Low Stock Report and Some Interesting New Items

We are getting very low on copies of:

THE DEAD VALLEY AND OTHERS: H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories Volume 2 edited by S. T. Joshi (Signed Limited Hardcover)

 

THE DEAD VALLEY AND OTHERS: H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories Vol 2 edited by S. T. Joshi (Signed Limited Hardcover)

This is an advance order will will be shipping in approximately 90 days. Reserve your copy now to ensure you get a copy of this limited edition.

Limited to only 150 signed and numbered hardcover copies.  Each story is hand picked by Lovecraftian scholar S. T. Joshi, with introduction.

H. P. Lovecraft was a voracious reader of supernatural and fantastic fiction, and he was continually on the hunt for powerful and stimulating works in these genres. Many of the stories he read directly influenced his own writings

Here is the second volume in the very popular Lovecraft’s Favorite series.

Contents

• Introduction by S. T. Joshi
• The Diamond Lens by Fitz-James O’Brien
• The Horla by Guy de Maupassant
• The Moon Pool by A. Merritt
• Count Magnus by M. R. James
• The Damned Thing by Ambrose Bierce
• The Dead Valley by Ralph Adams Cram
• The Bad Lands by John Metcalfe
• Ooze by Anthony M. Rud
• Fishhead by Irvin S. Cobb
• The Harbor-Master by Robert W. Chambers
• Ancient Sorceries by Algernon Blackwood
• Cassius by Henry S. Whitehead
• The Spider by Hanns Heinz Ewers
• Blind Man’s Buff by H. Russell Wakefield

 

THE COLOR OVER OCCAM by Jonathan Thomas (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover) #2 in the Modern Mythos Series

 

Gorman County disappeared decades ago when floodwaters rose to fill a reservoir. So why should the ghosts of drowned villages resurface only now, in a new century? And what does the reservoir have to do with the grisly deaths, disease, and disappearances stalking the benighted little town of Occam?

Amateur paranormal sleuth Jeff Slater poses these innocent questions, only to encounter hostility, intimidation, and violence wherever he turns. In this saga of Lovecraftian horror, noirish detection, and festering corruption, Slater comes to understand how little he ever knew of his hometown’s macabre history and its bizarre present. Meanwhile, those who do know of Occam’s sinister past warn him with one voice: unearthly doom is on its way. Run or die. But Slater can’t abandon his search for the truth so easily. Can he alter the fate of a town facing cosmic annihilation without destroying himself?

This is the second in our Modern Mythos Series edited by S. T. Joshi and Larry Roberts. The Modern Mythos Series is dedicated to finding the best modern lovecraftian fiction being written today by both veteran and new talented genre authors.

One of only 150 signed and numbered hardcover copies.

 

Some interesting items that are new to the store:

THE BOOK OF THE SIXTH WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION by Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, Edgar Allan Poe (First Edition Hardcover)

THE BOOK OF THE SIXTH WORLD FANTASY CONVENTION by Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, Edgar Allan Poe (First Edition Hardcover) This copy also comes with the Sixth World Fantasy Convention Pocket Program. Both book and program are in fine condition.

Contents:

Contains the following Virgil Finlay illustrations:

Page 50: from Cholwell’s Chickens (facsimile).
Page 51: from Vercombie Station (facsimile).
Page 52: from The Houses of Iszm (facsimile).
Page 55: from Sjambak (facsimile).
Page 69: from The Tell-Tale Heart (facsimile).

Contents of book:

