Film & TV source books
THE BAT: A NOVEL FROM THE PLAY BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART AND AVERY HOPWOOD.
New York: George H. Doran, [1926]. Octavo, pp. [i-iv] v-vi [vii-viii] 9-319 [320: blank], original decorated orange cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black. First edition. In 1920 Rinehart's 1908 mystery thriller THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE was adapted into a very popular play, The Bat, by Rinehart and Avery Hopwood. The 1926 silent film, The Bat, directed by Roland West and starring Jack Pickford and Louise Fazenda, was based on Rinehart and Hopwood's play. The play was also the basis for a 1930 film (also done by Roland West), The Bat Whispers, which features a black shrouded arch-criminal. Comic-book creator Bob Kane said in his 1989 autobiography BATMAN AND ME that the villain of the 1930 film The Bat Whispers was an inspiration for his character Batman.
THE POWER.
Philadelphia, New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, [1956]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Signed by Robinson. "An emerging psi-powers story, well-told as a suspense thriller" - Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-151. Filmed for television in 1968, starring George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette.
THE POWER.
Philadelphia, New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, [1956]. Octavo, boards. First edition. "An emerging psi-powers story, well-told as a suspense thriller" - Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-151. Filmed for television in 1968, starring George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette.
THE DAUGHTER OF FU MANCHU.
London, Toronto, Melbourne and Sydney: Cassell and Company, Limited, [1931]. Octavo, pp. [1-6] [1-2] 3-280 [281-282: blank], original orange cloth, spine stamped in black. First British edition. The fifth Fu Manchu novel. Filmed in 1931 by Paramount as Daughter of the Dragon with Anna May Wong, Sessue Hayakawa and Warner Oland as Fu Manchu. Bleiler (1978), p. 169. Hubin, p. 695. Reginald 12368. Day, p. 6.
PORTNOY'S COMPLAINT.
New York: Random House, [1969]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Filmed in 1972.
COLUMBUS: A ROMANCE.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942. Octavo, cloth. First U.S. edition. Source for the 1949 film Christopher Columbus.
SCARAMOUCHE.
New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, n.d., [mid-1920s]. Octavo, twelve inserted film stills, original blue cloth front and spine stamped in blue. Later edition (photoplay). Swashbuckling adventure. Photoplay edition for the 1923 silent film.
THE SEA HAWK.
New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, n.d. [1920s]. Octavo, cloth. Later printing. Classic sea adventure novel. Filmed in 1924.
PATTERNS: FOUR TELEVISION PLAYS WITH THE AUTHOR'S PERSONAL COMMENTARIES BY...
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition. This volume collects four scripts of Serling's plays presented on television, Patterns, Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Rack, and Old MacDonald Had a Curve. Commentaries by Serling and photographs from the productions are included. Requiem for a Heavyweight won 5 Emmy Awards as well as being the basis for the 1962 feature film with Anthony Quinn, Jackie Gleason, Julie Harris and Mickey Rooney. Patterns became the basis for the feature film-noir with Van Heflin and Ed Begley (Patterns also was an Emmy Award winner, Serling's first, for the Kraft Television Theater production).
SLEUTH.
New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1970. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Signed by actor Michael Caine on the title page. Caine played in both film adaptations of Shaffer's play (1972, 2007), flipping his role in the second film. Hubin, p. 730.
THE 10TH VICTIM.
Boston: Gregg Press, 1978. Octavo, cloth. First hardcover edition, first printing. This is a novelization of the 1965 film which was in turn based on Sheckley's short story "Seventh Victim." Text offset from the 1966 Ballantine Books paperback original. New introduction by Richard Gid Powers and includes twelve film stills. Filmed in 1965 starring Marcello Mastroianni and Ursula Andress, directed by Carlo Ponti. "Humorous action-adventure set in a future society of legalized death duels, a world of declared "hunters" and "victims." - Pringle, The Ultimate Guide to Science Fiction (Second edition), p. 366-67. The first of the Hunter/Victim books.
CHILDREN OF THE DARK.
New York: Henry Holt and Company, [1956]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Novel developed from a story treatment and first draft screenplay of the Nicholas Ray/James Dean film Rebel Without A Cause.
RIDERS TO THE STARS ...
New York: Ballantine Books, [1953]. Small octavo, cover painting by Richard Powers, pictorial wrappers. First edition. Ballantine Books 58. Novelization of Siodmak's screenplay by Robert Smith, published before the release of the 1954 film. The rear cover of the book has stills from the film.The Science Fiction Encyclopedia online offers some interesting commentary on this film which predates the coming space race: "...this is one of the few films, and perhaps the only film, that accurately predicted the course of the American space programme. Space Flight would be achieved by a government programme – not brilliant individuals or patriotic businessmen; space pilots would be carefully selected and rigorously trained before flight, in contrast to films in which people build a Rocket and then look around to see what random individuals might be available to join its crew on short notice; the first steps into space would involve suborbital flights, not a pioneering flight to the Moon or Mars; and astronauts in space would be carefully monitored by, and in constant communication with, technicians on the ground who would continually advise them as they carried out their missions, unlike cinematic astronauts who, once in space, are all on their own. All of these characteristics of actual space flight were meticulously predicted in this film; as a result, while other early space films can now be dismissed as irrelevant to current concerns, Riders to the Stars is a film that remains in dialogue with the ongoing conquest of space, addressing any number of still-significant issues: do the rewards of space flight justify the risks to human lives? What sorts of individuals are best qualified to travel into space? Should space missions be controlled by knowledgeable observers on the ground, or by the astronauts who are actually in the midst of events?" In retrospect this has to be considered an important contribution to 1950s science fiction film making.
