RedFury

I've never seen those. I'd love to see more. Keep 'em coming, Tim!

I've put my entire stock of pulps on sale (20% off) for Black Friday weekend! Lots of good stuff here. RedFury's Ebay Store

Agree with everything Eric said. Personally I would wait for a better copy. Maybe a complete Fair or Good copy with no work done to it? I think those could be found in the $100 to $250 range.

Price reduced on the Dusty Ayres

Closed Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

I just listed a nice lot of Dusty Ayres and his Battle Birds for sale in the sales forum. Dusty Ayres and his Battle Birds

Rules Exclusions: No Hall of Shamers Purchasing: First wins the lot. This trumps all negotiations for which both parties have not yet come to an agreement. Payment: Paypal preferred. Check/money order is OK too but must clear before shipping. Shipping: Free in the US. I can ship outside the US, but there will be an additional charge. Returns: I want you to be happy with your purchase. You can return the pulps for any reason within 14 days, provided they are in the same condition. Dusty Ayres and his Battle Birds was a 12-issue hero pulp from July 1934-1935. Each issue contained a genuine Near-Future sci-fi novel by Robert Sidney Bowen in which Dusty and his sidekicks fought off the menace of the Black Invaders, led by Fire-Eyes, an Asian warlord bent on world domination who had already dominated the first stages of a global conflict that prefigures World War Two, and who utilized advanced Weapons in his Invasion of America. Each story can stand alone, but the over-arching 12 issue story, which was constructed in advance, tells the complete story of the fight against the Black Invaders. This 12 chapter Dusty Ayres story pre-dates the more well known 13 chapter "Purple Invasion" story that ran in Operator #5 from June 1936 to March 1938, a story that is often referred to as "the War and Peace of the pulps". For sale is 6 of the 12 issues in nice solid collectible shape, sold as one lot. These pulp issues are tough to find in grade. The lot includes the 1st issue, Black Lightning, as well as the classic Crimson Doom and Purple Tornado covers, and the tough black cover The White Death. This is the perfect Dusty Ayres starter set. July 1934 (#1) - VG+, Black Lightning, first issue Aug 1934 (#2) - VG/F, Crimson Doom Sep 1934 (#3) - VG/F, Purple Tornado Jan 1935 (#7) - VG/F, The White Death Feb 1935 (#8) - VG+, The Black Avenger Mar 1935 (#9) - VG/F, The Silver Typhoon Price: $1,650 for the lot. Price reduction: $1,350!

Great find! So now we know Blue Ribbon Comics #13 and #18 are both pulp swipes and both by Sam Cooper. I'll bet his other covers are swipes too.

Two new Howard related pieces for my walls! Solomon Kane by Bernie Wrightson (circa early 70s) and King Kull by Wally Wood and Dan Adkins (circa 1971).

I'm sure it was a facsimile. Also, he big "Arkham House" logo they had on the spine is not on the original. But is *was* super cool to see that book represented in the show!

Ah, sorry you missed it. It looks like a lovely copy!

Who Goes There? John W. Campbell, Jr. Shasta Publishers, 1948, 3000 Copies (200 Signed Subscribers Copies) So much coolness associated with this book...where to begin? The title story, Who Goes There?, is the basis for the films The Thing From Another World (1951) and The Thing (1982). It was originally published in the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. I won't go into detail about the story because I think most are familiar with it. Suffice to say, it's good! The amazing 1st edition wrap-around cover is by Hannes Bok, and I think it's one of his best. The 2nd edition with a nice new cover by Malcolm Smith was released in conjunction with the 1951 film. It's the second book published by Shasta Publishers. It contains 7 stories by Campbell, all taken from the pages of Astounding Stories/Science Fiction. One story, Frictional Losses, tells of an alien invasion of Earth using advanced technology that is difficult to resist. The Japanese devise a successful defensive strategy by packing planes with heavy explosives and ramming them into the alien ships in suicide attacks. This enrages the aliens so much that they use atomic bombs to annihilate Japan (it slides into the sea). While there are obvious parallels to the events of WWII, the story was written in 1936! One other interesting note about this book is actually a note! For some reason Campbell tucked in a neatly typed page with his contact information. I'm guessing he knew who this copy was going to.

Witch House Arkham House, 1945 3,000 copies I just finished reading Witch House by Evangeline Walton, the 11th book published by Arkham House and released in 1945. It's the first novel published by Arkham House, and it was meant to be the first in a series called "Library of Arkham House Novels of Fantasy and Terror". "Evangeline Walton" was the pen name of Evangeline Wilna Ensley (1907-1996). Like fellow female weird fiction writer C.L. Moore, she was from Indianapolis. She was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the World Fantasy Convention in 1989. Witch House is about an old New England family, the Quincys, who live in their ancestral mansion on an island off the coast. The youngest of the family, 9-year-old Betty Ann is being haunted by the ghost of Aunt Sarai, who may have been a witch, and Dr. Carew is called in from Boston to see what he can do to sort it out. Haunted house hijinks ensue, but a lot of it is very subtle and psychological. Witch House was not a success for Arkham House and it took more than 20 years for it to sell out. That's a shame because it's a pretty good book. Walton was a talented writer and the prose is beautiful. My only complaint is the story is slow to develop and there is a confusing family tree with many similarly named characters. But if you can make it through the first 100 pages the book really starts to move and pays off with a satisfying and exciting ending.