Frontispiece: Alicia Austin illustration form ‘The Last Castle’.
Page 4: Distinguished Guests.
Page 5: Fantasy will Endure.
Page 8: Excerpt from ‘The Book of Dreams’ by Jack Vance.
Page 9: Introducing Jack Vance by Poul Anderson.
Page 11: Jack Vance: A Bibliographic Checklist by Daniel J.H. Levack.
Page 17: The Fantasy Art of Boris Vallejo.
Page 18: Robert Bloch: A Few Words of Friendship by Harlan Ellison.
Page 18: ‘When Screwballs Meet …’ by Fritz Leiber.
Page 22: Past World Fantasy Awards.
Page 23: World Fantasy Award Nominees.
Page 24: World Fantasy Award Rules.
Page 30: Excerpts from ‘The Avatar’s Apprentice’ by Jack Vance.
Page 36: Edgar Allan Poe by Robert Bloch.
Page 38: Edgar Allan Poe – A Worthless Writer.
Page 39: A Facsimile from ‘The Bells’ by Edgar Allan Poe.
Page 41: Silence – A Fable by Edgar Allan Poe.
Page 50: A Portfolio from the Works of Jack Vance.
Page 62: Black Lotus by Robert Bloch.
Page 69: A Portfolio from the Works of Edgar Allan Poe.
Page 86: Past Conventions, (1975-1979) in photographs.
Page 93: Attending Memberships.
Page 95: Supporting Memberships.
Page 96: Colophon.

 

HE BLACK WHEEL by A. Merritt (Limited Edition Hardcover)

Abraham Merritt: The Black Wheel Limited Edition Completed and Illustrated by Hannes Bok. (New York: New Collectors Group, 1947), limited first edition bound by collector dealer Julius Unger, #537 of 1000 copies, 115 pages, black cloth with gilt lettering on front board, yellow illustrated dust jacket. Copyright affixed to copyright page.

Condition: Book is in near fine condition and the dust jacket is in VG++/Near Fine. The dust jacket would be in fine condition if not for the light rubbing and shelf wear. A fantastic copy of this rare edition!

 

NIGHT IMAGES by Robert E. Howard (Limited Edition Hardcover)

A very rare collection of Robert E. Howard, first complete appearance of “Oh Babylon, Lost Babylon.”

Book Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: VG++ to Near fine would be fine but the black cover has some light rubbing to else fine. Large 8vo. 102 pp; #813 of a limited edition of 1000 copies. Overall a fantastic copy of this difficult to fine title.

 

THE SOUND OF DRUMS by David Niall Wilson (Signed Ultra Limited Hardcover)

 

One of the rarest David Niall Wilson limited editions and the most limited Cargo Cult Title produced. Only 9 copies produced of the limited 6 that are numbered and 3 that are have the initials of the contributor.

This is one of the super rare contributor initialed copies. These copies were never for sale to the public and is a very tough find.

Book is in new unread condition.

 

THE DAMNED HIGHWAY by Brian Keene & Nick Mamatas (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover)

A Savage Journey Into the Heart of the American Nightmare.

January 1972.

Resenting his unexpected fame and suffering from severe writer’s block, America’s premier “gonzo” journalist decides to reinvent himself. He creates a new persona–Uncle Lono–and hatches a scheme to return to his roots, reinvigorating his patriotism and his writing in the process. On a freaked-out journey to Arkham, Massachusetts, and the 1972 presidential primary, evidence mounts that sinister forces are on the rise, led by the Cult of Cthulhu and its most prominent member–Richard M. Nixon! Will the truth set Lono free or simply drive him insane?

One of only 135 signed and numbered hardcover copies! This title is not yet in stock but we are expecting it in very soon. Reserve your copy now while they are still available.

Night Tide (filmed 1960)

Even among Lovecraft aficionados, Night Tide is obscure. Only recently, this writer came across it.

For years people have been trying to connect Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley, but in fact here is one case they are connected. Through Marjorie Cameron, Jack Parsons, and L. Ron Hubbard (who did meet H. P. Lovecraft) there is a tangent. Crowley had allowed Parsons to devote his work in California to occultist practices.

Cameron may have lived with Dean Stockton and Dennis Hopper, and both Cameron and Hopper played in Curtis Harrington’s Night Tide. Filmed in 1960 mostly on location, it was not released until 1963. As usual, Lovecraft was considered unfilmable, so the movie is disguised as an Edgar Allan Poe cult film. It is indeed Lovecraft through and through.

Here is an introductory scene with Hopper and his mermaid fetish Linda Lawson. Lawson later traded in her singing career for a busy stint in acting. Her mesmerizing appearance is quite evident, and one can see why Harrrington was taken by her.

