Marshall McLuhan Part III

"It is observable that the more illusion and falsehood needed to maintain any given state of affairs, the more tyranny is needed to maintain the illusion and falsehood. Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but, disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort." 

                                            The Mechanical Bride (Preface), 1951

The Mechanical Bride, McLuhan's first book, is a collection of 59 short (most one or two pages) essays about mid century US media, advertising and culture. It is a book that has aged well and a great read. The topic of six of the essays is comic strips - Blondie, Tarzan, Superman, Li'l Abner, Little Orphan Annie and Bringing Up Father. I imagine that McLuhan enjoyed the Star Weekly Comic section in every Saturday Toronto Star where all of these strips could be found in the 1950s.

Here are the 21 strips in the February 12, 1955 Star Weekly Comic section.

• Abbie an' Slats
• Blondie
• Bringing Up Father
• Dick Tracy
• Ella Cinders
• Flash Gordon
• Hopalong Cassidy
• Jane Arden
• Li'l Abner
• Little Orphan Annie
• Mandrake the Magician
• Moon Mullins
• Napoleon
• Popeye
• Snookums
• Steve Canyon
• Superman
• Tarzan
• Terry and the Pirates
• The Captain and the Kids
• The Lone Ranger

Relaxing at the end of a hard day with a beer and a copy of the Toronto Star. Undated photograph (1970s)

Beacon Press BP 265 1967

Tarzan - Star Weekly February 12, 1955

Blondie - Star Weekly February 12, 1955

Bringing Up Father - Star Weekly February 12, 1955

Li'l Abner - Star Weekly February 12, 1955

Little Orphan Annie - Star Weekly February 12, 1955

Superman - Star Weekly February 12, 1955

Retitled Harlequins Part V

Between 1949 and 1959 Toronto mass market paperback publisher Harlequin published 455 titles that are new editions of books published earlier. Here I listed the 89 for which Harlequin retitled their edition. 

There are five retitled books from Dodge, a short-lived (1937-42) New York publisher. Harlequin also published two Dodge books with the title unchanged. Original title is in square brackets.

• Grinstead, J.E. Maverick Guns [Guardians of the Range]
• Cole, Jackson Black Rider [Six-Gun Stampede]
• Garth, Will  Masked Rider [Lawless Guns]
• McCulley, Johnston The Outlaw Trail [Reckless Range]
• Grinstead, J.E. Range King [King of the Rangeland]

Harlequin 75 September 1950

Harlequin 100 February 1951

Harlequin 220 March 1953

Harlequin 260 November 1953

Harlequin 411 January 1958

Collins White Circle Pocket Edition Original Publishers Part III

 Part I lists all the original publishers for the White Circle Pocket Edition (1942-1952) mass market paperback imprint of the Toronto based subsidiary of Scottish/British publisher Wm. Collins. There are 28 publishers with one title.

Here are five more of the publishers with a single White Circle.

Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock first published in 1912 (London: John Lane)

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1883 (London: Cassell)

Black Jade by Angeline Taylor in 1947 (New York: Robert M. McBride)

Without Armour by James Hilton in 1933 (London: Ernest Benn)

Turvey by Earle Birney in 1949 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart)

White Circle Pocket Edition 39 1942

White Circle Pocket Edition 223 1945

White Circle Pocket Edition 50 1942

White Circle Pocket Edition CD357 1948

White Circle Pocket Edition CD404 1949

White Circle Pocket Edition CD534 1952

Collins White Circle Pocket Edition Original Publishers Part II

Part I lists all the original publishers for the White Circle Pocket Edition (1942-1952) mass market paperback imprint of the Toronto based subsidiary of Scottish/British publisher Wm. Collins. Titles from the parent company dominate (323 of 416) with the second, Duell, Sloan and Pearce, far behind with 18. Here are six from that long gone New York publisher.

