Pulps Between Boards: Arkham House and Other Specialty Publishers 4 4

[jimjum12]

On 2/7/2024 at 9:57 PM, Surfing Alien said:

That is a beast of a copy. When I was in college at NYU in the 1980's I worked for a while for Eric Kramer at his Fantasy Archives on 8th Avenue in Manhattan and he always had 5 or 6 copies of the Outsider that I was astonished at being able to see/handle. Some real nice ones, he had ridiculous material like L.W. Currey carries (who was his main competitor for top material)   I'm happy and blessed to have a copy now. It doesn't look quite like that one!

I've become jaded by these forums, but the 20K ask looks almost reasonable, not that I can afford it. I bet your own copy is one of the favorite collectibles that you own. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited February 8 by jimjum12

[Surfing Alien]

On 2/8/2024 at 9:21 AM, jimjum12 said:

I've become jaded by these forums, but the 20K ask looks almost reasonable, not that I can afford it. I bet your own copy is one of the favorite collectibles that you own. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

It's one of those books that I never thought I'd have and am fortunate enough to have one just worn enough that I feel comfortable to pull out every once in a while to read a tale. There's always something extra to reading stories in these old formats.

[OtherEric]

I would love to eventually get a copy of Outsider and Others, or even Beyond the Wall of Sleep.

At least I have the next few:

[jimjum12]

And to think, there's probably someone out there who owns the ENTIRE Arkham House catalogue  GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Book Guy]

A little off the subject post, but of interest to Arkham House Collectors.

The greenish sculpture below is possibly (though not likely) a Clark Ashton Smith Sculpture. I tried to post pictures and details on an Arkham House Facebook page, but they did not go through probably because I'm not a member. Perhaps someone on these boards can point somebody who might be expert in the subject to this post.

Why might it be a CAS Sculpt? Well it came into a Thrift Store in North Oakland many years ago on the same street and nearby to where noted HPL Circle member and close friend of CAS George Haas lived for many years. George was known as 'Ji Eich' to the other HPL circle members and corresponded with many. He was a close friend with CAS and collected his Art and had quite a number of Smith's sculptures. The theme of the piece is in Smith's wheelhouse. The main problem is the signature on the base. CAS had two known signatures 'CAS' and 'KA' with the 'K' reversed. Perhaps there is a third signature variant I am unaware of? Probably not, but the close proximity of where this turned up to where Haas lived, the general overall 'look' of a Smith piece and the intriguing signature make me wonder. There is a book about Haas which I have, though can't get to at the moment. If somebody has one, they might look through the pictures and let me know if the green sculpt shows up. Thanks in advance.

The dark sculpture of the little guy with a helmet/hat is a genuine CAS sculpture for comparison, It once belonged to George Haas and is signed my Smith in the usual 'KA' manner.

Any help is appreciated.

Edited February 23 by Book Guy

[Pat Calhoun]

I like that first head. Crazy longshot possibility: Kays of Scotland has been making curling stones from their special granite since the 1850s and 'offcuts' get carved into giftware, so maybe the work of one of their craftspeople?

[RedFury]

On 2/10/2024 at 10:49 AM, jimjum12 said:

And to think, there's probably someone out there who owns the ENTIRE Arkham House catalogue  GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[RedFury]

On 2/22/2024 at 8:10 PM, Book Guy said:

A little off the subject post, but of interest to Arkham House Collectors.

The greenish sculpture below is possibly (though not likely) a Clark Ashton Smith Sculpture. I tried to post pictures and details on an Arkham House Facebook page, but they did not go through probably because I'm not a member. Perhaps someone on these boards can point somebody who might be expert in the subject to this post.

Why might it be a CAS Sculpt? Well it came into a Thrift Store in North Oakland many years ago on the same street and nearby to where noted HPL Circle member and close friend of CAS George Haas lived for many years. George was known as 'Ji Eich' to the other HPL circle members and corresponded with many. He was a close friend with CAS and collected his Art and had quite a number of Smith's sculptures. The theme of the piece is in Smith's wheelhouse. The main problem is the signature on the base. CAS had two known signatures 'CAS' and 'KA' with the 'K' reversed. Perhaps there is a third signature variant I am unaware of? Probably not, but the close proximity of where this turned up to where Haas lived, the general overall 'look' of a Smith piece and the intriguing signature make me wonder. There is a book about Haas which I have, though can't get to at the moment. If somebody has one, they might look through the pictures and let me know if the green sculpt shows up. Thanks in advance.

