Pulpvault

In the Friday auction, another possible file copy - Weird Tales April 1933.

In the Friday night auction, the only issue of Amazing Stories Annual (1927).

In the Friday night auction, another possible file copy - Weird Tales June-July 1931.

In the Friday night auction - the only issue of Uncanny Stories (April 1941).

In the Saturday night auction: LETTER FROM OTIS ADELBERT KLINE TO ROBERT E. HOWARD, JANUARY 28, 1935 – Kline was not only a popular pulp author, sharing the pages of Weird Tales and other pulps with REH, he also was an agent for other pulp authors. This letter gives REH the news that Leo Margulies (lead editor of the Thrilling pulp chain) is rejecting “The Silver Heel.” This was a story of REH’s series character, Steve Harrison. Kline inquires as to whether REH wants him to try it with Roy Horn, who at the time was editor of Two-Book Detective Magazine. Whether it was sent to Horn is unknown, but the story was never published in the pulps, first seeing print in Two-Fisted Detective Stories (Cryptic Publications, May 1984). Signed by Kline.

In the Friday night auction: FARNSWORTH WRIGHT – LETTER TO AUTHOR GREYE LA SPINA DATED APRIL 8, 1925 – Bob Weinberg collected many letters from Weird Tales' editor Farnsworth Wright over the years, including several from the estate of author Greye la Spina. She was one of the pioneering female writers of horror and fantasy for the pulps. This may be the best of the la Spina letters that Bob acquired. Dated April 8, 1925, it discusses her story, "Invaders From the Dark," which was then in the midst of being serialized in the April, May and June 1925 issues of Weird Tales [see lots 77-79 for these issues]. As noted in the letter, fellow WT author C.M. Eddy, Jr. felt that it "should be published in book form", which it finally was in 1960 by Arkham House. Other authors touched on in the letter include H.G. Wells and Sax Rohmer. At the end, mention is made of la Spina's story, "The Gargoyle," which would run in the September, October and November 1925 issues and which Wright noted, in his hand, "...is good for a cover-illustration." Artist Andrew Brosnatch did indeed illustrate it on the cover of the September 1925 issue [see lot 77]. Due to Parkinson's disease, Wright generally did not sign his name after 1926. Not only is this letter signed by him, but as mentioned, it also has other content in his handwriting. And in his P.S., Wright notes that the Baldwin, Indianapolis address on the letterhead is now obsolete, as the magazine has moved to a new address.

Also in the Saturday night auction: Clark Ashton Smith, EBONY AND CRYSTAL – inscribed to Robert E. Howard – a copy of a rare Clark Ashton Smith volume of poetry, "Ebony and Crystal," published in 1922 in an edition of 500 copies (of which this is #431), which features some hand corrections by Smith. This one has seen better days, in terms of condition -- it's ex-library, with a call number written on the cover, various library stamps and writing throughout, and pasted library sheets removed from the back. The hinges are cracked and roughly 2" of the spine have been chewed over time by a rodent with fine literary taste. However, this copy should not be judged on its condition. The front fixed endpaper contains a pastedown from Howard Payne College Library, noting that at one time this was held in their Robert E. Howard Memorial Collection (various other stamps note that it was withdrawn from there). And on the front free endpaper, Smith has inscribed this copy to Robert E. Howard (with fraternal good wishes and referencing Astarte, Dagon, Demogorgon and Hecate), dating it July 4, 1933! The story of this copy is told in “Weird Talers” by Bobby Derie, where he notes that REH ordered this copy from CAS. REH wrote back to CAS on July 22, 1933 enthusing about the book, stating in part: “I can hardly find words to express the pleasure—I might even say ecstasy—with which I have read, and re-read your magnificent EBONY AND CRYSTAL. Every line in it is a gem.” Following REH’s death, his father donated this book, as well as many others from REH’s library, to the Howard Payne College Library. It was given to Glenn by a former librarian at the library. Truly a unique copy, inscribed by one of the Three Musketeers of Weird Tales to another and held by two of them during its life!

Robert E. Howard's first book, "A Gent From Bear Creek" (Herbert Jenkins, 1937) is in the Saturday night auction. Fewer than 20 copies are known to exist.

Another possible file copy -- the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales featuring H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu." This will also be in the Friday night auction.