Born in Paradise by Armine von Temski first published in 1940 

How to Grow Old Disgracefully by Norman Anthony in 1946 

Trouble in July by Erskine Caldwell in 1940 

Everybody Slept Here by Elliott Arnold in 1948 

Thomas Forty by Edward Stanley in 1947 

Vigilante by Richard Summers in 1949 

White Circle Pocket Edition 296 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition 331 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition 335 1948

White Circle Pocket Edition CD379 1949

White Circle Pocket Edition  CD400 1949

White Circle Pocket Edition CD466 1950

Collins White Circle Pocket Edition Original Publishers Part I

The Toronto based subsidiary of Scottish/British publisher Wm. Collins published 429 titles in a numbered mass market imprint from 1942 to 1952. Only nine of the White Circle Pocket Edition titles are paperback originals with the remainder new editions of previously published books. I have identified the original publisher for 416 of those books. There are 45 publishers with two accounting for 82%. The full list - 

• Wm. Collins             323 
• Duell, Sloan and Pearce    18 
• Michael Joseph                  8 
• Prentice-Hall                5 
• Wm. Collins Canada        5 
• J.B. Lippincott                4 
• William Morrow                4 
• Charles Scribner's        3 
• Eyre & Spottiswoode        3 
• Arcadia House                2 
• Arthur Barker                2 
• Dodd, Mead                2 
• E. P. Dutton                2 
• Julian Messner                2 
• Macrae Smith                2 
• Random House                2 
• Appleton-Century-Croft      1
• Blakiston Company, The     1 
• Casell                        1 
• Charles L. Webster        1 
• Coward-McCann                1 
• David McKay                1 
• Ernest Benn                1 
• Farrar, Straus                1 
• Fleming H. Revell        1 
• G. P. Putnam's                1 
• Gazette Printing                1 
• George J. McLeod        1 
• Greenberg                        1 
• Harper & Brothers        1 
• Houghton Mifflin                1 
• J.H. Sears                        1 
• John Lane                        1 
• Little, Brown                1 
• Macaulay                        1 
• McClelland & Stewart         1 
• McGraw-Hill                1 
• Phoenix Press                1 
• Robert M. McBride        1 
• Simon and Schuster          1          
• Standard, The                1 
• Sun Dial Press, The        1 
• Thornton Butterworth        1 
• Vanguard Press                1 
• William Heinemann        1 

Here is the single book from five of the publishers.

Death and the Dancing Footman by Ngaio Marsh first published in 1941 (Boston: Little, Brown)

Shabby Tiger by Howard Spring in 1935 (New York: Sun Dial Press)

Favourite Wife by May Edginton in 1936 (New York: Macaulay)

El Caid by Clare Sheridan in 1931 (London: Thornton Butterworth)

The Horncasters by Victor H. Johnson in 1947 (New York: Greenberg)

White Circle Pocket Edition 76 1943

White Circle Pocket Edition 230 1945

White Circle Pocket Edition 327 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition 290 1946

White Circle Pocket Edition 332 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition CD427 1950

Collins White Circle Retitled Books Part III

Wm Collins Sons & Co. Canada Ltd (Toronto) published 429 titles in their White Circle Pocket Edition paperback reprint line from 1942 until 1952. All but nine are new editions of previously published books but Collins never included the original publication information and for sixteen books titles were changed. Part I lists nine books for which I was missing the first edition information because the title was changed. Since then I have tracked down five, leaving four unknown. Here I'll bring the list up to date.

The Dangerous Age first published as One Room for His Highness by Maysie Greig in 1947 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)

Only To Ask as The Young Invader by Anne Maybury in 1947 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)

Lawless Range as Just Dusty by Ranger Lee in 1947 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)

Winter Week-End as The Girl From Switzerland by Renee Shann in 1947 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)

Breath of Desire as The Winds of Spring by Anne Maybury in 1948 (Glasgow, London: Wm. Collins)

Still unknown:

Stephanie by Pamela Wynne

Florida Night by Jennifer Ames 

Guns on the Copper Trail by Gary Marshall 

Blood on the Sage by Chester Wills 

White Circle Pocket Edition 321 - 1947

White Circle Pocket Edition 366 - 1948

White Circle Pocket Edition 428 - 1949

White Circle Pocket Edition 393 - 1949

Newspaper Novels Part XI

Part I introduced novels that were inserted in the weekend edition of at least 24 North American newspapers between 1919 and 1973. The novels were not serialized but complete in one issue, at least in the US. The Star Weekly published by the Toronto Star had two and three part inserts from 1960 to 1973. Little information is available on these inserts but I estimate between 10,000 and 12,000 were published. Many titles were published in more than one newspaper so the number of titles is less, perhaps 8,000 to 10,000. The vast majority were recently published or soon to be published romance, adventure, Western, crime, thriller and other genres. Most are long forgotten and out of print. But one title stands out.