I started reading Marginalia because I recently acquired a copy that was signed by Hazel Heald, who has two stories within. A seller in Norway listed it for sale as signed by August Derleth, but it was obvious to me the signature was not Derleth's. So who wrote it? I guessed it was Hazel Heald's hand, but I had no samples of her handwriting to compare to. I took a chance and bought the book anyway. An appeal for help to a friend yielded excellent results. First was a typed letter from Heald to Derleth dated October 21, 1944 where she says she "will enjoy two copies of Marginalia" and asks "will it be out soon?" The second was a hand-written letter from Heald to Derleth dated February 1, 1945. First, this letter allowed me to match Heald's handwriting to that in the book with reasonable assurance. And second, the letter says "thanks for the two books that arrived yesterday." The date written in the book is indeed one day earlier, January 31, 1945. This was very exciting because this was proof that not only had Hazel Heald written the inscription, but she owned the book as well. I think a Heald signed copy of Marginalia is very rare, perhaps unique.

The first two essays about writing fiction I found interesting. The Dunsany one smacked too much of adoration to me, but was still informative. The others were of little interest to me and I just skimmed them. I've seen that edit to the ending of "Medusa's Coil" attributed to Derleth elsewhere, but I don't think it's true. I think he was either unaware of it or simply maintained it. The edit appears when Weird Tales first published the story in Jan 1939, so I think it was probably Farnsworth Wright who made the change.

Nice! Have you read it yet? I'm actually in the middle of reading Marginalia right now, and I have to say it's slow going. It's aptly named and therefore I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, but somehow I was expecting more. There is a LOT of material in this collection, but it consists of the leftovers that didn't fit in the first two collections. Still, it is a good sampling of Lovecraft's revision and ghost-writing work, essays, juvenilia, and story fragments. I haven't yet read the tributes and appreciations by friends and followers, and I hope those will be good.

The Eye and the Finger by Donald Wandrei Arkham House, 1944 1,617 copies The Eye and the Finger was the 5th book published by Arkham House and collected 18 stories and 3 poems by co-founder Donald Wandrei. The variety of sources for the stories is quite interesting: 5 from Weird Tales 5 from Astounding 3 from Esquire 2 from Minnesota Quarterly (a literary magazine from the University of Minnesota. 3 listed as being from MQ, but 1 is a mistake) 2 from Argosy 1 from Thrilling Wonder Stories 2 other pieces not listed had been previously published by Robert H. Barlow in his 1937 fanzine Leaves. 1 of the pieces attributed to Minnesota Quarterly was actually published in the 1927 fanzine The Recluse by W. Paul Cook. The cover illustration is by Donald Wandrei's brother, Howard Wandrei. This is Donald Wandrei's personal copy from his library, inscribed by him: Donald Wandrei Service Co 259th Inf Camp Shelly, Miss 28 July 1944 According to Wikipedia: "Wandrei served almost four years with the U.S. Army in World War II, and as a technical sergeant, Third Battalion, 259th Infantry, 65th Division, a unit of General Patton's famous Third Army, took part in the final drive across Germany into Austria – the Rhineland and Central Europe campaigns." Here is a photo of Sgt. Wandrei in uniform in 1943 (from Marginalia) This is a fairly scarce Arkham due to its small print run and the fact that it was out-of-print by 1946 and never reprinted. Also, the dust-jacket notoriously fades from its original green to grey. They copy is a really nice example of a mostly un-faded dust-jacket. The three titles on the back cover were the next three published by AH, all in 1944.

And Ebay has 7 copies between $4500 and $7500, which is about the right range for a mid-grade copy.

Very cool, Tim. I don't know anything about these. Is there a list anywhere of what they published?

I find the Sixty Years of Arkham House very useful, and refer to it almost weekly. It's complete up to about 2000, so there's not much missing.

I have a couple of Weird Tales in the original subscription mailers. What I did was take the pulp out of the mailer and put it in a mylite 2 with full back board, as usual, and then slip the mailer on the other side of the full back board. That way they're together in the mylite, but not touching.

You have to start a thread like this one with the book that started it all, The Outsider and Others by H.P. Lovecraft. After Lovecraft's death in March 1937, his friends and fellow writers August Derleth and Donald Wandrei grew concerned that Lovecraft's stories would be forgotten unless they were published in book form. They tried to convince several publishers, without success, and eventually decided to publish the book themselves. Arkham House was born. Arkham House's first volume, The Outsider and Others, was a sort of "best of" omnibus of Lovecraft's work, containing 36 stories and one essay. The importance of this volume cannot be understated as it was the beginning of specialty publishing of fantastic fiction. The Outsider and Others Arkham House, 1939 1,268 copies

A thread for all those specialty publishers who put the best of the pulps in hardcover. The publishers kept classic pulp stories alive long after most copies of the disposable pulps had been lost. Publishers like: Arkham House Gnome Press Fantasy Press Shasta Publishers Fantasy Publishing (FPCI) Prime Press and more!

Yes, but not just for Arkham House. I would include all the specialty publishers that presented pulp stories in hardcover. Publishers like Shasta, Fantasy Press, Gnome Press, Fantasy Publishing (FPCI), Prime Press, etc. I've been toying with the idea for a while now. I was going to call it "Pulps Between Boards: Arkham House and Other Specialty Publishers".

Submarine Stories, Nov 1929 (#2)