Another Friday night auction item. Several of Bob Weinberg's copies of Weird Tales were file copies, and while we don't know which those are (as he didn't keep a record of them), this is a possibility, in which case the trimming would have been done preparatory to the publisher putting it in a bound volume. It's the August 1929 copy of Weird Tales, featuring the first sword and sorcery story, "The Shadow Kingdom" by Robert E. Howard, featuring Kull of Atlantis.

Another pulp in our Friday night auction -- Weird Tales October 1934, with Robert E. Howard's Conan tale, "The Devil in Iron."

With the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention now just over two weeks away (September 10-12, 2021), we thought we’d post a bit about the show. We’re very excited to be back; our last show was in April 2019, so it will be nearly two and a half years between shows, which is much too long! As has been the case since our show in 2008, this year’s convention will be held at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center, Lombard, Illinois. Our pre-registration figures are in line with those in previous years, and all 180 tables in our dealer room are sold out. Obviously, in the new reality we’re currently living with, we’re tracking what restrictions or changes might be required at our convention. Currently, Illinois (and the CDC and our hotel) are recommending that folks at conventions like ours wear a mask (and if you’re unvaccinated, masks are required by Illinois). We encourage all attendees, whether or not vaccinated, to wear a mask. At this time, we expect that the current requirements will be the ones in place at the time of our show. As usual, we will have auctions on both Friday (September 10) and Saturday (September 11) nights, and this year’s auctions will truly be fantastic. The Friday night auction features 200 lots of material from the estate of famed collector Robert Weinberg, while the Saturday night auction begins with 96 lots from the estate of Glenn Lord, literary executor for the Robert E. Howard estate, followed by 5 lots from the estate of author and Arkham House co-founder August Derleth, finishing up with several lots from other consignors. And additional lots will be added to the Saturday night auction at the convention, to include material consigned there by convention attendees. Among the highlights in this year’s auctions are: - A fine copy of the October 1933 issue of Weird Tales, featuring the Margaret Brundage’s famous Batgirl cover (See photos in this post) - A beautiful copy of the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales, featuring Robert E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom” – the first sword and sorcery story! - A lovely copy of the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales, featuring “The Call of Cthulhu” by H.P. Lovecraft - Numerous other issues of Weird Tales, including several Conan issues, many in gorgeous condition (likely publisher file copies) - Robert E. Howard’s incredibly scarce first book, “A Gent from Bear Creek”; fewer than 20 copies are known to exist - Several letters to Robert E. Howard - August Derleth’s rarest book, “Love Letters to Caitlin”, of which fewer than 20 copies exist - Clark Ashton Smith’s “Ebony and Crystal” – inscribed and signed by this legendary fantasist to his friend, Robert E. Howard - A rare signed letter from Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright to one of Weird Tales’ few female authors, Greye La Spina, from 1925 - The manuscript for “Divide and Rule” by L. Sprague de Camp, which ran in Unknown - A signed copy of “The Horror on the Asteroid” by Edmond Hamilton, the author’s first book - Other signed items by H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Otis Adelbert Kline, Dean Koontz, Max Brand, Fritz Leiber, Zorro author Johnston McCulley, Spider author Norvell Page and many others - The first year of the pulp Astounding Stories of Super-Science - The only issue of the Amazing Stories Annual from 1927, featuring “The Master Mind of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs - Complete runs of the pulps Unknown, Strange Stories and Tales of Magic and Mystery - Many rare U.K. and Australian science fiction pulps and books - Numerous Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft items - Rare items by Clark Ashton Smith, including “The Star Treader and Other Poems,” “Nero and Other Poems” and the manuscript for “The Dragon-Fly” - Many early Arkham House books, including Robert E. Howard’s “Skull-Face and Others”, H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Outsider and Others” and “August Derleth: Twenty-Five Years of Writing, 1926-1951” - Frank Belknap Long’s rare “A Man from Genoa and Other Poems”, published in 1926 in an edition of less than 300 copies - A complete bound set of the legendary fanzine, “The Acolyte” - And much more! The complete auction catalog, along with images, is now available on our website: www.windycitypulpandpaper.com You can also find updates on our Facebook page -- search FB for Windy City Pulp and Paper or go to: https://www.facebook.com/windycitypulp/ The website has details on absentee bidding, for those who can’t make it to the convention. Note, however, that we can't do absentee bids as part of the live auction at the con, but we will start the bidding at the high absentee bid, and if it does not get overbid, then the absentee bid would win. We don't have the tech or the staff to do it differently. But the auctions aren’t our only highlight! Friday through Sunday, our massive dealer room will be buzzing, bursting with 180 six foot long tables, with roughly 100 dealers displaying pulps, vintage paperbacks, science fiction, fantasy & mystery hardcovers, golden and silver age comics, original science fiction, comic and other illustration art, movie memorabilia and more! Our art show will feature a great display of art from the pulps Astounding and Black Mask. As usual, our film programming, curated by Ed Hulse, will run Friday and Saturday, showing movies and serials based on pulp stories. Our evening programming will include presentations on Edgar Rice Burroughs and Black Mask. And Sunday morning will see New Pulp Sunday, programming devoted to the vibrant and colorful world of New Pulp organized by Ron Fortier of Airship 27 Productions. And all attendees will get a copy of our fabulous convention book, put out by Tom Roberts of Black Dog Books. We hope you’ll join us for the fun and excitement at this year’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention! For more info, contact Doug Ellis at pulpvault@msn.com.