The dark sculpture of the little guy with a helmet/hat is a genuine CAS sculpture for comparison, It once belonged to George Haas and is signed my Smith in the usual 'KA' manner.

Any help is appreciated.

I have one CAS sculpture, but it's a cast one, not carved.  Still, it has the "KA" on the bottom with the backwards "K".  I have never seen "KAYS" before.  I really don't know if yours is by CAS or not.  It is similar to his sculpts, but feels different to me.  Hm, interesting.

 

[Book Guy]

Great piece! I don't think it is one either, but there is a reasonable chance and worth investigating. I am going to try and post on the Arkham Facebook forum again. The 'possible' sculpt doesn't belong to me BTW, but to a friend.

[RedFury]

On 2/23/2024 at 4:29 PM, Book Guy said:

Great piece! I don't think it is one either, but there is a reasonable chance and worth investigating. I am going to try and post on the Arkham Facebook forum again. The 'possible' sculpt doesn't belong to me BTW, but to a friend.

Collecting the Lovecraft Circle, Weird Tales, and Arkham House

This Facebook group was created by me.  It's a private group so you'll have to join to post.  But it's a really good group.

[Book Guy]

Joined and posted! Thanks. Looks like an interesting group.

 

[RedFury]

Here's a real interesting book I just bought, Ecstasy, by Donald Wandrei (weird fiction writer, friend of Lovecraft's, co-founder of Arkham House).  It's his first book and was published in 1928 by W. Paul Cook (Recluse Press) in an edition of 300 copies.  This is Don's personal copy and has his ownership signature inside.

 

What really makes this copy special, however, are the heavy edits and re-writes Don made in it.  I asked myself "Why would he edit the text after the book had been published?"  The only reasonable answer I could come up with was he was preparing the texts for re-publication.  So I pulled my copy of Wandrei's Arkham House poetry collection, Poems for Midnight (1964), off the shelf and compared the texts.  Bingo!  The edits made in the 1928 book match the texts in the 1964 book.  In all, there are 8 heavily revised poems in Don's copy of Ecstasy, all of which appear in the same form in Poems for Midnight.  

I asked a friend of mine who is a noted expert in the Wandrei brother about this, and he was surprised by the discovery.  He had never compared the texts in the two editions before.  

Here's a comparison of the 1928 edition with edits in red pencil and the final 1964 edition from Arkham House.

 

[Book Guy]

Great item. I love anything with personalization and you can't get much better than an Author editing his own text for a later edition. Lotta changes! Some will be put off by the 'writing' in the Book, but if you've been around Books a lot, you know that's what makes it unique and therefore 'better'. I can't see comic collectors feeling the same way about Comic Books, but that's just an example of how two collecting groups can have different mind sets.

[RedFury]

Here's a real rarity, a copy of The Fourth Book of Jorkens (Arkham House, 1948) signed by Lord Dunsany.  He may have only signed a few copies.  He lived in Ireland, and the Arkham House edition was actually a reprint of the UK edition that had been published in 1947, so it's unlikely many copies of this new US edition made it to him.  This copy was inscribed (with Dunsany's typical quill pen) to Herman C. Koenig, a friend of Lovecraft and member of the Kalem Club.

 

[Surfing Alien]

Another humble pickup. Genius Loci is like an old friend to me as I believe it was the first Arkham House book I bought back in the '80's when I first started collecting so it's nice to have one again. The Wakefield dj image always creeped me out 

[OtherEric]

In today, courtesy of @Number 6's recent sales thread.  Not something I was necessarily looking for entirely for its own sake, but super happy to get a nice example of a Fantasy Press book for the collection:

[OtherEric]

A local store turned this up and gave me first crack at it.  Signed by Ellison on the title page, although it's not the S&N edition.  It is the actual 1st edtion rather than the much more common BCE, though.