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

The Way We Were Part II

Here and here I commented on 7 of the 11 largest and most successful American paperback publishers from 1939 to 1955. Here are the final four. Interesting to note that of the 11 originals, nine exist as imprints. One has disappeared via a name change and one has been shut down.

New American Library of World Literature, Inc. was created when two executives of the American arm of Penguin, Kurt Enoch and Victor Weybright, acquired Penguin’s interest in its American subsidiary. NAL began two imprints in 1948, Signet for fiction and Mentor for non-fiction. Today Signet is an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., the American operating company of the Penguin Group which is owned by Pearson PLC. Pearson PLC ranked first in the publishing world with sales of € 4.55 billion in 2006.

Signet 756 front and back (1949)

[the first signet was 610 then 660 on]

Almat Publishing Corporation, founded by Alfred R. Plaine and Matthew Hunter in 1949, published Pyramid Books. Sold to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1974, it was renamed Jove in 1977. Today Jove is an imprint of The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., the American operating company of the Penguin Group which is owned by Pearson PLC.

Pyramid 32 front and back (1951)

[the first Pyramid was 11]

Fawcett Publications, Inc. published its first books under the Gold Medal imprint in early 1950.  Today Fawcett is an imprint of the Random House 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.

Gold Medal 226 front and back (1952)

[the first Gold Medal was 101]

Berkley Publishing Corporation, founded by former Avon Books executives Charles Bryne and Frederic Klein, released its first books on March 15, 1955. Today Berkley is an imprint of The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., the American operating company of the Penguin Group which is owned by Pearson PLC.

Berkeley 101 front and back (1955)

[this is the first Berkeley - there are no 1-100]

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)

We're #1

In a post a few days ago I showed that King's Enemies by J. M. Walsh was the first White Circle published by Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Canada Ltd. The White Circles ended in 1952 but one Canadian paperback publisher from the 1940s is still with us - Harlequin. I thought it would be interesting to compare the number 1 Harlequin with the number ones of a few American paperback publishers from the 1940s and early 1950s - companies that still exist, at least as imprints of global media companies. The first company is Bantam Books.

The first 20 books published by Bantam Books, Inc. were released on January 3, 1946. Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi is #1. Today Bantam Mass Market 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.

Bantam 1 front and back

A. A. Wynn, Inc. had been publishing first magazines and then books for more than 20 years when it published its first Ace Books in September 1952. Ace #1 is Samuel W. Taylor's Grinning Gismo and Keith Vining's Too Hot for Hell. Today Ace is an imprint of The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., the American operating company of the Penguin Group which is owned by Pearson PLC.  Pearson PLC ranked first in the publishing world with sales of € 4.55 billion in 2006.

Ace 1 front and back

The third American publisher is Ballantine Books, Inc. which published its first four books on November 10, 1952. Executive Suite by Cameron Hawley is #1. Today Ballantine Books is an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., which is owned by Bertelsmann AG.

 

Ballantine 1 front and back

Harlequin # 1 from May 1949 is The Manatee by Nancy Bruff. Today Harlequin Enterprises is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canadian media company Torstor Corporation.

Harlequin 1 front and back

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)