To prove that Lovecraft is intended, check out the starfish.

A dead giveaway. The starfish appears intermittently. Here is a closeup.

Filmed in and around Santa Monica’s pier area, it reeks of fish – Lovecraftian fish.

The captain seems clearly to be Obed Marsh was a sea captain from Innsmouth. He visited inhabitants of a Polynesian island and witnessed a ritual to summon the old ones.

This was an amazing screen capture. Note that in the mirror, Hopper has his face split in twain. Classic horror. It is not clear if this was special effects, or not.

If there was any doubt, this sequence has a cephalopod. Nuff said.

Finally the show ends not with a Lovecraft quote, but a Poe quote that inspired Lovecraft.

The entire movie is available on Youtube now, and you should watch it. It has Dennis Hopper. It has Lovecraft. What more could you want?

 

Just In, Back in Stock and In Low Supply

Here are a few titles that just arrived, back in stock or in short supply

 

PILGRIMAGE TO AZATHOTH by H. P. Lovecraft (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover bound in goat skin)

Bound in Black Goat Skin Viatorium Press announces a unique new edition of the prose poems of H. P. Lovecraft. Limited to 46 copies. Letterpress + laser printing. Folding plate. Bound in black goat. Pilgrimage to Azathoth has taken first prize in the 2011 Bookbuilder’s West design competition. Trim size is 5.5 x 7

The prose poems of H. P. Lovecraft, disguised within what appears to be a sinister occult tome; this design is a play on Lovecraft’s own imaginal grimoire, the Necronomicon. Arabic and English are poised side by side, expressing the themes and characters of the interwoven tales. The reader feels he/she is immersed in mystery, due to the bizarre symbols influenced by multiple ancient cultures. The occasionally unorthodox structure, and deliberate obfuscation, challenge the reader to explore the book as an aesthetic object, a machine of arcane sensation. The book is bound in black goat, and contains a large letterpressed folding plate.

The book is nothing short of amazing and is a must have for any serious Lovecraftian library.

These are in stock and in very short supply

 

 

MEDUSA’S COIL AND OTHERS Volume II by H. P. Lovecraft edited by S. T. Joshi (Signed Limited Edition Hardcover)

We are down to just a few copies of this title left!

Some of H. P. Lovecraft’s most fascinating work came from a time in his life that he was forced, by economic survival, to ghostwrite, collaborate and revise the work of others in the field. Here Lovecraft Scholar S. T. Joshi collects the best of these revisions and collaborations in a two volume set to be published this year from Arcane Wisdom Press. Medusa’s Coil and Others is the second of these two volumes. This edition is painstakingly annotated, and includes an introduction and bibliography by S. T. Joshi. The book is a must for the Lovecraft enthusiast and scholar alike. This limited edition hardcover will be strictly limited to only 150 hardcover copies. They will be signed by Lovecraftian scholar S. T. Joshi and will be hand numbered on a custom signature sheet, featuring artwork by Zach McCain. We expect to be shipping these in late January reserve your copy now of this unique collection.

HE GHOST OF FEAR AND OTHERS: H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories edited by S. T. Joshi (Signed Limited Hardcover)

We are expecting to have several more of these in stock from the printers the first week of May. These have been going very quickly so reserve your copy soon before these are all gone.

THE GHOST OF FEAR AND OTHERS: H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories edited by S. T. Joshi (Signed Limited Hardcover)

H. P. Lovecraft was a voracious reader of supernatural and fantastic fiction, and he was continually on the hunt for powerful and stimulating works in these genres. Many of the stories he read directly influenced his own writings. This first volume of H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories presents 16 stories that Lovecraft found to be of particular merit. Among them are the beautiful poetic fantasy “Idle Days on the Yann” by Lord Dunsany; Fiona Macleod’s grimly evocative “The Sin-Eater,” which influenced “The Rats in the Walls”; Arthur Machen’s grisly novelette “Novel of the White Powder,” which Lovecraft adapted for “Cool Air”; and M. P. Shiel’s “The House of Sounds,” which Lovecraft ranked among the greatest weird tales ever written. Also included are hard-to-find stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, E. F. Benson, Théophile Gautier, John Buchan, and others, as well as two stories from the legendary pulp magazine Weird Tales (Seabury Quinn’s “The Phantom Farmhouse” and Arthur J. Burks’s “Bells of Oceana”). The volume contains an introduction by S. T. Joshi as well as notes on the individual stories, giving background on the authors as well as on Lovecraft’s appreciation of the tales and their possible influence on his work.

