Studio Publications Part VII

Ten years ago I introduced the Junior Adventure Library from Toronto's Studio Publications. It is an obscure four issue paperback series targeted to kids published in 1952. Three of the titles are well known texts and/or authors. The fourth is different. I just found this uncommon book and learned that it is a collection of four stories.

The book is digest sized with 90 pages of text, including five illustrations. All artwork is unsigned.

Dawn Patrol by Thomson Burtis (1896-1971). First published in the June 1924 issue of American Boy. As far as I can tell this is the only book appearance.

The Man Who Went Down by Laurie York Erksine. The source for the story is unknown.

"I Am a Dog" Confessions of a Dachshund by Clark W. Grayson. I can find nothing about the author or story.

"Bawler Out" and "Nimble-Feet"  by William Heyliger (1884-1950). The source for the story is unknown.

A 1955 Canadian Lung Association Christmas Seal stamp has been added to the front cover.

Studio Junior Adventure Library J2 - 1952

Studio Junior Adventure Library J2 back

Studio Publications Part VI

In the first five parts about the small Toronto paperback publisher Studio Publications I discussed the 15 books Studio published. There is also a four book series called the Junior Adventure Library.

Unlike the 15 adult books, the JAL books have some information about Studio, viz. a printing date of 1952 and an address, the Bloorhill Building on the Kingsway in Toronto. This ties in with information in the 1953 Toronto City Directory which has Stanley R. Schrag as the manager publishing of Studio at 2842 Bloor St. West, Suite 205. This is the address of the Bloorhill Building which is still there. We met Schrag as the president of Export Publishing Enterprises.

The books are a mixed bag - two classics each available in hundreds of editions, an obscure Jules Verne and one from a very obscure author. All are digest size (139mm x 202mm) and 96 pages.

J1 The Blockade Runners by Jule Verne. First published in 1871 as Les forceurs de blocus.

J2 Dawn Patrol by Thomson Burtis. First published in the June 1924 issue of American Boy. As far as I can tell this is the only book appearance.

J3 Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. Three stories - Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp, The Three Sisters, and The Enchanted Horse.

J4 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.

Studio J3 - 1952

Studio J3 back

The Owners of Export Publishing Enterprises Part I

In November 1946 Letters Patent for Export Publishing Enterprises Ltd were granted by the Secretary of State for Canada. Subsequent Annual Summaries filed with the Secretary note the three directors as Stanley Roland Schrag, Martin Kastner and Frank R. Steele. They were also the officers and owners of the company. In this post I'll introduce Schrag, about whom I can find very little.

Stanley R. Schrag's listings in Toronto City Directories:

1946 no occupation listed - residence 759 Indian Road,
1947 no occupation listed - residence 90 Delemere Avenue,
1948 President Export Publishing Enterprises - residence 120 Ellins Avenue,
1949 same,
1950 President Export Publishing Enterprises - residence Park Plaza Hotel,
1951 President Export Publishing Enterprises - residence Port Credit,
1952 not listed,
1953 Manager publishing Studio Publications - residence not listed. This is the from the listing for Studio, there is no separate listing for Schrag,
1954 and 1955 not listed.

A couple of comments. One is how unstable Schrag's home life was - five residences in six years. And this is the first documentary evidence of his connection to another Canadian publisher, Studio Publications. More on this in another post.

When we next see Schrag he's in Florida crossing paths with the well known author Richard S. Prather here and here in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The story is told here. Below are examples of his Export work and his later US efforts.

News Stand Library 119 - July 1950

News Stand Library 119 back

News Stand Library 48 - June 1949

News Stand Library 48 back

Neva Paperbacks Playtime Reading 760-S - 1966

Neva Paperbacks Playtime Reading 760-S back

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

Studio Publications Part V

Here's the last part, at least for now, of the Studio Publications post. The first four parts discussed the first 11 books of the 14 published in the Studio Pocket imprint plus one of the four published in the Junior Adventure Library series. Here are the last three Studio Pockets plus another Junior Adventure Library. The books were published in 1952.

Book 112 is The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier (first published London: Victor Gollancz, 1949). Artist unknown.

Book 113 is The Great Escape by Paul Brickhill (New York: W. W. Norton, 1950). The photograph on the cover is from The Wooden Horse, a British film released in 1950. This is a WW II prison escape film but not based on The Great Escape (which was filmed under that name in 1963). Rather it is based on The Wooden Horse by Eric Williams.

Book 114 is The Frogmen by T. J. Waldron and James Gleeson (London: Evans Brothers, 1950). Artist unknown. 

The Junior Adventure Library is number J3 Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp. Artist unknown.

Studio Publications Part IV

In the first post of this series about Toronto's Studio Publications I said that Studio published 14 books in the early 50s. Until about an hour ago I still believed that. I've just learned that there were at least another four books published in an imprint called Junior Adventure Library. The books I've been able to tease out of the Internet are:

The Blockade Runners by Jules Verne
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Aladdin and his Wonderful Lamp by anon.
Dawn Patrol by Thomson Burtis

Here is Robinson Crusoe.
 

I've mentioned before when I introduced my Canadian Paperback Guides that one of the pleasant challenges of collecting vintage Canadian paperbacks is establishing the population. Every once in a while books like these pop up. If anyone knows of other books in this series please let me know.