Our 19th show will be held at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard, Illinois, from Friday, April 12, 2019 to Sunday, April 14, 2019. Come and browse through 180 tables of goodies from nearly 100 dealers from the U.S., Canada and the U.K. The show primarily features pulp magazines and vintage paperbacks, but there are also plenty of golden and silver age comics, SF and mystery hardcovers, and lots of original pulp, book, magazine and comic art. Friday night will be the first part of the Robert Weinberg estate auction, featuring material from his legendary collection. Come like us on Facebook, and visit our website at www.windycitypulpandpaper.com.

If you're a fan of pulps and paperbacks, you may want to attend the 2019 Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention (April 12-14, 2019 at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center). There will be several dealers there with vintage comics as well (among our 180 tables in the dealer room), though the focus is more pulps and paperbacks. This year's show will kick off the first part of the Robert Weinberg Estate Auction, will be held on the evening of Friday, April 12, 2019.Here are two of the rare British paperbacks that will be in the auction, both reprints from the pulps. "Romance in Black" by Gans T. Field reprints "The Black Dream" (serialized in Weird Tales in 1938), with Field being a pseudonym for Manly Wade Wellman. "Dangerous Love" by Ralph Milne Farley reprints "The Man From Ouija Land" which was serialized in Mind Magic in 1931. Plus four rarities from the American Science Fiction series published in the early 1950's by Malian Press in Sydney, Australia. The lower two contain additional stories beyond those mentioned on the cover -- "Elimination" also contains Campbell's "Frictional Losses," while "Dead Knowledge" also contains "Men of the Ten Books" by Jack Vance. As the scans show, these are in beautiful shape! For more info, shoot me a mail, or visit our website at www.windycitypulpandpaper.com

Here's a small, 32 page (plus covers) pamphlet, "The Case Against the Comics," published in 1944 by the Catechetical Guild, written by Gabriel Lynn. This warned against comics, which were fueling the rising tide of juvenile delinquency. And, of course, they were also a menace to chastity, as well as creating fear and distress in younger children. And superheroes, who act outside of the law, were viewed as un-American and a threat to democracy. Whereas the dime novels of the previous generation, such as Frank Merriwell, were good, wholesome reading. Among the things their study of 92 comic books and over 1000 examples from 27 newspaper comic strips during the period from August through October 1943 found were 216 major crimes depicted, 86 sadistic acts, 186 instances of vulgar behavior, 114 examples of suggestive art, 491 cases of vulgar speech (differentiated from the 194 examples of gross grammatical abuses), 161 physical monstrosities, 204 fantastic situations and actions and 246 un-American, vigilante activities. All sorts of interesting things one can learn from this booklet! This is one of several interesting comics related items that will be auctioned as part of the first part of the Robert Weinberg Estate Auction being held at the 2019 Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention (April 12-14, 2019 at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center). The auction will be held on the evening of Friday, April 12, 2019. Shoot me a mail for more info, or visit our website at www.windycitypulpandpaper.com.

Here's a small, 32 page (plus covers) pamphlet, "The Case Against Comics," published in 1944 by the Catechetical Guild, written by Gabriel Lynn. This warned against comics, which were fueling the rising tide of juvenile delinquency. And, of course, they were also a menace to chastity, as well as creating fear and distress in younger children. And superheroes, who act outside of the law, were viewed as un-American and a threat to democracy. Whereas the dime novels of the previous generation, such as Frank Merriwell, were good, wholesome reading. Among the things their study of 92 comic books and over 1000 examples from 27 newspaper comic strips during the period from August through October 1943 found were 216 major crimes depicted, 86 sadistic acts, 186 instances of vulgar behavior, 114 examples of suggestive art, 491 cases of vulgar speech (differentiated from the 194 examples of gross grammatical abuses), 161 physical monstrosities, 204 fantastic situations and actions and 246 un-American, vigilante activities. All sorts of interesting things one can learn from this booklet! This is one of several interesting comics related items that will be auctioned as part of the first part of the Robert Weinberg Estate Auction being held at the 2019 Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention (April 12-14, 2019 at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center). The auction will be held on the evening of Friday, April 12, 2019.