 

Contents:

• Introduction by S. T. Joshi
• Idle Days on the Yann by Lord Dunsany
• Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Man Who Went Too Far by E. F. Benson
• The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sin-Eater by Fiona Macleod
• The House of Sounds by M. P. Shiel
• The Phantom Farmhouse by Seabury Quinn
• One of Cleopatra’s Nights by Théophile Gautier
• The Stranger from Kurdistan by E. Hoffmann Price
• The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe
• Novel of the White Powder by Arthur Machen
• The Dead Smile by F. Marion Crawford
• The Ghost of Fear by H. G. Wells
• Lukundoo by Edward Lucas White
• Bells of Oceana by Arthur J. Burks
• The Wind in the Portico by John Buchan

This is a signed limited edition hardcover of only 150 signed and numbered copies.

THE KING IN THE GOLDEN MASK and Other Stories by Marcel Schwab (Limited Edition Hardcover) Import from Tartarus Press

‘The peculiar genius of Monsieur Schwob lies in a species of tremendously complex simplicity; that is to say that, by the arrangement and the harmony of an infinity of telling and precise details, his stories present the sensation of a unique detail.’
Rémy de Gourmont, Le deuxième Livre des Masques  Revered in the French-speaking world, Marcel Schwob (1867-1905) deserves to be much better known among English-speaking aficionados of Decadent fiction. This new collection of fifty-one stories, including eight newly-translated pieces, aims to address that discrepancy. It brings back into print Iain White’s poetic translations of Schwob’s better-known tales, such as the title story ‘The King in the Golden Mask’, and adds newly-translated gems such as the astonishingly beautiful and haunting ‘The Wooden Star’.

Schwob was a one-off, but he was greatly influenced by English and American writers. He discovered Edgar Allan Poe whilst still a child, and he translated Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Dynamiter into French. He crammed a great variety of literary endeavour into his all-too-short life, and was much admired by contemporaries such as Paul Valéry and Guillaume Apollinaire.

The King in the Golden Mask contains:

Translator’s introduction
Acknowledgements
From Cœur double: ‘The Strigae’, ‘The Sabot’, ‘Train 081′, ‘Arachné’, ‘The Veiled Man’, ‘Beatrice’, ‘Lilith’, ‘A Skeleton’, ‘The Fat Man’, ‘The Dom’, ‘The Amber-trader’, ‘Mérigot Marchès’, ‘The “Papier Rouge” ‘, ‘The Firebrands’.
From Le Roi au masque d’or: ‘The King in the Golden Mask’, ‘The Death of Odjigh’, ‘The Embalming-women’, ‘The Plague’, ‘The Milesian Virgins’, ‘The Sabbat at Mofflaines’, ‘Blanche the Bloody’, ‘The Flute’, ‘The Sleeping City’.
From Vies imaginaires: ‘Introduction’, ‘Empedocles, Reputed God’, ‘Herostratos, Incendiary’, ‘Crates, Cynic’, ‘Septima, Enchantress’, ‘Lucretius, Poet’, ‘Clodia, Shameless Matron’, ‘Petronius, Novelist’, ‘Sufrah, Geomancer’, ‘Frate Dolcino, Heretic’, ‘Cecco Angiolieri, Malevolent Poet’, ‘Paolo Uccello, Painter’, ‘Nicholas Oyseleur, Judge’, ‘Katherine la Dentellière, Whore’, ‘Alain le Gentil, Soldier’, ‘Gabriel Spenser, Actor’, ‘Cyril Tourneur, Tragic Poet’, ‘Major Stede Bonnet, Pirate by Vagary’, ‘Burke and Hare, Murderers’.
La croisade des enfants: ‘The Goliard’s Narrative’, ‘The Leper’s Narrative’, ‘The Narrative of Pope Innocent III’, ‘Narrative of Three Little Children’, ‘Narrative of François Longuejoue, Clerk’, ‘The Kalandar’s Narrative’, ‘Little Allys’ Narrative’, ‘The Narrative of Pope Gregory IX’.
‘The Wooden Star’
Cover illustration by Santiago Caruso

