Spotting Trends and the Rules of Book Collecting part Two

 

This is part two of Spotting Trends and the Rules of Book Collecting:

The Rules

1. Collect what you love

The old adage that states you should do what you love also holds true for book collectors. Chances are if you love an author’s work, the likelihood of another collector liking them is very high. The first rule of book collecting, and the most important, is collect what you love. Then at the very least if these books happen to go down in price or never become collectable you still have a book that you’ll enjoy having in your library. For example, back in the 1980’s Wayne Allen Sallee was gaining some popularity and I collected some of his limited editions. Sallee then kind of dropped out of the scene and only recently have I seen new work by this author. However, I still have the limited editions and never felt sorry about the purchase because I can reread the book and enjoy the stories all over again.

As a contrast, many collectors began reading Brian Keene’s short fiction in small press horror magazines so when his first novel, THE RISING, came out collectors bought them up quickly at a cover price of $45. Now, several years later, these same editions sell in the range of $500 to $600. As Keene continues to grow in popularity this book will likely maintain and increase in value.

2. Condition

When you are purchasing collectable books the only books that you are looking for are in Fine to Very Good condition. Nothing else will do. If the book was published within the last twenty years then only Fine condition is acceptable. There are some collectors that will purchase books of lower grade to complete a collection but I’ve never been a proponent of this and would prefer to wait until a copy in at least Very Good condition comes around. And folks, they always do. Never for a second believe that you’ll never see an edition of this again. They are out there and you will see them come around so long as you’re patient.

For years I wanted a copy of LAST CALL by Tim Powers, the lettered edition published by Charnel House. This edition of LAST CALL has been described as one of the most beautiful books produced anywhere in the last thirty years and arguably one of the most collectable books in the small press horror genre! This first edition, limited to 26 lettered copies, hand bound in full green Morocco (goat skin) with a tarot card and two authentic Flamingo Hotel poker chips recessed into the front cover, gilt lettering on the spine, endpapers made from uncut sheets of one-dollar bills, limitation page made from an uncut sheet of two-dollar bills signed in silver ink, a piece of a two-dollar bill laid in for a bookmark, and tarot card illustrations by Peter Richardson set inside borders by J.K. Potter with tissue-guards laid in.

I finally saw one come up on an auction site and bid $3,500, which was the extent of my book collecting budget at the time. I was outbid and lost what I thought was one of the key books that should be in my library. I waited another four years and was offered one on consignment, which I ended up buying myself.

The moral here is, don’t do something crazy in order to purchase a special book; don’t mortgage the house, sell the car, spend the kid’s college fund. As hard as it may be to believe the book will come around again, they always do.

3. Quality vs. Quantity

Many new collectors and book scouts will make the mistake of thinking they can make far more money or trade credits on cheap items than on buying more expensive quality collectable items. Their theory in premise is correct; if they can purchase a used paperback for a $1.00 and sell it for two then they have doubled their money.

The problem with their theory is, it’s not the percentage made but the time involved with the collecting and then selling of these books that causes trouble. Let me explain. In most cases the best you are going to get from a used bookstore on previously read paperbacks is 25% of cover price in trade credits. Most if not all of them will only allow you to use the credits in the “used paperback” area. Rarely is cash given for these. So trading up to first edition hardbacks or limited editions is highly unlikely.

Our next option is then to put them on an auction site like eBay or Horror Mall to auction them off. If you sell them there individually you’ll likely double your money on a per book basis. However, by the time you take pictures, write the ad and list the book it’s taken about thirty minutes and this is if you’re good at it. So now once you take the time to find the book, put it on an auction site, invoice, pack and ship the book to double your dollar we find that you’re working for about a $1.00 an hour. Secondly, you get the reputation of being a second hand paperback seller rather than a high end, first edition or limited edition horror genre dealer.

So let’s take the example one step further and spend a week finding a great deal on RAVENOUS GHOST by Kealan Patrick Burke. You get lucky and find a first edition hardback for $100. You take this book to the used genre bookstore and will likely get $175 in trade credits or $120 in cash. If you were to go through the motions of selling the book yourself on eBay you’d likely get $200, doubling your money. The difference is you only have to list one book, take pictures of one book, grade and pack one book.

After only a few times selling books of this caliber you will have collectors emailing and asking if you have other books available. Which you may or may not have. If you do, that’s great because you can offer them other books you have in stock or books that you’re willing to trade for. But even if you don’t, you can ask these collectors to send you a want list and now you have built in buyers for books that you may find in your searches. It’s far easier to purchase a $500 book if you know that you have a buyer that is willing to pay $700 to fill a spot in their want list.