On May 23, 1937 readers of the Sunday editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Detroit Free Press and Chicago Herald and Examiner found that week's novel, The Great Gatsby. While advertised as "complete" this version is nearly 30% shorter than the published book, 34,000 words vs. 48,000. Rare today this abridged edition was reprinted in volume 21 (2023) of The F. Scott Fitzgerald Review. Here is the abstract for the accompanying article:

"Shortly before F. Scott Fitzgerald relocated to Hollywood for his final attempt at screenwriting, a condensed version of his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, appeared in a select few newspapers on 23 May 1937, twelve years after its original publication fell far short of its author's original expectations. Featuring artwork by well-known book illustrator and landscape artist Harold E. Snyder (who presented the characters in some decidedly 1930s fashions rather than how they might have dressed and looked in 1922), the condensation sanitized the novel, revising offensive language like Owl Eyes's "poor son-of-a-bitch" (recast as "poor fellow") and excising suggestive scenes (such as Nick's strange, sudden appearance next to Chester McKee's bed, where the photographer reclines in his underwear). This version of Gatsby has long been hard to find, with only a handful of surviving copies available in various Fitzgerald collections."

Here are three US newspaper novels from that era. The Bangor Daily News novels are 16 pages, The Philadelphia Inquirer 20 pages.

Bangor Daily News - August 19, 1939 - Step in the Dark by Ethel Lina White (1876-1944), Wm. Collins, 1938.

Bangor Daily News - October 7, 1939 - Smoking Altars by Gladys St. John Loe (1895-?), Claude Kendall, 1936. 

Philadelphia Inquirer - July 13, 1941 - Deep Waters by Ben Ames Williams (1903-1989). I can't find a book version of this. It was published earlier in Maclean's May 1, 1939.

Bangor Daily News October 7, 1939

Bangor Daily News August 19, 1939

Philadelphia Inquirer July 13, 1941

158 and Counting

The British North American Act, enacted March 29, 1867 by the British Parliament, provided for Confederation of the three British North American colonies, Canada (Upper and Lower), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Now much amended as the Constitution Act, 1867, it was proclaimed into law on July 1, 1867 and Canada was born. The first official birthday celebration was in 1868, July 1 being named Dominion Day in 1879 and Canada Day in 1982.

The Star Weekly was published by the Toronto Star from April 9, 1910 until July 1968, then by Southam Press until December 29, 1973. Here we return to 1966 Canada with the May 14, 1966 issue; 100 pages for 20 cents or free with your Saturday newspaper in selected cities.

Star Weekly (40 pages). The cover story is about a different kind of threat to Canadian sovereignty than we see now. It focuses on Canadian corporations sold to foreign ones. An interested reader could also find an article about treasure hunting in the waters off Cape Breton and a column by Wayne and Shuster. Short fiction, recipes, gardening tips and a crossword puzzle are included.

The Canadian (28 pages) Volume 2, number 19. An article on Toronto's first modern skyscraper, the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower, is followed by Barbara Frum's "Pretty Hip Dames", about mothers earning PhDs.

Novel (12 pages). The Baron and the Chinese Puzzle by Anthony Morton (John Creasey) (1908-1973). Illustrated by Colette McNeil. Like many of the Star Weekly novels this is promoted as "First Publication Anywhere".

Comics (20 pages). Twenty comics including Dick Tracy, Popeye, Prince Valiant, Steve Canyon, Blondie plus other features.

Star Weekly May 14, 1966

Star Weekly The Canadian May 14, 1966

Star Weekly Novel May 14, 1966

Star Weekly Comics May 14, 1966