamp Lust, by Tony Dalvano (aka Tony Calvano). Bedside Book 1206, 1961.

Swamp pulp probably peaked in the early 1960, and there are fewer examples of the genre in later years. Relaxed censorship rules possibly hastened its fall from fashion.

Swamp Bred, by George H Smith. Newsstand Library, 1960.

Not all swamp pulp was exploitative; some titles played up the innocence and vitality of bayou folk compared to the more calculating, cynical city dweller.

Swamp Brat, by Allen O'Quinn. Gold Medal Books, 1956.

Will swamp pulp ever come back into fashion? I doubt it. Take out the colloquial language and the lust and the books were very thin reading.

Swamp Nymph, by John B Thomas, Kozy Books, 1962.

But the dangeroue lustful innocent remains a theme in other genres, so perhaps the spirit of swamp girl still carries on.

More forgotten pulp genres another time...