As you can see it’s far more profitable to hunt for those books that are truly collectable rather than those that take far too long to process and sell. Think about it: if you can find one book a month like the RAVENOUS GHOST we talked about earlier, you can in-crease your collection by $100 a month without even dipping into your own funds. Do this ten times and now you’re building your collection with $1,000 a month.

We’ll get more into how you can pull this type of cash and trade from deals where you never even see the book in another chapter. But for now the lesson of Rule #3 is buy quality rather than quantity.

4. Know who you are buying from

There is no doubt that the Internet has changed the book collecting world. There was a time when the only way the average person could find collectable books was either through a brick and mortar used bookstore or from mail order book catalogs.

I remember pouring over ten to fifteen different catalogs a month from dealers who carried genre books that interested me. These catalogs not only let you see the wonderful books that were available, but also kept your finger on the pulse of market trends as well as price increases and decreases. However, even more importantly, you had only a handful of booksellers that you could trust in both grading, giving you good trades on your unwanted stock and more importantly, friendship based upon a respect and love for books.

The Internet has now opened up the world to the book collector and some of those books that we only rarely saw up for sale can be readily found with a Google search. It really gave the book collector the same advantages as the bookseller due to the ability to quickly find rare book titles and a list of comparable prices. Over the last decade this has been a great boon for the collector because in most cases it meant that they could now find those nearly impossible books at a more competitive price.

Now novices and experienced booksellers alike have an even playing field in which to peddle their books to the consumer. This of course, as you can imagine, has brought with it some great deals as well as some problems. Book selling takes a lot of effort, particularly in the area of determining printing and grade not to mention authenticity.

Over the last several years we’ve found that there are more and more people selling books on eBay who are uninformed, ignorant or just plain deceitful regarding their listings. I once saw a signed second printing of DAGON AND OTHER MACABRE TALES by H. P. Lovecraft on eBay. As most collectors know, Lovecraft never had a hardcover edition of his work published while he was living so having a signed copy of this work would be impossible. However, the new collector may not know this little fact and plunk down the $800 at the “buy it now” price. I also recently heard a claim from a reputable bookseller that specializes in Stephen King books, that up to twenty-five percent of flat-signed King books sold on eBay are forgeries.

In the past we had reputable dealers who had the knowledge and ethics to stand by the books they were selling. If you received the book and didn’t like it you returned it for a full refund. Today there are only a handful of brick and mortar used bookstores and very few Internet bookstores that send out catalogs. So we are left to hunt for our books in cyberspace. In short, make sure on all large purchases that you know whom you are dealing with and that they have a money back guarantee. If you don’t know their reputation make sure that you start out purchasing books with a lower price tag that allow you to test the waters with this new bookseller. Once you’ve built a good relationship and find that the bookseller is reliable and knowledgeable, you can increase your purchases to more expensive items.

The same can be said for trades here. If you don’t know the dealer and you send him $2,000 in books for sale or trade you may have just donated your books to a crook in another state or foreign country.

5. Research before you purchase

In the investing world this is called doing your “due diligence.” Many of the same things that you are looking for in a good stock, you also look for when purchasing a good collectable book.

When purchasing a book from a yet unproven bookseller I al-ways try to find out why the person is selling the treasure in the first place. There can be any number of reasons but the conversation helps me determine the person’s ability to price and grade the book appropriately. For example, if the person has acquired the book in a collection from his uncle’s estate and he’s not a collector but knows that they are valuable, you should be very leery. First most of the folks out there that have valuable books given to them from the death of a loved one, or find them in the attic of a house they recently bought, will do just enough research to be dangerous. By that I mean they will get a few price guides, look at similar books online and instantly believe that they have a first edition in unread condition when in fact what they really have is an unread book club edition that is nearly worthless.

One of the things that I’ve always liked about signed limited editions is that you can be pretty confident in regards to its authenticity. However, the same cannot be said for first trade hardcover editions.

Those who collect first editions must be much more careful about their purchases. Here are just a few examples why: publishers have never been very good at following their own rules regarding first editions and first printings. Some of the older small presses that did second printings didn’t state so on the copyright page and so the collector must look for other “points” in the book to dictate printing. Sometimes only the date of publication changes or the cover price on the dust jacket is all you have to go by to determine if the book is a true first edition, first printing. We’ll later go into some guidelines that will help you determine true first edition points that you’ll be able to use as reference material for your research.

