Featured Items
ASSIGNMENT-ANGELINA.
Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, Inc., [1958]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition. Gold Medal 749. Paperback original. C.I.A. agent Sam Durell. Bill Pronzini writing of the Sam Durell novels "Despite all the violence and melodrama...[the] Durell novels are compulsive reading. Aarons was an accomplished writer, with excellent descriptive abilities...and an expert sense of narrative pacing." - Pronzini and Muller, 1001 Midnights, The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, p. 1. Hubin, p. 1.
ASSIGNMENT-CONG HAI KILL.
Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, Inc., [1966]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition. Gold Medal d1695. Paperback original. C.I.A. agent Sam Durell. Bill Pronzini writing of the Sam Durell novels "Despite all the violence and melodrama...[the] Durell novels are compulsive reading. Aarons was an accomplished writer, with excellent descriptive abilities...and an expert sense of narrative pacing." - Pronzini and Muller, 1001 Midnights, The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, p. 1. Hubin, p. 1.
DRAWN AND QUARTERED.
New York: Pocket Books, Inc., [1964]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First revised paperback edition. Pocket 50058. Contents of this edition differ somewhat from the contents of the 1946 paperback edition published by Bantam. Collection of 115 of the author's drawings, of which 111 originally appeared in the New Yorker magazine 1935-1942.
AMAZING STORIES.
Chicago: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1950. Octavo, single issue, cover by Arnold Kohn, pictorial wrappers. Pulp magazine. Includes fiction by Robert Bloch, Rog Phillips writing as "William Carter Sawtelle," Rog Phillips, Robert Bloch writing as "E. K. Jarvis," Gerald Vance (house pseudonym), Mack Reynolds, Paul Lohrman (pseudonym) and others.
![Item #29235 SOMETIME, NEVER: THREE TALES OF IMAGINATION by William Golding, John Wyndham [and]...](https://jwkbooks.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/29235.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1661381965)
SOMETIME, NEVER: THREE TALES OF IMAGINATION by William Golding, John Wyndham [and] Mervyn Peake.
New York: Ballantine Books, [1957]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First U.S. edition. Ballantine Books 215. Original anthology collecting three novellas: "Envoy Extraordinary" by William Golding (science fiction set in the ancient world), "Consider Her Ways" by John Wyndham (feminist science fiction set in a dystopian future), and "Boy in Darkness" by Mervyn Peake (a fantastic tale set in the world of Titus Groan). Golding's story was adapted later as a play and published as THE BRASS BUTTERFLY (1958). According the Berger (Science Fiction and the New Dark Age, pp. 196-8), Wyndham's "haunting" novella in which "the preventable is not prevented," is "the quintessence of dystopian fiction." Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-78. Reginald 13447.
THESE CHARMING PEOPLE...
New York: George H. Doran Company, 1924. Octavo, cloth. First U. S. edition. Story collection with some supernatural content.
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION.
New York: Street & Smith Publications, Inc., 1943. Octavo, single issue cover by William Timmins, pictorial wrappers. Pulp magazine. First issue back to pulp size format from the "bedsheet" format. Includes part 1 of "Gather Darkness" by Fritz Leiber. Tymm and Ashley, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazines, pp. 60-103.
LOOKING BACKWARD: 2000-1887...
Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, n.d., [1931]. Octavo, original pebbled red cloth. Later edition. Introduction by Heywood Broun. The most famous nineteenth century American Utopian novel.
FURIOUS GULF.
Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, [1994]. Octavo, frontispiece by Vincent Di Fate, full leather, a.e.g. First edition. One of an unspecified number of copies signed by Benford. The next to last book in the "Galactic Center" sequence. Introduction by James Gunn. Part of the Easton press signed first edition series.
IN THE OCEAN OF NIGHT ...
New York: The Dial Press / James Wade, [1977]. Octavo, boards. First edition. 1977 Nebula nominee. The first novel in the Galactic Center series. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-107. Survey of Science Fiction Literature III, pp. 1026-30.
DUANE AND THE ART MURDERS.
London: Cassell, 1939. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Hubin, p. 67.
BLACK MASK.
Chicago: Popular Publications, Inc., 1947. Octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. Pulp magazine. "Manhattan Horse Opera" by John D. MacDonald.
FRONTIERS IN SPACE: SELECTIONS FROM THE BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES...
New York: Bantam Books, [1955]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition. Bantam Books 1328. A best of the best, selections from THE BEST SCIENCE-FICTION STORIES 1951, 1952, 1953. Collects fourteen stories.
A STAB IN THE DARK.
New York: Arbor House, [1981]. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition. A Matt Scudder novel, the first in American hardcovers.
THE BRAINS OF RATS.
[Los Angeles: Scream Press], 1989. Octavo, pictorial wrappers. Pre-publication edition. Limited to 200 copies printed for distribution at the 1989 World Fantasy Convention and followed by the published issues of the book. The author's second book and first collection of short fiction. Collects twelve stories, five of which appear in print for the first time herein. Introduction by Michael McDowell. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-139.