THE GHOST OF FEAR and OTHERS Edited by S. T. Joshi Now In Stock and Shipping!

THE GHOST OF FEAR AND OTHERS: H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories edited by S. T. Joshi (Signed Limited Hardcover)

Click on the dust jacket art below for ordering information

H. P. Lovecraft was a voracious reader of supernatural and fantastic fiction, and he was continually on the hunt for powerful and stimulating works in these genres. Many of the stories he read directly influenced his own writings. This first volume of H. P. Lovecraft’s Favorite Horror Stories presents 16 stories that Lovecraft found to be of particular merit. Among them are the beautiful poetic fantasy “Idle Days on the Yann” by Lord Dunsany; Fiona Macleod’s grimly evocative “The Sin-Eater,” which influenced “The Rats in the Walls”; Arthur Machen’s grisly novelette “Novel of the White Powder,” which Lovecraft adapted for “Cool Air”; and M. P. Shiel’s “The House of Sounds,” which Lovecraft ranked among the greatest weird tales ever written. Also included are hard-to-find stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne, E. F. Benson, Théophile Gautier, John Buchan, and others, as well as two stories from the legendary pulp magazine Weird Tales (Seabury Quinn’s “The Phantom Farmhouse” and Arthur J. Burks’s “Bells of Oceana”). The volume contains an introduction by S. T. Joshi as well as notes on the individual stories, giving background on the authors as well as on Lovecraft’s appreciation of the tales and their possible influence on his work.

 

Contents:

• Introduction by S. T. Joshi
• Idle Days on the Yann by Lord Dunsany
• Fragments from the Journal of a Solitary Man by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Man Who Went Too Far by E. F. Benson
• The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling
• The Sin-Eater by Fiona Macleod
• The House of Sounds by M. P. Shiel
• The Phantom Farmhouse by Seabury Quinn
• One of Cleopatra’s Nights by Théophile Gautier
• The Stranger from Kurdistan by E. Hoffmann Price
• The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar by Edgar Allan Poe
• Novel of the White Powder by Arthur Machen
• The Dead Smile by F. Marion Crawford
• The Ghost of Fear by H. G. Wells
• Lukundoo by Edward Lucas White
• Bells of Oceana by Arthur J. Burks
• The Wind in the Portico by John Buchan

This is a signed limited edition hardcover of only 150 signed and numbered copies.

The Horror of “Ape Rape”

The term “rape” is a highly charged and emotional term, and it is used in this context with all due respect.  The best horror reflects primordial fears of our species.  Whether there are ancestral or genetically typed fears is still being explored and investigated by primatologists, paleontologists, and psychiatrists.  Writers such as Edgar Allan Poe (Murders in the Rue Morgue), Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan of the Apes),  Max Brand/Frederick Faust (That Receding Brow), H. P. Lovecraft (Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family), Pierre Boule (Planet of the Apes) and Brian Keene (Castaways) have explored horrific aspects of ape/primate – human interactions gone terribly wrong.

In fact, there are numerous legends and well documented cases of primates – such as orangutans - attacking human females and copulating with them.  In addition, chimpanzees have been known to steal babies and eat them.  Even the thought can sicken most mortals, but these blood-chilling events do take place.

Despite generations of study by top biologists and archaeologists, we are only one small step closer to understanding how similar or how different we are from primates and early humans.  Or, for that matter, what it means to be human.

A brief passage in Walking with the Great Apes: Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas [by Sy Montgomery and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Juntion, VT, 2009] is shocking, perhaps more so in the clinical description of what must have been a debilitating and traumatic event in the life of a local woman.