The main point to be made by rule number five is to make sure you do your homework before purchasing anything. Even if you miss out and someone else buys the book before you have done your research, you’ll have learned a lot in the process and be able to make a quicker, more informed buying decision in the future.

6. Read books

I can’t tell you the number of collectors I speak with that don’t read the books they are purchasing. They are not absorbing the history and the culture behind the book they just put on their shelf for display.

Please don’t misunderstand me when I say ‘read the books.’ I’m not saying that you need to pull down a $3,500.00 copy of THE RISING ultra edition, of which only 6 were produced, to read when you could buy a used paperback of the same book for $2.50. I’m saying that you need to read and understand the books in your collection. So pick up that $2.50 paperback and read it, know what you paid $3,500.00 for and be able to talk about its history by asking questions of genre booksellers and publishers, etc. Read interviews with the author and make notes regarding his comments on the book.

This, folks, is how we will carry on and grow the great tradition within the small press horror genre and book collecting. I can’t help but be inspired by some of the collectors that you will read about later in this book. They are the maintainers of history. They will be seen in later years as the preservers of our genre’s heritage and ephemera. You, as a collector, are now part of this heritage.

Collectors, booksellers, and book scouts alike will find that their knowledge about their books will pay dividends in the form of getting more return for their books from other collectors and booksellers. I can’t tell you how often collectors have allowed me to sell their collections for them because they know that I love and respect the books within their collection and furthermore would ensure that the person who purchased them would further the course of our fine genre by spreading the word and inspiring those in their life about the value of genre collecting and the significance of book collecting in our culture.

There is only one way to do this and that is to read the books and to communicate our experiences about the books with others of like mind and those that show an interest in horror fiction.

Countless times I’ve sat around tables with fellow collectors as they’ve retold stories of how they found their treasures, the experience they had in its purchase and the joy of absorbing its culture, history and further, how they later passed that joy onto another collector.

I’ve had very expensive books even given to me by high-end collectors as a way to ensure and carry on this heritage. They know that I will respect and care for the treasure and they are happier knowing that they’ve had a part in the history of the rare gem and the pleasure it will bring to others.

I’m not telling you to make small press horror collecting your life’s work, but what I am saying is that if your intent and purpose is wholly monetary, you’ll likely not last long in this business and, if nothing else, your collection will be lacking due to ignorance and lack of inspiration. Read and love the books, the rest will come naturally.

Larry L. Roberts

Spotting Trends and the Rules of Book Collecting part one

This article is an excerpt from a book I co-wrote with H Michael Casper titled: 
COLLECTING DARKNESS: 10 YEARS OF DELIRIUM BOOKS 

Part one:

Unless you have a rich aunt that loves to help feed your insatiable appetite for small press horror books, you’ll need to choose the books you intend to collect very carefully. With an eye on the future you should think of each purchase as a way to increase the value of your library or its trading power with as little cash as possible.

I know what many of you are saying right now: “There are items in my collection that I will never sell. There is just nothing on earth that could make me part with these special books in my collection.” I’ve heard this all before and I’ve even been guilty of saying it myself. This may be difficult for you, and it may be a whole new paradigm, but you have to look at everything in your collection as if it were for sale, the only question is at what price.

The authors of this book have been collecting genre books for more than forty-five years collectively and one thing we’ve learned in that time is that although a book may now seem as though you would never be able to part with it, given time and circumstance everything is for sale or trade.

The best collectors in the genre are those who know how to purchase, trade and sell parts of their collection in order to improve what they already have. This is the same with every good business, or investor, in that our goal is to leverage our inventory and dollars in order to increase our collection faster than we could by just purchasing and hoarding everything we want.

I recently received a call from a friend and avid collector of Arkham House books. He called to talk about a couple of titles we had in stock that interested him. After striking a deal on a book our conversation turned to those items in our collections that we termed “never to be sold.” In his case it was an inscribed copy of LOST WORLDS by Clark Ashton Smith published by Arkham House in 1944. He went on and on about how he would likely be buried with the book. Not more than a week later he called me back wanting to sell the copy of LOST WORLDS because he’d found a copy of THE OUTSIDERS AND OTHERS and he had to have it.

