Selected New Arrivals (December 2014)
A sampling from our newly posted inventory.
NEW TALES OF HORROR BY EMINENT AUTHORS ...
London: Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., n.d., [1934]. Octavo, pp. [1-15] 16-255 [256] [note: first two leaves are blanks used as front paste-down and free endpaper], true endpapers at rear, original orange cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black. First edition. Partially original anthology anonymously edited by Terence Ian Fytton Armstrong (a.k.a. "John Gawsworth"), collecting thirty crime and supernatural stories, seventeen of which appear here for the first time, by Arthur Machen, Richard Middleton, E. H. Visiak, M. P. Shiel, John Gawsworth, Frederick Carter, Hugh MacDiarmid, Nugent Barker, and others. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1230. Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy, p. 392. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 2. Bleiler (1978), p. 8. Reginald 10639.
THE CURSE OF YIG.
Sauk City, WI: Arkham House, 1953. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Signed by Bishop on the front free endpaper. 1217 copies printed. Collects three stories, largely revised by H. P. Lovecraft, and profiles of Lovecraft and August Derleth. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 3-24. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 171. Tymn (ed), Horror Literature 4-20.
SHOOTING STAR bound with TERROR IN THE NIGHT: AND OTHER STORIES.
New York: Ace Books, Inc., [1958]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition. Ace double D-265. Paperback original. SHOOTING STAR is a "a Hollywood private eye novel." - Pederson (ed.), St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, (4th ed.), pp. 82-84, TERROR IN THE NIGHT collects seven stories first printed in various digest sized mystery magazines.
THE CASE OF THE DANCING SANDWICHES.
New York: Dell Published Company, Inc., [1951]. Small octavo, cover by Robert Stanley, pictorial wrappers. First edition. Dell 10 cent Book #33. Paperback original. This story was first published in Mystery Book Magazine, Summer, 1950.
THE LADY IN THE LAKE.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943. Octavo, pp. [1-6] [1-2] 3-216 [217: blank] [318: colophon], original green cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black, running Borzoi stamped in black on rear panel, fore and bottom edges rough trimmed. First edition. Chandler's fourth novel featuring private detective Philip Marlowe and his "masterpiece" (Barzun and Taylor, A Catalogue of Crime 483). The 1947 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion picture starred Robert Montgomery and was filmed "in the first person," from Marlowe's physical point of view. 6000 copies printed. Johnson, The Dark Page, p. 64. Pronzini and Muller, 1001 Midnights: The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction, pp. 123-4. Bruccoli IV-1a.
SMART-ALECK KILL.
London: Hamish Hamilton, [1958]. Octavo, boards. First hardcover edition. Collects four stories which first appeared in THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER; "The Smart- Aleck Kill," "Pick Up on Noon Street," "Nevada Gas," and "Spanish Blood." Bruccoli, AA 7.1.
DIME DETECTIVE MAGAZINE.
Chicago: Popular Publications, 1939. Octavo, single issue, pictorial wrappers. Pulp magazine. Features the Raymond Chandler story, "Pearls are a Nuisance". Cook, Mystery, Detective and Espionage Magazine, pp. 168-170.
THE MONKEY'S RAINCOAT.
[London]: Piatkus, 1989. Octavo, boards. First British and first hardcover edition. The author's first novel and first Elvis Cole, private detective mystery.
THE GAME PLAYERS OF TITAN.
London, New York, Sydney and Toronto: White Lion Publishers Limited, [1974]. Octavo, boards. First British and First hardcover edition. First published as a paperback original in the U.S. After a war between the United States and China, the survivors are mostly sterile and the eminent survivors play a game, introduced by aliens from Titan, which is a cross between monopoly and poker, in which real estate holding, possession of cities, and marriages are decided (which affects fertility).
UBIK: THE SCREENPLAY.
Minneapolis, Minnesota: Corroboree Press, 1985. First edition. 1250 copies printed of which this is one of 1200 trade copies. Dick's filmscript incorporates an ending that differs from that of his novel.
A FISH DINNER IN MEMISON...
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1941. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Limited to 998 numbered copies. A prequel to MISTRESS OF MISTRESSES (1935). The second book of the unfinished Zimiamvian trilogy. Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 3-126. Schlobin, The Literature of Fantasy 320. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature V, pp. 2206-13. Tymn (ed), Fantasy Literature, pp. 86-7.
SLIPPAGE: PRECARIOUSLY POISED PREVIOUSLY UNCOLLECTED STORIES.
[Shingletown, CA]: Mark V. Ziesing Books, 1997. Octavo, cloth. First edition. One of 1200 copies with numbered limitation plate signed by Ellison affixed to limitation page. A collection of stories, essays and a teleplay.
SECONDS ...