DONOVAN'S BRAIN.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943. Octavo, original light brown cloth, stamped in blue to front and spine. First edition. Filmed twice, first in 1944 under the title The Lady and the Monster, the second and better known as originally titled, directed by Felix Feist and starring Lew Ayres. See Barron (ed.): Horror Literature 3-179.
DONOVAN'S BRAIN.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943. Octavo, cloth. First edition. This novel was first serialized in BLACK MASK magazine, September -- November 1942. It has been adapted for film several times. First filmed as "The Lady and the Monster" from Republic Pictures (1944) directed by George Sherman from a screenplay by Dane Lussier and Frederick Kohner with a cast featuring Vera Hruba Ralston, Richard Arlen, Erich von Stoheim and others. The second and best known adaptation was filmed as "Donovan's Brain" released by United Artists (1953) directed by Felix Feist from a screenplay by Felix Feist and Hugh Brooke with a cast featuring Lew Ayres, Nancy Davis, Steve Brodie and others. Filmed again in 1962 as a German/English production it was released in the U.S. in 1964 as "The Brain," directed by Freddie Francis. Anatomy of Wonder (1987) 3-351. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 3-179. Survey of Science Fiction Literature II, pp. 579-82. In 333. Bleiler (1978), p. 180. Reginald 13243.
NIGHTWING.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., [1977]. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition. Edgar Award nominee for best novel. Basis for the 1979 film directed by Arthur Hiller.
TOPPER: AN IMPROBABLE ADVENTURE.
New York: Robert M. McBride & Company, 1926. Octavo, pp. [1-12] 1-292, jacket illustration by C.V. Farrow, original brick red cloth, front and spine stamped in gold. First edition. The first Cosmo Topper adventure. Mired in his middle class life Cosmo Topper purchases a used car, in which George and Marion Kerby were driving when they died in an accident. In visiting the spot of the crash the ghosts of the Kerby's appear and "torment" Topper in a farcical manner (from an online entry by David Langford on Thorne Smith). Basis for the 1937 film starring Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as the Kerby's and Roland Young as Topper.
SPILL.
New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press, [1991]. Octavo, boards. First edition. Signed on the title page. Author's first novel. Made into a bad film in 1996 starring Brian Bosworth.
MONKEY SHINES.
New York: Freundlich Books, 1983. Octavo, Hardcover. First U.S. edition. Basis for movie of same name.
THE HAND IN THE GLOVE.
New York, Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., [1937]. Octavo, pp. [1-4] [1-2] 3-284, original red cloth, front and spine stamped in black, fore edge uncut, bottom edge rough cut. First edition. Mystery novel introducing the character Theodolinda "Dol" Bonner. The only novel to feature Stout's female detective, she did make appearances in several short stories. "Against a sophisticated modern background, where details irrelevant to the plot are allowed to take a normal place, with puzzles within puzzles, really interesting characters, and a logical and surprising solution at the end, "The Hand in the Glove" is as well rounded as it is ingenious. And Dol Bonner should be welcomed with cheers." - NY Times book review, 19 September, 1937. Filmed in 1992 as a made for television picture titled "Lady Against the Odds." Hubin, pp. 777-778. Townsend, Rex Stout: An Annotated and Secondary Bibliography, A15a.
GHOST STORY.
New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., [1979]. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition. "A seminal work of modern dark fantasy" - Barron (ed), Fantasy and Horror 6-351. Basis for the 1981 film with the same title. Jones and Newman (eds), Horror: 100 Best Books 81. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature II, pp. 607-11. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 4-208. King list, p. 391. Winter list, p. 271.
GHOST STORY.
New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., [1979]. Octavo, cloth backed boards. First edition. "A seminal work of modern dark fantasy" - Barron (ed), Fantasy and Horror 6-351. Basis for the 1981 film with the same title. Jones and Newman (eds), Horror: 100 Best Books 81. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature II, pp. 607-11. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 4-208. King list, p. 391. Winter list, p. 271.
GHOST STORY.
New York: Hill House Publishers, [1985]. Octavo, cloth. Limited edition. One of 400 numbered copies signed by Straub and artist Stephen Gervais. "A seminal work of modern dark fantasy" - Barron (ed), Fantasy and Horror 6-351. Basis for the 1981 film with the same title. Jones and Newman (eds), Horror: 100 Best Books 81. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature II, pp. 607-11. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 4-208. King list, p. 391. Winter list, p. 271.
PRISONERS OF POWER ... Translated from the Russian by Helen Saltz Jacobson.
[Hammondsworth, Middlesex]: Penguin, [1983]. Octavo, pictorial wrappers. First British paperback edition. Signed by both the Strugatsky's on the first leaf. "This novel from the Strugatskys’ Noon Universe is not just about a space traveler from Earth crash landing on an alien planet and finding himself stuck there for years. It’s also about the journey from naivete to understanding–in terms of power structures, belief systems, and one’s own limitations. It is, indeed, a science fictional bildungsroman borne out of the stresses and hardships of Soviet psychological and literary censorship; and as always, the Strugatskys deliver." - review by Rachael Cordasco 24 May 2020 for a new edition of the work, now titled "The Inhabited Island." Made into a feature film in Russia, in two part, released in 2008 and 2009.
NIGHT CRY.
New York: The Dial Press, 1948. Octavo, boards. First edition. Basis for the film noir, Where the Sidewalk Ends, directed by Otto Preminger from a script by Ben Hecht with Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney. Selby, Dark City: The Film Noir, 467. Silver and Ward (eds.), Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (3rd edition), pp. 308-310. Keaney, Film Noir Guide, pp. 463-64.