I could almost hear his rapid heartbeat through the phone, the panting and sweaty palms. He was going to get this copy of THE OUTSIDERS AND OTHERS and, in getting it, he couldn’t sell his beloved copy of LOST WORLDS fast enough.

In all honesty folks this is exactly what this collector should have done. Sacrifice his best title for an even better one. That is how we build world-class collections without living on rice and beans every day.

It may take some of the fun out of it for you but if you are going to build a worthwhile collection, you are going to have to think about this like a business. Each transaction must benefit the collection. If it doesn’t, then get the paperback.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe that you should collect what you love but let’s face it: this is an expensive hobby and, again, with-out unlimited funds you’ll need a plan and a strategy to help you build the kind of library that you’re dreaming of one day owning.

So let’s start out with a few rules that will help guide you through the small press book collecting jungle.

Larry L. Roberts

Part two will be posted tomorrow.

CTHULHU CULT: A Novel of Obsession Book Trailer

To reserve your copy of this title just click the cover art below for ordering information.

This is #1 in our new Modern Mythos Series. Each title is hand picked and edited by Lovecrafian Scholar S. T. Joshi and award winning publisher Larry L. Roberts. These titles will be the best modern fiction in the Lovecraftian Mythos and will undoubtedly become one of the most collected series in the genre.

Synopsis:

Having fled town under a cloud of salacious scandal, Shelby Tyree has returned, a mysterious woman at his side and a strange new devotion to horror writer H.P. Lovecraft in his head. His childhood friends Rick and Conrad scarcely recognize Shelby, who has been transformed from a rakish dilettante into a zealous guru devoted to his own pseudo-religion. They take it upon themselves to discover what Shelby is really up to. Why has he founded his own church, devoted to a presumably fictional demonic alien? Is it possible Shelby’s lost his grip on reality or is somehow under the spell of this mysterious woman? Or is it possible that Shelby has uncovered some secret truths that man was not meant to know? “The Cthulhu Cult is a brilliant and scintillating novel of Lovecraftian terror. It grips the reader from the first page and develops a tremendous cumulative power.

Anyone who has the least interest in H. P. Lovecraft‘s work will find The Cthulhu Cult a must-read.” –S. T. Joshi

One of only 150 signed and numbered hardcover copies.

The Importance of the Genre Book Collector

In 1862, John Burton pointed out the main traits of book collectors: ‘It is, as you will observe, the general ambition of the class to find value where there seems to be none, and this develops a certain skill and subtlety, enabling the operator, in the midst of a heap of rubbish, to put his finger on those things which have in them the latent capacity to become valuable and curious.’

He goes further to explain how this benefits society: ‘In such a manner is it that books are saved from annihilation, and that their preservers become the feeders of the great collections in which, after their value is established, they find refuge; and herein it is that the class to whom our attention is at present devoted to perform an inestimable service to literature.’

“The Loyalty of collectors draws them to each other; they are a fraternity joined by bonds stronger than their vows, the bonds of shared vanity and the ridicule of non-collectors. Collectors appear to non-collectors as selfish, rapacious, and half-mad, which is what collectors frequently are, but they may also be enlightened, generous and benefactors of society, which is the way they like to see themselves. Mad or sane, they salvage civilization.”

— Wilmarth Lewis—Lefty Lewis collector of eighteenth century writer Horace Walpole.

Small press horror collecting has evolved and changed over the last seventy-five years and will continue to do so over the next seventy-five. And we as collectors will be evolving right along with it.

The purpose of the book collector is a considerable one. Genre fiction written within the small press will one day be seen as treasures by many rather than few. And we, as collectors, are simply the caretakers of these treasures.

For example, society is just now starting to see the real influence that H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction has had on American literature, film and art nearly a half-century after his death. Only with August Derleth’s passion for Lovecraft’s work and the persistence of Lovecraft’s readers to support and collect his publications, is his work now so well respected and available to the public.

I believe the small press horror collector’s role in our world history will also prove to be a significant one. We line our walls from floor to ceiling with these dark works of fiction because they teach us about the significance of life, its frailty and the ease with which it can be taken away. It affords us the opportunity to look at life as something very precious and worthy of our reverence.

Without the small press collector’s library we would likely lose much, if not all of these worthy tomes to the minutia of media that bombards our daily lives and thereby losing its influence within our cultural mores, folkways and taboos that are now written within the pages of today’s small press horror literature. I believe that the importance of this genre will, in retrospect, prove to be a reflection of the dark side of our nature through no less than five wars, concentration camps, occult suicides and school yard rampages to mention only a few. Art reflects life and our genre explores that darkness by shining the light of promise and interpretation upon it. The genre collector is the savior of these tomes for posterity.