Well, we're now four months away from the 2018 Windy City Pulp and Paperback Convention (April 6-8, 2018), which will be held at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard, Illinois. We're pleased to announce that we're now sold out of tables in the dealer room (all 155 of them, our earliest sell out ever!). If you'd like to be placed on the waitlist for a table, please let me know. The hotel has created a website to make it easy to book a room for the convention; the link is below. We hope to see you all there next year! https://www.starwoodmeeting.com/events/start.action?id=1712069512&key=25AC584 Best, Doug Ellis www.windycitypulpandpaper.com

“The Art of the Pulps”, co-edited by myself, Ed Hulse and Robert Weinberg, came out earlier this week, on October 24 from IDW. For me, it was a long wait, but I think the final book was well worth it. Bob and I actually started preliminary work on the book back in January 2016, so it’s been nearly a two year project for me. Bob unfortunately passed away in late September 2016, just as we were about to start working on it in earnest, but fortunately Ed Hulse was willing to step in and help see the book through to its completion. I think Bob would have been very pleased with how it came out. The book focuses on the colorful cover art of the pulps, along with a sampling of some black and white interior pulp art, containing roughly 460 images. But in addition to the images, there’s well over 50,000 words of text, written by some of the top experts in the pulp field. Besides contributions from the co-editors, we were fortunate enough to enlist the writing talents of (in alphabetical order): Mike Ashley (science fiction), Will Murray (hero), Michelle Nolan (sports), Laurie Powers (love), Tom Roberts (air and war), David Saunders (the great pulp artists), F. Paul Wilson (foreword) and John Wooley (detective). We think you’ll agree, if you read the book, that each did a bang-up job! The book should (hopefully!) be available in your local book or comic store, as well as being available online from retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Bud Plant through Bud’s Art Books. If you pick it up, Ed and I would love to hear your reactions, and if you’ve got some time to post an online review on Amazon, B & N or similar sites, we’d appreciate it. We’re trying to get some follow-up projects off the ground, and good word of mouth definitely helps sales, which helps drive the publisher’s willingness to publish more books on the pulps! Doug Ellis

Steranko at Windy City Pulp & Paper Convention April 21-23, 2017 The legendary Jim Steranko will be the Guest of Honor at the upcoming Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, taking place at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center from Friday, April 21 through Sunday, April 23, 2017. Steranko is a legend not only in the comics field – for his groundbreaking work as an artist and a historian – but in the pulp field as well, with his depictions of several classic pulp heroes, from The Shadow to Doc Savage to Sherlock Holmes to G-8 and many more. Steranko will be present throughout the show, and will also be speaking Friday night at 7:00 p.m. As this year’s show is the same weekend as C2E2 (also in the Chicagoland area), C2E2 attendees may want to head to Lombard to complete their weekend. This year’s event also celebrates the Red Circle line of pulps. These were the first publications put out by Martin Goodman, who later would launch the Timely line of comics that eventually became Marvel. The program book is packed with material on Steranko, the Red Circle line, gangster pulps, and more! The cover is attached. The convention also features over 150 tables of pulps, vintage paperbacks, comics, original comic and illustration art, and other related goodies for sale in its massive dealer room. Movies based on pulp stories will be playing throughout the day on Friday and Saturday, while the New Pulp movement will host a variety of panels on Sunday. And Friday and Saturday nights will feature two incredible estate auctions, featuring thousands of pulps, including nearly 200 issues of The Shadow, as well as many other rare pulps. Admission is $35 for all three days, $25 for Friday only, $25 for Saturday only, and $10 for Sunday only. Ages 13 and under admitted free with parent. Hours are Friday 11:00 a.m. to midnight, Saturday 10:00 a.m. to midnight and Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The convention is being held at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center, 70 Yorktown Center, Lombard IL 60148. For more information, visit the Windy City Pulp site: www.windycitypulpandpaper.com, or email: info@windycitypulpandpaper.com.