The indomitable Jane Goodall was incredibly lucky to not be accosted by either alpha-male Louis Leakey or her beloved chimpanzees. Only after she left the field did word come that chimpanzees were meat eaters – and more. It may be laughable when William Shatner recently described how a female gorilla once held his testicles in a delicate and compromising manner, but less so as we watch well-respected movie star Julia Roberts being mildly accosted by a large orangutan (about 2:20 into the video clip below). We -and she – realize how very badly this could have went for her.

It seems confirmed that Neanderthal genetic material is mixed into our own genes. There is but one way that got there. How many more, as yet undiscovered, early humans and primates are interlinked in our savage and horrific blood? Are we the top of the food chain – or just food? How thin is the veneer of civilization? The best writers of horror – from the ancients to the post-moderns – have examined and shocked us with the mirror held up to our apish souls.

Why support Indie Horror?

The next new horror event will most likely come from a new way of looking at things by a young writer desperate to be heard by an audience. There are numerous writers in independent horror with raw talent yearning to terrify us. All they need is encouragement and a chance. Here are a few examples from history of people who were once unknown, and subsequently terrified their generation – and beyond – with their stories.

Edgar Allan Poe. From out of nowhere, Poe smashed gothic conventions and created a new kind of supernatural horror.

H P Lovecraft. As a response to a request from an acquaintance, Lovecraft created Dagon which set him on a lifelong crusade to turn horror cosmic.

William Blatty. Mostly known as an assistant to Blake Edwards, he took a little known real life incident and created the Exorcist. It altered our thoughts about religion and the supernatural.

Robert Bloch. After writing hundreds of mostly unnoticed stories, Bloch saw a news article on a serial killer and reimagined it as Psycho.

Jeff Rice. Hammering away at a novel in the pre-Watergate era, Rice created a character almost as supernal as Sherlock Holmes: Karl Kolchak.

Mary Shelley. On a bet, she and Dr. Polidari were dared by Lord Byron to come up with a tale that would scare him. Polidari did sort of an OK vampire story, but – oh my – did she ever come up with a doozie.

Dante. Embroiled in local politics, the Florence child of fortune created a horrific satire that still stuns us in its elegance and drama. A lot of our images of Hell come from his work.

Robert Howard. Sitting at home in Texas, Howard wanted to be an adventurer. Instead, he wrote stories that even took the breath away from Clark Smith and Howard Lovecraft.

John Carpenter. Longing to make a movie in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Carpenter became a film student, entered the lower echelons of Hollywood, and with a $300,000 budget came up with a simple story plot involving horrific doings on Halloween. Movies were never the same afterwards.

Who will be next?

Support your local Independent Horror writer!

Adolphe de Castro: Writer – and so much more.

Most of what we know of Adolphe deCastro (once Adolph Danzinger) is due to Lovecraft’s rants. Clearly deCastro had his faults, and he most likely rankled other writers he knew such as Ambrose Bierce and Samuel Loveman.

Lovecraft variously pontificated, “old ‘Dolph! He’s too gordam [sic] fussy to make his work a paying proposition for me — for his fiction is unspeakable, his paying ability meagre, and his demands for revision – after his first version …”; “Old Dolph is a portly, sentimental, & gesticulating person given to egotistical rambling about old times & the great men he has intimately known. … he entertained everybody with his loquacious egotism & pompous reminiscences of intimacies with the great. … [He] regaled us with tedious anecdotes of how he secured the election of Roosevelt, Taft, & Harding as Presidents. According to himself, he is apparently America’s foremost power behind the throne!” (see Lovecraft Studies article here).

However, “Old Dolph” was indeed sought after by politicians far and wide, and if one sets aside his debatable role in horror and weird tale history, he cut quite a path for himself as a Jewish leader of note. By happenstance, Chrispy has been able to acquire a few deCastro letters from his long career. Others appeared from an unknown source on eBay and were quickly auctioned off to collectors.