Larry L. Roberts

Top 10 Rules For the Book Scout

This picture is of two of the bookshelves in the authors reading room.

I started my bookman career as a young man of twenty.  At the time I was stating a new family and a new job and money was extremely tight.  However, like most good bookman I found ways to make money in the book world so that I could purchase those desperately sought after treasures for my own collection.  There are many keys to being a world class genre collector but I believe the first of which is being a good book scout.  By book scout I mean a person that seeks out and finds books that they are not interested in keeping for their own collection and sell or trading them to someone else for a profit.

For me during these early years of scouting I poured all the profits back into my own rapidly building personal genre library. For others it could be a great way to have a second income. But whatever you reason I believe that even today in the digital world we live in there is room for the book scout apply his trade.

Below are 10 rules that I believe every book scout should follow in order to be successful.

Top 10 rules for the book scout

1. Only purchase books that you know you can turn a profit of at least 30%
2. Professional book scouting is a business, treat it like one.
3. Keep book scouting funds separate from you personal accounts. There are other expenses that go along with scouting.  Gas for driving around finding your treasures, brodart covers, telephone, etc.
4. Keep good records of your purchase, sales, trades and expenses etc.  Keep a journal of your communications, thoughts, wants and goals.
5. Set goals and strive to reach those goals.  Keep a journal of your progress, particularly your mistakes.  You’ll always remember your wins but you learn the most from your mistakes.
6. Study prices daily, they fluctuate often.  Learn the ebb and flow of your expertise and when the best time to buy and the best time to sell.  For example.  The best time to buy books is summer.  This time of year folks need cash for vacations, weddings, graduations, etc and they will sell their books cheaper or in mass so you can get a better deal.  Then when the weather gets cold folks are stuck in the house and read books so prices tend to trend up in the winter because there is less selling and more buying.  Another good thing about summer is that you have a lot of garage sales and estate sales going on…these are prime money making areas.
7. Concentrate on cash flow and not percentage gained.  Now this may sound weird but as a book scout you want to buy high demand – high priced items with good equity rather than low price items that you make 200% on.  For example, I would rather spend $200 on a book that I can make 30% on than a paperback that I pick up for $1 and sell for $3.  Remember that you only have so much time for scouting so you need to make the most of your time.  Also when selling paperback you have to put in the time it takes to pack, ship and drive to the post office or bookstore.  In short, even though you may have doubled your money on the $1 paperback you’ve lost money because you are only making at best $2 an hour before expenses.
8. Be professional; get a business card with your name, number, email address etc.  This will let dealers and collectors know that you are serious about your trade and someone they can take seriously.  A professional looking business card will open a lot of doors that may never have been opened to you otherwise.  Keep your business cards on you at all times and hand them out to bookstores and collectors.  You can get a phenomenal amount of new clients and potential clients by handing out cards at book conventions and shows.
9. Get to know your customers idiosyncrasies.  For example if a store owner tends to buy more books at the beginning of the month than the end make sure that you hold off on bringing in the books until the first of the month.  If a dealer tends to have a huge sale at a specific time of the year look to purchase rather than buy at this time.  I’ve had dealers that I’ve purchased books from at a certain time of year and then sell them back the same book later in the year at a profit.  Dealers are just like everyone else.  If they have a vacation they go on every year you’ll likely find that they are in a much better mood to give you a big discount than any other time of year because their head is on getting cash for their vacation and not on the businesses bottom line.  Take advantage of that.

10. This kind of goes along with rule number 1 but it deserves repeating. Be a shrewd buyer.  As a book scout you should only be saying yes to purchasing a title about 5% of the time.  Remember that each book you purchase needs to bring you a profit of at least 30% and it means if you are selling to a dealer you have to be buying the book at 60 to 70% discount.  This may sound impossible but it’s not.  Remember that most folks don’t know the value of books so as long as you do know their value, you can make a profit.

Larry L. Roberts

First Modern Mythos Title Announced!

CTHULHU CULT: A Novel of Obsession by Rick Dakan (#1 in the Modern Mythos Library)

This is #1 in our new Modern Mythos Series. Each title is hand picked and edited by Lovecrafian Scholar S. T. Joshi and award winning publisher Larry L. Roberts. These titles will be the best modern fiction in the Lovecraftian Mythos and will undoubtedly become one of the most collected series in the genre.

