Bantam Publications, Inc. of Los Angeles (LA Bantam) - Part IV

Here's the fourth and last post for LA Bantam - at least for this blog. I've decided to open a second blog that will continue and expand the Bantam story. There is much more to say and explore about this intriguing early American paperback publisher. It deserves separate treatment.

In this final post I'll list the remaining books and provide some more covers. Each of these books had an illustrated cover plus at least one version of the type-only cover as shown here.

24 Humorous Anecdotes and Funny Stories     Eleanor Packer (ed.)
25 Nobody Heard the Shot     Donald Barr Chidsey
26 The Blue Geranium and other Tuesday Club Murders     Agatha Christie
27 Danger Mansion     Philip Wylie
28 Strangers in Flight     Mignon G. Eberhart
A1 Red Threads      Rex Stout

LA Bantam 25

LA Bantam 26

Bantam Publications, Inc. of Los Angeles (LA Bantam) - Part III

Lots of American posts last few days. The Canadians will return. Continuing with the enigmatic LA Bantam.

One of the curious features of their books was the variety of colour combinations used on the covers. Other publishers of the era who had type-only covers stuck to a simple colour scheme keyed to the type of book. Albatross, Penguin and the Canadian White Circles for 1942 are examples. In contrast Bantam used nine (that I know about) colour combinations. The primary colour is dark blue or dark green. Combined with that can be any of five colours - light blue, light green, gray, tan and yellow. There is no obvious pattern - in the printing, type of book or number in the series. Many books had two different type-only covers.

Here are the next seven books:

17 Private Lives of Movie Stars     Eleanor Packer (ed.)
18 Love on the Run     Fred MacIsaac
19 The Tower of Flame and Jaragu of the Lost Islands     Rex Beach
20 The Story of Rabelais and Voltaire     Hendrik Willem van Loon
21 The Shadow and the Voice of Murder     Maxwell Grant
22 The Green Death and other stories     Brett Hutton
23 Tarzan in the Forbidden City     Edgar Rice Burroughs

Bantam 18

Bantam 19

Bantam 20

Bantam Publications, Inc. of Los Angeles (LA Bantam) - Part II

In part I of this post I discussed this early paperback publisher from Los Angeles. Here I'll provide a bit more background and list the next eight (of 29) published by LA Bantam.

Bantam Publications, Inc. was a branch/subsidiary of Western Printing & Lithographing of Racine Wisconsin. Western went on to a much longer and successful publishing program in 1942 as a partner with Dell Books. LA Bantam was a bit of a mystery to collectors and researchers for quite a while. Here are quotes from some books:

"Making its debut  in 1940 and terminating in 1942, the line of L.A. Bantams ran to approximately thirty titles." Allen Billy Crider (editor), Mass Market Publishing in America (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982), p. 167.

"A series of twenty-nine books published by Western Publishing and Lithographing, they were distributed on the West Coast ... in the late 1930s." Thomas L. Bonn, Undercover: An Illustrated History of American Mass Market Paperbacks (New York: Penguin, 1982), p. 123.

"In 1940 Western produced a short-lived series of paperbacks...; 29 - 33 titles, perhaps seven with pictorial covers." William H. Lyles, Putting Dell on the Map (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1983) p. 6.

There are other examples. Since the early 1980s the number published has been confirmed at 29 with nine illustrated covers. The details are:

Numbers 1 - 28 have at least one version of the type-only covers; numbers 21 - 28 and A1 have illustrated cover editions.

There is still confusion about when the books were published thanks to Bantam not providing a print date, just a copyright date. There is some external evidence that narrow the publishing dates which I'll look at in a later post.

Here are the next eight LA Bantams plus some covers.

9 Enter the G-Men     William Engle
10 1000 Facts Worth Knowing     anon.
11 How to Win and Hold a Husband     Lucille Martin
12 The World's Great Love Affairs     Eleanor Packer
13 Children's Favorite Stories     E. Lewis (ed.)
14 The Lone Ranger and the Secret of Thunder Mountain    Fran Striker
15 Poems of Passion     Ella Wheeler Wilcox
16 Grimms' Fairy Tales     Emily Wayne

Bantam Publications 12

Bantam Publications 15

Bantam Publications 24 (illustrated edition)

Bantam Publications, Inc. of Los Angeles (LA Bantam) Part I

In an earlier post I discussed an obscure American paperback publisher - Red Arrow Books. Another publisher, Bantam Publications, Inc. shares a number of characteristics with Red Arrow that make it a fascinating bibliographic study.

1) very early in the days of mass market publishing: Red Arrow - 1939 and Bantam - 1940.
2) not located in New York: Red Arrow - Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Bantam - Los Angeles.
3) complicated publishing histories: Red Arrow with four versions of its 12 books and Bantam with two or three versions of all but one of its 29 books.
4) both publishers used illustrated and type only covers. Bantam on eight books (plus one with illustrated only).

Bantam is usually referred to as LA Bantam to distinguish it from Bantam Books of New York which started in 1945.

One intriguing aspect to Bantam is that the books were apparently sold through vending machines. I say apparently because I'm not sure the authority for this. Some of the ads on the back cover imply the books were sold in stores. Perhaps both methods were used.

The books are 100 pages and at least two have a 10 cent price (another at 192 pages and 15 cents) which is much below the typical 25 cent price of other paperbacks at the time. The book subjects are a very mixed lot - a Shadow and a Tarzan, mysteries, collections of poems, health and self help, western, children's, humour. Here are the first eight plus images of three of them.

1 The Spanish Cape Mystery         Ellery Queen
2 Little Known Facts About Well Known People      Dale Carnegie
3 Your Health Questions      Morris Fishbein
4 Everybody's Dream Book      anon.
5 How to Make Friends Easily      S. Currie
6 Jokes and Wisecracks      Jerome Gregory
7 The Voice of Experience
8 Favorite Poems      Henry C. Brown (ed.)

LA Bantam 2

LA Bantam 2 back cover

LA Bantam 3

LA Bantam 8