Up Tight

This is the infamous front cover of Welsh writer Molly Parkin’s 1975 novel Up Tight. The back cover shows the same knicker-clad model but from the rear. Harri Peccinotti is credited with the book’s cover design and photography. The shamelessly tacky aesthetic is quintessentially mid-seventies especially in its preoccupation with sex and hairiness. It would, I'm sure, have taken a certain degree of front to march into one’s local bookshop, pluck Up Tight from the shelves, and present it to a smiling till person. Apparently Hatchards dealt with any potential embarrassment by actually selling the novel under the counter. For the record Parkin’s book is the tale of a young woman, fresh out of art college, who finds sexual adventure in London's bedsit land.