Leo Orenstein

This post is a follow-up to one at The Dusty Bookcase about Leo Orenstein. In particular I'll add a bit more information on his published work.

His first novel, The Queers of New York, was published in September 1972 by Simon & Schuster of Canada, Ltd as a Pocket Book original. A couple of aspects of the book stand out for me (aside from the obvious.) The first is the absence on the covers of any information about the book with the back cover used for an absurdly detailed biography of the author. The second is the publisher - not a small obscure publisher but the venerable Simon & Schuster with the famous Pocket Book logo.

Note the phrase "as a young man, he worked as a magazine illustrator" in the biography. This gives the impression that one might see his work in Chatelaine. Below are two examples of his work from a different sort of publisher - Fireside Publications Limited of Toronto. Undated but likely circa 1950. Both books are magazine sized with 64 pages.

Baron Munchausen - art by L. Orenstein

back of One of Cleopatra's Nights - art by L. Orenstein

One of Cleopatra's Nights - art by Jackson Heise

Canadian Paperbacks - Other Editions Part V

One of the 14 books published circa 1952 by Toronto's Studio Publications is Guy Endore's The Werewolf of Paris, one of the most popular books of the vintage paperback era. From 1941 until 1974 there were six editions, including Studio's. Here we'll look at the first two. Of the thousands of covers of American paperbacks published from 1939 to 1959 they are among the most recognizable.

Pocket Books, Inc. #97 – published February 1941. The first American paperback edition, “complete and unabridged”. Cover artist is unknown. The book has 344 pages including a three page autobiographical article by the author and eight pages of ads. Apparently the cover was controversial. As Kenneth Davis (Two-Bit Culture, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984, page 43) says “The only discouraging word [for Pocket] was the first appearance of paperback censorship. After Appointment in Samarra and The Werewolf of Paris provoked complaints, Pocket Books withdrew both books from circulation rather than upset dealers at this early stage.”

Avon Publishing Company, Inc. #354 – published 1951. Cover artist William Randolph credited on the inside front cover. The book has 192 pages. Described on front cover as “specially revised and edited”, the Avon edition is approximately 30% shorter than the original.

Studio 105

Studio 105 back

Pocket 97

Pocket 97 back

Avon 354

Avon 354 back

The Way We Were Part I

In We're #1 I highlighted the number ones for three early American paperback publishers. Here I'll continue looking at the early publishers, showing an example and an update on where they are now.

Pocket Books, Inc. published its first 10 books on June 19, 1939. Today Pocket Books Mass Market and Pocket Star Books Mass Market are imprints in the Pocket Books division of the Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, a unit of Simon & Schuster, Inc., which is the publishing division of CBS Corporation. Simon & Schuster ranked sixteenth in the publishing world in 2006 with sales of € .64 billion.

Pocket 18 front and back (1st printing - September 1939)

Avon Book Company published its first 12 books on November 21, 1941. Today Avon Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, a subsidiary of News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch. HarperCollins ranked ninth in the publishing world in 2006 with sales of € 1.06 billion.

Avon 54 front and back (1944)

Pines Publications published its first titles of the Popular Library imprint in 1943. The Columbia Broadcasting System bought Popular in 1971 and it became a unit of the CBS/Education and Publishing Group. In 1977 CBS merged Popular with newly acquired Fawcett Publications to form Fawcett Books, Inc., a unit of CBS/Publishing Group. Popular Library’s publishing activity was substantially reduced and in 1982 Warner Books bought most of Popular’s assets and the imprint disappeared.

Popular Library 49 front and back (1945)

Dell Publishing Company sold its first ten books in early 1943. Today Dell Mass Market Paperback is an imprint of the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., which is owned by Bertelsmann AG. Random House ranked fifth in the publishing world in 2006 with sales of € 1.83 billion.

Dell 39 front and back (1944)

Beaver Publications - Canada's First Mass Market Paperbacks Part I

In the summer of 1935 the first ten modern mass market paperbacks (MMP) were published by Britain's The Bodely Head as Penguin Books. Four years later the first ten American MMP were published by Pocket Books. Today Penguin and Pocket continue to be have strong publishing programs as divisions of larger media companies. The Canadian story is a bit different.

Canada's first MMP publisher was Beaver Publications and its publishing legacy is three books, all published in 1941.

The books were produced with high quality paper and binding and also exist in editions with a scene from the book on the cover. Unlike the first Penguins and Pockets, Beaver's books were not reprints. Two books are novels by Leslie Hamilton and one a collection of stories by three authors including Hamilton. The story collection has a biography of Hamilton which says virtually nothing. The publisher's motto was " If it's a Beaver release - it's good!". That may have been true but low distribution combined with high production costs likely brought a quick end to the Beaver.