Paging Dr. Wertham! Another Seduction of the Innocent Thread! SOTI, POP, etc.

[SOTIcollector]

A few items to post this week, including first and second prints of Seduction of the Innocent, Love & Death, and Parade of Pleasure, and maybe a surprise or two!

 

One lot for tonight coming up. The rest by the end of the weekend.

 

You know the drill. No HOS or probies.

 

Payment via PayPal.

 

For each lot, FREE US Mail shipping within the US. Outside the US, I charge exact cost for fully insured shipping. Please be forewarned that fully insured shipping can often get very expensive, because it frequently requires a premium shipping service such as priority or express mail.

 

in thread trumps all.

 

 

 

 

[SOTIcollector]

First up: a reader's delight! Bargain Books! A reader's lot of SOTI, POP and L&D!

This lot consists of three items: all three anti-comics books listed by Overstreet pertaining to the anti-comics movement of the late 40's and early 50's.

- A second print of the book that nearly killed the comic book industry, Dr. Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent (in rough shape)

- A second print of Geoffrey Wagner's Parade of Pleasure

- A second print of Gershon Legman's Love and Death (in a library binding).

The entire lot is yours for just $125 shipped in the US.

 

Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Fredric Wertham

Many collectors over the years have owned a copy of SOTI and thought it was a first print because it was a 1954 printing. However, true first prints have an R colophon on the publication page, whereas the printings with a 1954 publication date but no R colophon are actually second printings.

This second printing has tape on the spine, and numerous interior pencil and highlighter markings. Library card and markings inside. Cover worn. See the photos for condition, and of course feel free to ask questions.

This book does not have the bibliography (pages 399-400). As you probably know, due to fear of lawsuits from comics publishers, the publishers of SOTI removed the bibliography from almost all copies of SOTI's first print, and from (probably) all copies of SOTI's second print.

All 16 unnumbered illustration pages in the middle of the book are present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parade of Pleasure by Geoffrey Wagner

This book was published in 1955 in both the US and the UK. Although it didn't have nearly the reach of SOTI and came out after the Code was established, its scarcity compared to SOTI has long kept it a high-demand and high-priced item among collectors. It never had a second printing until Pure Imagination published this exciting but excruciatingly disappointing second print in trade paperback form in 2010.

The disappointing parts: The text for this edition appears to have been scanned and interpreted by an optical character reader and then published verbatim. Numerous errors in the text should have been caught with some basic proofreading. In addition, this second printing was published without any of the images from the original, so no pics of EC's, Marilyn Monroe, or sleazy paperbacks of the day.

The exciting part: Pure Imagination added all new illustrations to this edition. So completists will want to see the images of old comics and sleazy paperbacks that were added to this edition. And of course, it's exciting that this book can finally be had without having to spend hundreds.

Like new except small color-breaking bend upper right FC, which didn't come out in the photos.

 

 

 

 

Love & Death by Gershon Legman

This book was originally published 5 years before SOTI, but it never had the widespread readership that SOTI had. Hardback and softcover editions were published in 1949, and then second printings were issued in 1963. This is a copy of the 1963 printing that has been re-bound in a sturdy library binding.

 

 

 

[Semicentennial]

tempting

[Thecactusish]

[SOTIcollector]

Didn't figure that would last long. Thanks!

 

Stay tuned, folks. A few more to come over the next few nights... but that's it for tonight.

[snitzer]

[Fantastic Thor]

steal of the day !

Congrats

[SOTIcollector]

Love and Death by Gershon Legman.

Second print, softcover.

This is gorgeous copy of the 1963 softcover printing of Love & Death by Gershon Legman. This was my personal copy until I upgraded this week. Sharp corners and presents really well. Like new except for BC stains, evident in the BC photo! $25 shipped in the U.S.

 

 

[SOTIcollector]

Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Fredric Wertham.

Second print, no dust jacket, no bibliography.

Unmarked except pencil marking on 2 pages that have no text (see photos). All 16 unnumbered illustration pages are present. I'll include a photocopy of the original bibliography, tipped into this book.

$99 shipped in the U.S.

 

 

[Jimmy Linguini]

Love and Death by Gershon Legman.

Second print, softcover.

This is gorgeous copy of the 1963 softcover printing of Love & Death by Gershon Legman. This was my personal copy until I upgraded this week. Sharp corners and presents really well. Like new except for BC stains, evident in the BC photo! $25 shipped in the U.S.

 

 

 

don't have one of these

[SOTIcollector]

 

 

Saturday Review of Literature, complete set from 1948, library bound in two volumes.