New York: Pantheon Books A Division of Random House, [1963]. Octavo, cloth-backed boards. First edition. The story of a man caught up by a nameless organization that uses advanced managerial and technological methods to achieve its singular aim -- lifting the moral and physical barriers to personal liberty and self-indulgence. Brilliantly filmed by John Frankenheimer with Rock Hudson as the hapless victim of a shadowy organization which ultimately kills him and recycles his body parts. "Like David Ely's slender, nightmarish novel, SECONDS has a thinly science-fictional rationale, but it is actually an exercise in Kafkaesque horror ... Outstandingly photographed by James Wong Howe, extremely well played by the whole cast (the choice of Hudson as every man's self-image is inspired), and directed with the imaginative flair John Frankenheimer brought to The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May, and 99 and 44/100% Dead, SECONDS is perhaps the scariest movie of the 1960s." - Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, p. 374. Reginald 37728. Hubin (1994), p. 266.
TO YOUR SCATTERED BODIES GO.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, [1971]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. First book of the "Riverworld" series. Winner of the 1972 Hugo award for best novel. Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 4-165. Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 4-165. Survey of Science Fiction Literature IV, pp. 1809-16.
SPACE CADET.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1948. Octavo, cloth. First edition. Heinlein's second young adult SF novel. Influenced by the author's experience at the U.S. Naval Academy.
VANISHING LADIES.
[London: T.V. Boardman & Company, Limited, 1961]. Octavo, boards. First hardcover edition. Signed on the title page: "Evan / "Richard Marsten" / Hunter." Part of the Boardman American Bloodhound Mystery series.
CATCH THE BRASS RING bound with STRANGER AT HOME.
New York: Ace Books, Inc., [1954]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition and first paperback edition. Ace double D-77. Paperback original of the Marlowe novel, his first mystery, a carnival setting. The Sanders is a reprint. Jaffery, S., Double Trouble: A Bibliographic Chronicle of Ace Mystery Doubles, pp. 29-30.
THE BARBAROUS COAST.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1956. Octavo, boards. First edition. The first book to use the Ross Macdonald pseudonym, dropping the John (as John Ross Macdonald), to put some distance with John D. Macdonald. The novel is set around a corrupt movie studio, giving Macdonald a chance to skewer the Hollywood crowd. Pederson (ed.), St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, (4th ed.), pp. 676-678.
DECOY bound with IF I DIE BEFORE I WAKE.
New York: Ace Books, Inc., [1953]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First edition and first paperback edition. Ace double D-9. Paperback original of the Michael Morgan novel. Hard boiled Hollywood novel. Bill Pronzini writes in 1001 Midnights, The Aficionado's Guide to Mystery and Detective Fiction (pp. 580-582), "Decoy is still one of the giants (midgets?), a novel so deliciously bad that it must be read again and again to be fully savored and appreciated." Jaffery, S., Double Trouble: A Bibliographic Chronicle of Ace Mystery Doubles, pp. 6-7.
THE LILY HAND: AND OTHER STORIES.
London: Heinemann, [1965]. Octavo, boards. First edition. With two signed inscriptions by Pargeter. The first inscription reads: "To Ellis / with best wishes / from Mary / 1965", most probably a presentation copy to the author's brother Edmund Ellis Pargeter with whom she lived with for 35 years of her adult life. Her brother and grandmother Emma Ellis is where the influence for first name for her pseudonym Ellis Peters. The second inscription reads: "For Sue, with / affectionate regards, / Edith, / August, 1991". This second inscription could well be to Sue Feder who founded the Ellis Peter's Appreciation Society. The author's second story collection, several appear to have fantastic elements to them. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy Volume II, p. 88. Not in Reginald (1979; 1992). Hubin (1994), p. 626.
RELENTLESS PURSUIT.
London: Heinemann:, [2001]. Octavo, boards. First edition. A Adam Bolitho sea adventure, set in 1815.
DARK TIDES.
London: Dennis Dobson, [1962]. Octavo, First edition. Collects twelve stories.
THE DARK CHATEAU AND OTHER POEMS.
Sauk City: Arkham House, 1951. Octavo, jacket art by Frank Utpatel, cloth. First edition. 563 copies printed. Poetry.
ROCKETS TO NOWHERE.
Philadelphia, Toronto: The John C. Winston Company, [1954]. Octavo, cover illustration by Alex Schomburg, cloth. First edition. A worldwide underground organization of scientists and politicians secretly builds a base on the Moon to prevent war on Earth and explore space. Part of the popular Winston juvenile series published between 1952-1961, which introduced many young readers to science fiction.
GOLDEN REMEDY.
New York: Vanguard Press, 1931. Octavo, pp. [1-4] [1-2] 3-294 [295-296: blank], original red cloth, spine stamped in gold, top edge stained red. First edition. The author's third novel to be published in book form and the last to be published by Vanguard Press (he would move to Farrar and Rinehart with his next book). A mainstream novel concerning a man trying to who is unable to establish a lasting relationship with women. Townsend (ed), Rex Stout: An Annotated Primary and Secondary Bibliography, A7.