Studio Publications Part III

In the first two parts of this series on Studio Publications I looked at numbers 1-4 and 105-108. Now books 109-111.

The three books continue the changes made after book 4 - larger, more expensive, better quality work being reprinted. Books 109 and 110 are 320 pages and 111 is 352. Two of the covers are photographs from films.

Book 109 is The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexander Dumas (1847). No mention of which English translation this is.

Book 110 is The Brick Foxhole by Richard Brooks (New York: Harper & Bros., 1945).

Book 111 is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (London: Victor Gollancz, 1938). Artist unknown.

Studio Publications Part II

In Studio Publications Part I I took a look at the first four books that Toronto's Studio Publications published. Here I'll look at the next four.

After publishing numbers 1 to 4 Studio renumbered the series starting at 105. The look and content of the books also changed. The first four books were short romances originally published by the down-scale American digests and then by the down-scale Canadian publisher Export Publications. The remaining 10 books in the series reprinted books with, if nothing else, better publisher pedigree and, in most cases, literary value.

Books 105 to 108 doubled in size to 320 pages, the price increased from 35 cents to 50 cents and photo covers were introduced.

Book 105 was Werewolf of Paris (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1933) by Guy Endore. This had already been reprinted twice by American publishers Avon and Pocket. Unlike its American predecessors the Studio edition substituted the werewolf with the damsel-in-distress in a full pink photo.

Book 106 was High Yellow (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1937 as Children of Strangers) by Lyle Saxon.

Book 107 was Flee the Night in Anger..., an original paperback by Canadian author Dan Keller. That is Montreal on the cover.

Book 108 was Hotel Berlin '43 (New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1944) by Vicki Baum.

Studio Publications Part I

Studio Publications was a short lived but interesting Toronto company that published 14 paperbacks in the early 1950s. I'll be looking at Studio over a few posts.

The only book in the series with either a printing or copyright date is 107, a paperback original, with a 1952 copyright date.

The first four books (1 - 4) are similar in a number of ways. Each has an illustrated cover, 160 pages, a 35 cent price and were published earlier by another Toronto publisher - Export Publishing Enterprises Ltd.

The artists on the Studio editions are unknown as are those of NSL 36 and Torch 3. D. Rickard is the artist for NSL 80 and NSL 54.

Book 1, Shack-up Girl (New York: Herald, 1946 as Limbo City) by Edwin B. Self. Published by Export under its original title as News Stand Library (NSL) 36 in 1949. Export also published a different Shack-up Girl by Perry Lindsay (Peggy Gaddis) as NSL 48.

Studio 1

NSL 36

Book 2, Furnished Room (New York: Star Guidance Inc., 1950 as Passionate Lover as Stork Original Novel 5) by Gail Jordan (Peggy Gaddis). Published by Export as Shotgun Wedding as Torch 3 in 1950. For some inexplicable reason the Studio edition is identical to the Torch edition except the first paragraph in the book is gone from the Studio edition.

Studio 2

 

Torch 3

Book 3, Sordid Affair  by Fay Raymond. Published by Export as Detour, a paperback original, as NSL 80 in 1950.

Studio 3

NSL 80

Book 4, Sins of the Fathers (New York: Greenburg, 1946 as Heed the Thunder) by Jim Thompson. Published by Export under its original title as NSL 54 in 1949. These editions were discussed in my earlier post about Jim Thompson in Canada.

 

Studio 4

NSL 54

Photo Covers

Today's inoffensive, photoshopped, type heavy mass market paperback covers are a far cry from those of the 1940s through 1960s. Their illustrations were designed to get your attention at the newsstand, drug store or chain store such as Stedmans, Kresge, Zellers and Metropolitan. Without the covers a blog such as this would be informative (I hope) but dull.

Photo covers were very uncommon on paperbacks. Of the three large Canadian publishers only Collins made an effort to move beyond the illustrated cover with photos. I'll discuss them in another post. A smaller publisher, Studio, also used photo covers.

During its first 4 1/2 years Harlequin had three photo covers (of a total of 264). The blurb on the back cover of Paprika begins with a classic sentence - "It was written in the stars, that Paprika, the Gypsy Queen, would love only one man, and that man she would torture." First published in 1935, Paprika was a popular book with the Harlequin edition reprinted in 1953 and two American paperback editions in the 1950s.

1950

1952

1952

Export had four photo covers (of a total of 197) during its 2 1/2 years existence.  It's interesting to note that the four were published in a three month period - July to September 1950. Murder in False Face with its sick green mask on a sad looking brown carpet is in the running for ugliest Export cover. The long gone Toronto newspaper The Telegram adds some historical interest.

News Stand Library (NSL) 118

NSL 123

NSL 125

NSL 135

Jim Thompson in Canada

The name Jim Thompson is well known to collectors of paperbacks and readers of crime fiction. Before turning to crime stories Thompson wrote a couple of novels. One of them, Heed the Thunder, was published as a Canadian paperback by Export Publishing Enterprises as News Stand Library #54 in June 1949. This was Export's only book by Thompson and predated any of his paperback originals in the US. The signed art is by D. Rickard.

Next to publish was Toronto's Studio Publications in 1952 as #4 in their 14 book Studio Pocket series. The name was changed to Sins of the Fathers. Thompson's name appears only on the spine as James Thompson. The artist is unknown.