Among these were many to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr, (1926, the presidents’ son, then Secretary of the Navy, and Governor of Philippines); Lion Feuchtwanger, August Derleth (1956); Cyril Clemens (1955, on Mark Twain); C G Patterson (1952, Publisher of the Free Mind Newsletter); J S Thornton (1923); Arthur B Hewson (1957); Norman Cousins (1956); Charles Angoff (1952); David Raffelock (1956); Aaron Mathews (1934, Writers Digest), and Melvin Clemens Barnard (i.e. Ben Arid, 1946)

In addition to those letters, and their requests for help, information, and assistance, deCastro was widely known as a Jewish leader. On a fateful day of February 1, 1920, the Sephardic Community of Los Angeles (La Comunidad Sefardi) was founded, with thirty-nine men in attendance; deCastro was one.

Yes deCastro was controversial. He once claimed he met Pancho Villa in order to track down his freind, Ambrose Bierce’s remains. Bierce was alleged to have broken a cane over his head. He incensed Lovecraft by publishing an acrostic poem on Poe – before HPL submitted his version. But one can readily see that deCastro also was well respected, and sought after by many important people over his long life.

Four Centipede Press Titles in Stock and Shipping

DRAMAS FROM THE DEPTHS by Reggie Oliver (Signed limited Edition)

This 900 page collection of Reggie Oliver’s ghost stories and supernatural fiction contains the entire contents of his first three books, including two that are now scarce and hard to find.
This edition also sports a number of Reggie Oliver’s drawings, many of which are presented for the first time. This is going to be the standard for all of Oliver’s books: gorgeous design, stunning type work, all of the fiction, a handful of critical essays, oversize format. Each copy is signed by Reggie Oliver.

 

MASTERS OF THE WEIRD TALE: Edgar Allan Poe

Perhaps the finest, certainly one of the earliest, writers of classic weird tales, Edgar Allan Poe is sometimes overshadowed by 20th century practitioners. Nevertheless, his handling of psychological depth is unmatched in the field.
This major collection features all of Poe’s horror, detective, and science fiction, and includes the complete Poe illustrations of Harry Clarke, Fritz Eichenberg, Gustave Doré, Virgil Finlay, Gahan Wilson, and Arthur Rackham, among others, including some new and fine color paintings by Swiss-artist Gwabryel. Bound in three-piece cloth with ribbon marker, translucent overlays, and enclosed in a cloth slipcase.

 

CONVERSATIONS WITH THE WEIRD TALES CIRCLE

Conversations with the Weird Tales Circle is a massive, oversize, celebration of the lives of H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Frank Belknap Long, Seabury Quinn, E. Hoffmann Price, Henry Kuttner, C.L. Moore, Lee Brown Coye, Hannes Bok, August Derleth, Edmond Hamilton, Manly Wade Wellman, Fritz Leiber, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Donald Wandrei, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, and many others. Each writer has their own section in the book, complete with a custom drawing of the author by noted artist Alex McVey.
The sections contain letters and essays by the writers, with many interviews and memoirs about the writers, often by other writers from the Circle. With dozens of color and black & white photographs, and many of the articles never before reprinted (several coming from 1930s and 1940s fanzines that are now very difficult to find), this is an important and illuminating look at a group of people that defined an era. There is also a lengthy article on Weird Tales cover art with full-color reprints on nearly fifty Weird Tales covers, many of them printed at full page size. Essential for every fantasy and horror fan.
The book is a large sewn hardcover measuring 7 × 12 inches, over two inches thick, with 754 pages, with an image by Stephen Hickman printed on the front cover cloth, and black cloth on the spines and back. The book is rounded, with head and tail bands, and a ribbon marker, with black endsheets.

SLOB by Rex Miller

Slob was a momentous book in the field, Rex Miller’s story of the quarter-ton serial killer “Chaingang,” and it inspired a couple sequels. Ray Garton has supplied the introduction, Harry O. Morris provided the cover art. There is also a rare essay by Rex Miller at the back of the book, never before reprinted in book form. Limited to just 200 numbered copies, each book is signed by Ray Garton and Harry O. Morris.