Saturday, 8 August 2009

Oh, Chrispy is flying high. Not only did I get three more 1940's era Startling Stories pulps (for my Young Lin Carter research and sheer enjoyment of reading those old tales when they were new) but just came back from watching on the big screen in glorious black and white The Wolfman (1940) and Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). They were just as much fun - and sometimes as corny - as I remember.

A great Saturday!

Hannes Bok Illustrations, 1948

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L Sprague De Camp, author, Wheels of If Shasta. Hannes Bok, Illustrator. 1948, with brilliant dustjacket art by Hannes Bok (Wayne Woodard).

From wikipedia:

Wayne Woodard (the name is sometimes mistakenly rendered as "Woodward") was born in Kansas City, Missouri, the first stop in a peripatetic youth. His parents divorced when he was five; and his father and stepmother, strict disciplinarians, discouraged his artistic efforts. Once he graduated high school, in Duluth, Minnesota, Bok cut off contact with his father and moved to Seattle to live with his mother. There he became active in SF fandom, including the publication and illustration of fanzines. It was in connection with these activities that he originated his pseudonym, first "Hans", then "Hannes", Bok. The pseudonym derives from Johann Sebastian Bach (whose name can be rendered both as "Johann S. Bach" and "Johannes Bach").

Henry Kuttner (1958)

Recently seen on the "ebayeum" (for about $85 starting bid). The seller states:

This is a copy of Henry Kuttner—A Memorial Symposium, edited and published by Karen Anderson in August 1958. It consists of 36 well-mimeographed pages, brad-bound in a stiff cardstock folder. Only about 100 copies were produced. This copy is in excellent condition.

Contributors to the symposium include Poul and Karen Anderson, Robert Bloch, Anthony Boucher, Ray Bradbury, Fritz Leiber, and Kuttner himself (a story reprinted from a 1948 fanzine and excerpts from a letter). Donald H. Tuck also contributed a bibliography of Kuttner’s work. There is artwork by Edd Cartier and John Grossman.

Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915. He sold his first story, “The Graveyard Rats,” to Weird Tales in early 1936. Kuttner was known for his literary prose and worked in close collaboration with his wife, C. L. Moore. They met through their association with the “Lovecraft Circle,” a group of writers and fans who corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft. Their work together spanned the 1940s and 1950s and most of it was credited to pseudonyms, mainly Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O’Donnell.

Kuttner wrote a number of stories in the ‘30s in the world of the Cthulhu Mythos, which was invented by Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and others. His work influenced quite a few other writers including Ray Bradbury, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Richard Matheson and Roger Zelazny. He died of a heart attack at age 42 in February 1958 (referred to in science-fiction fandom as “The Year of the Jackpot,” because it also saw the premature deaths of Cyril M. Kornbluth and Francis Towner Laney).

Proof: Sam Moskowitz Edited "Horror Times Ten"

Recent auction on ebay:

HORROR TIMES TEN // TEN CHILLING TALES OF HORROR
BY SUCH MASTERS AS RAY BRADBURY, AUGUST DERLETH, ROBERT BLOCH AND H.P. LOVECRAFT
Edited and with an introduction by ALDEN H. NORTON
With special notes by Sam Moskowitz
A BERKLEY MEDALLION BOOK

Actually Ghost Edited by Sam Moskowitz
Signed by the real editor, Sam Moskowitz

New York. 1967. Berkley Books x1414. First edition Paperback original (PBO) anthology with "Berkley Medallion Edition, June 1967" stated on the copyright page. Standard size paperback, approximately 7" tall by 4 1/4" wide. 175 pages. 60 cent cover price.

Signed on the front endpaper, inscribed:

To Joel:
Another volume
I ghost edited
Sam Moskowitz

Rare Leo Margulies Book(1949)

Margulies was a powerful and influential editor for many decades. This book has a "Who's Who" of scietifiction writers spanning the end of Lovecraft's era to the start of the Hydrogen Bomb era.