GREAT AMERICAN DETECTIVE STORIES.
Cleveland & New York: World Publishing, 1945. Octavo, Hardcover. First edition. Includes stories by Hammett, Woolrich, Chandler, Rice, Boucher, Palmer, Gruber and others. First hardcover appearence of the Hammett and Woolrich stories.
10,000 YEARS IN A BLOCK OF ICE. Translated From the French ... by John Paret.
London, New York: F. Tennyson Neely, Publisher, [1898]. Octavo, pp. [3-5] 6-256 [257-258: ads] [note: text complete despite gap in pagination], original olive-green ribbed cloth, front and spine panels stamped in silver and red. First edition in English. A translation of DIX MILLE ANS DANS UN BLOC DE GLACE (1889). A sequel of sorts to LES SECRETS DE MONSIEUR SYNTHESE (1888-9). This same monsieur, the sole survivor of a polar expedition, is resuscitated, after having been in suspended animation for 10,000 years, by the Cerebrals, an advanced race of tiny humanoids (a cross of Chinese and Negroes) possessing tremendous mental powers which enable them, among other things, to fly and to communicate with Mars. Versins notes that the book is remarkable for its lack of the sort of racism that characterizes most adventure fiction of this period. It is also, for a sleeper-awakes-in-the-distant-utopian-future SF tale, unusually short. Anatomy of Wonder (1976) 2-21 and (1981) 1-25. Bleiler, Science-Fiction: The Early Years 246. Clareson, Science Fiction in America, 1870s-1930s 087. Lewis, Utopian Literature, p. 24. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 38. Locke, Voyages in Space 41. Suvin, Victorian Science Fiction in the UK, p. 71. Versins, Encyclopédie de l'Utopie des Voyages Extraordinaires et de la Science Fiction, (1972), pp. 126-27. Bleiler (1978), p. 28. Reginald 01674.
SILENT PARTNER.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, [1969]. Octavo, cloth. First edition.
THE EMPIRE OF DEATH: AND OTHER STRANGE STORIES. Edited, with an Introduction, by Jessica Amanda Salmonson.
Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2003. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Limited to 500 copies plus a few extras for legal deposit purposes. This copy signed by Salmonson. Collects eleven short stories and fifteen poems, with introduction by compiler Jessica Amanda Salmonson.
SIBYL SUE BLUE.
Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966. Octavo, illustration by John Alcorn, cloth. First edition.
CASE WITH FOUR CLOWNS.
New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1939. Octavo, pp. [1-6] 1-313 [314], original green cloth, front and spine stamped in black. First U.S. edition. A Sergeant Beef novel. "His subtlety is outstanding, and his efforts at misdirection are worthy of Agatha Christie" - Pederson (ed.), St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, (4th ed.), pp. 117-120.
THE WHOLE MAN.
New York: Walker & Company, [1969]. Octavo, boards. First U.S. hardcover edition. "World largely controlled by an international team of telepathists attached to the World Heath Organization." - Gerber, Utopian Fantasy (1973), p. 161. This novel, a 1965 Hugo nominee, was first published as a paperback original in 1964 by Ballantine Books and in Britain in 1965 as TELEPATHIST. Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-176.
LAST CALL FOR BLACKFORD OAKES.
Orlando, Austin, New York, San Diego, Toronto, London: Harcourt, 2005. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Spy thriller with Blackford Oakes.
WHO?
Boston: Gregg Press, 1979. Octavo, cloth. First U.S. hardcover edition, first printing. "An American scientist is badly injured in an explosion, then "repaired" by Soviet doctors and returned to the USA. The problem is that he is now virtually a cyborg and no one can be sure of his identity. A clever cold-war thriller which established this young writer's reputation." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction, second edition (1995), p. 419. "A strong indictment of the idiocies dignified at that time (and to a great extent still today) as 'security,' but a parable also of estrangement and alienation more generally." - Anatomy of Wonder (2004) II-183. "Perhaps as fine a study of dehumanization and alienation as SF will ever produce." - Gene Wolfe. 1959 Hugo nominee. Filmed in 1973 with Elliott Gould and Trevor Howard, it is faithful to the concept of the novel. Retitled for the video release as Roboman, apparently to cash in on the Robocop craze. Survey of Science Fiction Literature V, pp. 2474-77.
BACK TO THE STONE AGE.
Tarzana, California: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. Publishers, [1937]. Octavo, pp. [1-4] 5-318 [319: ads] [320: blank], seven inserted plates with illustrations by John Coleman Burroughs, original pebbled blue cloth, front and spine panels stamped in orange, top edge stained red, fore-edge untrimmed, bottom edge rough trimmed. First edition. The fifth Pellucidar novel. Angenot and Khouri, "An International Bibliography of Prehistoric Fiction," SFS, VIII (March 1981), 42. Bleiler (1978), p. 35. Reginald 02271. Heins BSA-1. Zeuschner 25.