The Time Machine Part VI

The Time Machine is a short novel, really a novelette. A 1995 Penguin edition, only 107mm x 136 mm (4 3/16 x 5 3/8 inches), is just 92 pages long. Along with its popularity, this made it an ideal novel for reprinting in the pulps - three times between 1927 and 1951. The first was Amazing Stories, May 1927. The text reprinted is the standard Heinemann published in 1895. The story illustrated on the cover is not The Time Machine. The next pulp reprints, Famous Fantastic Mysteries in August 1950 (vol. 11 no. 6) and Two Complete Science-Adventure Books Winter 1951 (vol. 1 no. 4), have The Time Machine on the cover.

The FFM cover is by Norman Saunders with the Time Traveller aggressively protecting an over sized, but nicely made-up, Weena from the Morlocks. The story is 44 pages long. The version reprinted is the uncommon first American. The TCS-AB version is the Heinemann and is 43 pages long.

Condition - Part I

Anyone who collects a mass market product such as paperbacks understands the effect condition has on collecting. I'll detour from paperbacks to another mass market product to give an example.

Long before paperbacks I collected comic books. That ended some 20 years ago for two reasons. One was the change in the industry that happened mid eighties. Independents challenged DC and Marvel and the two dominant publishers began to change the product. Many old series were cancelled and the process that led to today's overpriced, overmarketed, overproduced comic book junk began. Although I see that the air is escaping from that balloon - DC Comics has recently announced the first drop in price in its history from $3.99 to $2.99. Thank goodness for the growth of the graphic novel over this period.

The other reason is the explosive growth in the price of comics published from the 30s to the 70s. Especially in high grade condition. Viz., a copy of Action Comics #1 (VG+ condition) sold earlier this year for $1.5 million. This is extraordinary. Of the tens of millions of books and magazines published around the world in the twentieth century the single most expensive item is a 10 cent 1938 American comic book. The most expensive book published in the 20th century sold for $430,000 in 2000.

Here are a couple of copies of the first Flash Annual from 1963. The first copy cost me 25 cents when I bought it at the neighbourhood confectionery store. It shows the many readings I enjoyed. This one would hardly qualify for good condition. The other copy is near fine and was purchased in the 1980s. A near fine copy, in the latest price guide, sells for 20 times a good copy.

DC published a "Replica Edition" in 2001. The price has jumped - $6.95 US, $11.50 CAN.

Collins White Circle Artists Part XX - Margaret Paull (7)

The first 35 of 67 signed covers by Margaret Paull for Wm. Collins Sons & Co. Canada Ltd's White Circle imprint are discussed in parts I to VI. Here are the next six. All were published in 1945 with The Nutmeg Tree and The Commandos reprinted in 1946.

White Circle 222

White Circle 223

White Circle 224

White Circle 225

White Circle 226

White Circle 228

1960s - Part I

I've just finished Sam Wasson's Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), the story of the making of the film version of Breakfast at Tiffany's. The title describes the time and place of the filming of the first scene in the movie. The date was October 2, 1960. Today the director of Breakfast at Tiffany's, Blake Edwards, died.

A co founder of Ms. Magazine is quoted in the book:

"When Breakfast at Tiffany's came out, it blew me away. ... Here was this incredibly glamorous quirky, slightly bizarre woman who wasn't convinced that she had to live with a man. She was a single girl living a life of her own, and she could have an active sex life that wasn't morally questionable. I had never seen that before."

Meanwhile Harlequin Books, in the decade beginning 1960, published ten non-romance books. The rest of the 60s was inoffensive Mills & Boon romances, 849 of them. The 10 non-romance were a mixed bag - six non fiction (3 sports, one each of biography, RCMP history and an etiquette dictionary) and four fiction, including the amazing Thomas P. Kelley. Here are three of the 10.

Harlequin 635 - 1961

Harlequin 695 - 1962

Harlequin 718 - 1963

News Stand Library v. Newsstand Library Part I

Toronto's Export Publishing Enterprises's News Stand Library Pocket imprint ran from mid 1948 until early 1951. Then it started again in 1959, or so it might seem. Newsstand Library, Inc. published 97 "Newsstand Library Magenta" books through early 1962. But this was a Chicago company with no connection to Export. The name is close enough that the two series are sometimes confused with each other or run together in lists.

Contributing to the confusion is the coincidence that the books were very similar in story type and cover art. Titles like Commit the Sin, Diploma of Passion and She Had to Be Loved can easily be imagined on Export's books. The most famous of the Newsstand Library Magenta books is Charles Willeford's The Woman Chaser, the only one to have been recently published in a new edition.

Newsstand Library Magenta U137 - April 1960

Newsstand Library Magenta U137 back

News Stand Library 139 - September 1950

News Stand Library 139 back

News Stand Library 145 - October 1950

News Stand Library 145 back