 

If you've ever seen anything like this, it was probably in one of my prior threads. This is what I sometimes call the "Secret Origin of Dr. Wertham."

 

This is what started it all. I'll explain.

 

We all know that in 1954, Dr. Fredric Wertham published Seduction of the Innocent. It scared parents and politicians into believing that comic books were dangerous, and resulted in a neutering of the comic book industry via the Comics Code. Perhaps not everybody knows that the book was published after years of crusading by Dr. Wertham. Back in 1948, Wertham's first widely-distributed anti-comics writing was in the Saturday Review of Literature. That's where his article "The Comics... Very Funny" started the anti-comics snowball rolling.

 

What I have here is a 2-volume bound set of Saturday Review of Literature. It's the entire year of 1948. In this set, you get the prelude to "The Comics, Very Funny", which was a pair of articles about comics called "The Case Against the Comics" by John Mason Brown and "The Case For the Comics" by Al Capp. Then there's that infamous Wertham article, which features illustrations from True Crime v1#2 and Jo-Jo #18. Following Wertham's article, between May and September, 1948, a debate raged in the letters pages of Saturday Review. Some people wrote in support of comics, while others wrote in to cheer Dr. Wertham's efforts. In all, 19 letters about comics were published in the months after Wertham's article appeared, not the least of which was a very impressive pro-comics article by 14-year-old David Wigransky.

 

The debate in the Saturday Review sparked anti-Wertham editorials from Marvel, which were in turn mentioned years later Seduction of the Innocent.

 

This bound set contains all of those articles and letters in the Saturday Review, plus as a neat bonus there's a letter from Albert Einstein. Okay, the Einstein letter has nothing to do with comics, but it's just really cool.

 

This can be yours for just $395 (including Media Mail shipping, insured, domestic). Or if you have anything really cool to trade related to SOTI and the anti-comics crusade... I'm all ears!

 

Before the photos of the bound volumes... here's a copy of the Marvel Comics editorial from Jan/Feb 1949 that mentions the anti-comics debate within Saturday Review of Literature.

 

 

And now, some pics of the 2-volume set that can soon be in your collection:

 

 

 

 

[SOTIcollector]

Love and Death by Gershon Legman.

Second print, softcover.

This is gorgeous copy of the 1963 softcover printing of Love & Death by Gershon Legman. This was my personal copy until I upgraded this week. Sharp corners and presents really well. Like new except for BC stains, evident in the BC photo! $25 shipped in the U.S.

 

 

 

don't have one of these

 

Well, now you do. Thanks for the purchase!

[SOTIcollector]

That's it for tonight. One more lot tomorrow. Thanks for checking out my thread!

[SOTIcollector]

Here's a hint about what's coming next...

 

[Speedy-D]

[SOTIcollector]

Here it is. The motherlode. First prints of the unholy trio: Seduction of the Innocent, Parade of Pleaure, and Love & Death!

One price gets you all three. If somehow the lot doesn't sell, I'll offer them separately. PM's welcome, of course.

 

You can get a first print of Seduction of the Innocent, a first print of Parade of Pleasure WITH dust jacket, and a first print of Love & Death, all for just $799 shipped/insured in the U.S.

 

 

Seduction of the Innocent by Dr. Fredric Wertham.

First print, second state (no bibliography), no dust jacket. This book has seen a good amount of wear, but is still solid. Some staining front cover. Bump LRHFC. Stray pencil mark on one page of ch. 1. All 16 unnumbered illustration pages are present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parade of Pleasure by Geoffrey Wagner

First print, 1955. US printing, with dust jacket. This book is far tougher to find than SOTI, and tougher still to find with a decent dust jacket. Tape stains on boards from prior mylar dust jacket attachment. All photo pages are intact, including the coveted photo of Marilyn Monroe. Partial interior spine break at the beginning of the comic pages, but the pages are all still securely attached. The dust jacket has some paper loss at the spine and LRFC. Tear from spine into FC; a UPC sticker on the spine. Still, the dust jacket displays all of the old comics and sleazy books in their 1950's splendor.

 

 

 

 

Love and Death by Gershon Legman.

First Print, softcover, 1949

Some staining on the red cover, evident in the photos. Legend has it that the red dye on the cover was meant to bleed and stain the hands of readers who would break out into a sweat reading the lurid prose within.

 

 

 

[SOTIcollector]

One thread bump. I'll be offline till Sunday night, but PM me if you think I should break apart the above triple header lot of SOTI, POP and L&D.