Ferdinand Feghoot: Ephemera & Anecdotes (I)

Paradox Press, Berkeley 1962priceless ephemera from promotional campaign for legendary science fiction mini-anthology!!! // "TODAY is Feghoot Day!"

Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot was published by Reginald Bretnor, doing business as Paradox Press in Berkeley California back in 1962. Under the pseudonymous guise of Grendel Briarton (an anagram of his own name) he had written the fifty short stories contained therein, each featuring his time-traveling protagonist, the illustrious Ferdinand Feghoot. Each of these short-short sagas concluded with some atrocious pun, spoonerism, or equally ridiculous play on words of some stripe or another. The stories had all been previously published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and were at the time earning Bretnor one of the highest word rates in the genre for short-length material (Feghoots each ran about 150 to 200 words, and by 1962 F&SF was paying $20 per episode.)

Originally from the Bretnor estate, I have the following cachet of promotional ephemera from the Golden Age of Feghoot, when after unsuccessful efforts to find an established book publisher willing to take a chance on it, Reg decided to go it alone, and devised these strange and wonderful schemes for pushing his humble contribution to literature upon an initially lukewarm society.

#1 ~ S.F. Chronicle Personal Ads

I count a total of 50 clippings here, all from the Personals listings in the San Francisco Chronicle from various dates throughout 1962. Some of the ads look suspiciously like imitators, such as one claiming Feghoot is studying at a certain radio DJ school, probably posted by someone unconnected with Bretnor, jumping on the Feghoot bandwagon after the Personals reading populace became more cognizant of the Feghoot mystique.

FEGHOOT is really Judge Crater
FERDINAND FEGHOOT — Come back, come back, whenever you are! Cleopatra
TODAY IS FEGHOOT DAY!
FEGHOOT is the opium of the people! Karl M.
FERDINAND FEGHOOT when are you? G.B.
IN S.F. -- Feghoot is at Staceys and City Lights.(Drat! I'll bet there used to be a letter from Ferlinghetti in this pile....)

How many ads that were placed by Bretnor can you find in this close-up? I count ten, though only nine that mention Feghoot. That one for COGSWELL alumni 75th anniversary in March I suspect to be a Feghootian notice of the then-impending marriage of Theodore Cogswell, another science fiction author with whom Bretnor was then closely asssociated.
#2 ~ Bretnor's payment receipts from the Chronicle
46 of them, most for $2.00, though some for $1, $3, $4 and more. Altogether Bretnor must have spent a little over $100 posting all these messages to and from Feghoot. These are especially interesting as they are all computer printed, which wasn't especially common in 1962! It appears that the Chronicle got a new IBM system before December when the last receipt was issued, blue & white instead of yellow and with a different style of printout.

"TODAY is Feghoot Day!"
Through Time and Space with Ferdinand Feghoot was published by Reginald Bretnor, doing business as Paradox Press in Berkeley California back in 1962. Under the pseudonymous guise of Grendel Briarton (an anagram of his own name) he had written the fifty short stories contained therein, each featuring his time-traveling protagonist, the illustrious Ferdinand Feghoot. Each of these short-short sagas concluded with some atrocious pun, spoonerism, or equally ridiculous play on words of some stripe or another. The stories had all been previously published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and were at the time earning Bretnor one of the highest word rates in the genre for short-length material (Feghoots each ran about 150 to 200 words, and by 1962 F&SF was paying $20 per episode.)
Originally from the Bretnor estate, I have the following cachet of promotional ephemera from the Golden Age of Feghoot, when after unsuccessful efforts to find an established book publisher willing to take a chance on it, Reg decided to go it alone, and devised these strange and wonderful schemes for pushing his humble contribution to literature upon an initially lukewarm society.
#1 ~ S.F. Chronicle Personal Ads
I count a total of 50 clippings here, all from the Personals listings in the San Francisco Chronicle from various dates throughout 1962. Some of the ads look suspiciously like imitators, such as one claiming Feghoot is studying at a certain radio DJ school, probably posted by someone unconnected with Bretnor, jumping on the Feghoot bandwagon after the Personals reading populace became more cognizant of the Feghoot mystique.

FEGHOOT is really Judge Crater
FERDINAND FEGHOOT — Come back, come back, whenever you are! Cleopatra
TODAY IS FEGHOOT DAY!
FEGHOOT is the opium of the people! Karl M.
FERDINAND FEGHOOT when are you? G.B.
IN S.F. -- Feghoot is at Staceys and City Lights.(Drat! I'll bet there used to be a letter from Ferlinghetti in this pile....)
Etc.
How many ads that were placed by Bretnor can you find in this close-up? I count ten, though only nine that mention Feghoot. That one for COGSWELL alumni 75th anniversary in March I suspect to be a Feghootian notice of the then-impending marriage of Theodore Cogswell, another science fiction author with whom Bretnor was then closely asssociated.
#2 ~ Bretnor's payment receipts from the Chronicle
46 of them, most for $2.00, though some for $1, $3, $4 and more. Altogether Bretnor must have spent a little over $100 posting all these messages to and from Feghoot. These are especially interesting as they are all computer printed, which wasn't especially common in 1962! It appears that the Chronicle got a new IBM system before December when the last receipt was issued, blue & white instead of yellow and with a different style of printout.
#3 ~ A Mimeographed Flash Bulletin alerting the Press to Feghoot's announcement of the upcoming book.

#4 ~ Feghoot Campaign Poster
I think Bretnor had these lithographed at a quickie printer, nicer than mimeography by far, as should be for something so important as a gubernatorial campaign! To draw extra attention to his book, Bretnor announced that Feghoot would be running for Governor of the State of California, but with an unusual twist, and I'm not just talking about having the Furry with a Syringe on Top for a running mate! Well, perhaps not so unusual, considering that FF was an accomplished professional time traveller, but they would be running against Merriam & Sinclair in the 1934 election, and instead of offering platitudes about better times ahead they were going to retrofit society with a more prosperous past!
Bretnor plastered these all over town, mostly in San Francisco and Berkeley, and I think he also wrote campaign letters to local newspaper editors endorsing Feghoot's candidacy.

#5 ~ Feghoot Sweatshirt & Book Ad Flyer
Printed in the same manner as the campaign posters but on pink stock, this is one of the cover sheets sent along with sweatshirt orders, with two forms for ordering additional sweatshirts and/or copies of the book.

... the book, of which only 2000 were printed. Later and larger Feghoot compilations were published by Mirage Press (1975 & 1980) and Pulphouse (1992), with multiple tales appearing singularly in F&SF, Venture, Asimov's, Amazing, and Pulphouse magazines, and single appearances in a few odd publications outside the science fiction field (such as the "Holmes-spun" piece that appeared in the Baker Street Journal.)