Synopsis:

Having fled town under a cloud of salacious scandal, Shelby Tyree has returned, a mysterious woman at his side and a strange new devotion to horror writer H.P. Lovecraft in his head. His childhood friends Rick and Conrad scarcely recognize Shelby, who has been transformed from a rakish dilettante into a zealous guru devoted to his own pseudo-religion. They take it upon themselves to discover what Shelby is really up to. Why has he founded his own church, devoted to a presumably fictional demonic alien? Is it possible Shelby’s lost his grip on reality or is somehow under the spell of this mysterious woman? Or is it possible that Shelby has uncovered some secret truths that man was not meant to know? “The Cthulhu Cult is a brilliant and scintillating novel of Lovecraftian terror. It grips the reader from the first page and develops a tremendous cumulative power.

Anyone who has the least interest in H. P. Lovecraft‘s work will find The Cthulhu Cult a must-read.” –S. T. Joshi

One of only 150 signed and numbered hardcover copies.

In Pursuit of Giants

When he was very young, August Derleth had a notion worthy of a giant, and with gigantic industry he has pursued it…

          – Sinclair Lewis in 1937

At the time of this writing we were approaching the centennial birthday of August Derleth, who many would consider the father of 20^th century genre small press publishing.  He was born to William Julius and Rose Louise Derleth on February 24, 1909 in Sauk City, Wisconsin.  He passed on the 4^th of July, 1971 while resting on a branch under a favored tree located on his property in the city of his birth.  He is buried in St. Aloysius Cemetery Sauk City, Wisconsin.

The significance of his contribution and dedication to both writing and publishing “Weird Fiction” cannot be over emphasized and it’s my opinion that he is quite simply the most historic and influential publisher in the small press horror genre to date.

“Weird” and “horrific” fiction was a passion of Derleth’s very early in life and by the age of sixteen he sold his first short story to the legendary pulp magazine Weird Tales entitled “Bat’s Belfry”.  It was a vampire story that appeared in the May 1926 issue.  This story was the beginning of Derleth’s association with the magazine and by the time this important genre magazine closed its doors in 1954, Derleth had published over 120 stories within its pages and if one were to include those stories that he collaborated it jumps to 150.

Derleth was, for lack of a better word, a “workaholic” and during some extended periods of his writing career he would write forty pages a day or the equivalent of nearly a book a week.  However, it should be noted that this was likely not by choice but by necessity; if one wanted to make a living in letters during the 20’s and 30’s as a midlist writer it was necessary to have a heavy output.  Derleth stated that his early Judge Peck novels were written at the rate of 10,000 words a day.  As proof of this prolific boast, Derleth, by the time he was 30, had published sixteen novels and hundreds of short stories and poems.  However it wasn’t Derleth’s fiction that garners the accolades he now receives from the genre, it’s his cofounding of the legendary small press called Arkham House.

With the death of his writing mentor, close friend and avid corresponded H.P. Lovecraft in 1937, Derleth along with fellow Lovecraft devotee, Donald Wandrei collected what they believed to be Lovecraft’s best stories into a single volume in the hopes of getting the book published for a wider audience.  With manuscript in hand they approached both Charles Scribner and   Simon & Schuster but both publishers turned down the project, Due to the size of the book and sluggish sells of short story collections at the time. Derleth however was not deterred by the rejections and was convinced that Lovecraft’s work was profound and worthy of a wider audience and published in a quality hardcover edition.

With no other publisher’s willing to take on the project Derleth and Donald Wandrei decided to create their own imprint called Arkham House, named after the fictitious town in many of Lovecraft’s stories.  With very little funds they set upon getting the book printed and bound.  Wandrei scraped up about 20% of the funds needed and Derleth having recently received a construction loan for his own home,  he pilfered the remaining amount from the construction loan in order to pay the printing and binding bills.  Derleth, was quite literally “betting the ranch” on the success of his ability to keep writing at the same breakneck pace and sales of Arkham House’s first Lovecraft title.

In 1939 Derleth seen his dream become reality with the publication of The Outsider and Others by H.P. Lovecraft.  1,268 copies arrived of this large volume were printed and contained most of Lovecraft’s short stories that were then known to exist.  Derleth sold the title for $3.50 if preordered and $5.00 after publication which at the time was a huge sum for a hardcover book.

Preorders for this first book were very slow with a mere 150 copies sold.  It  was only with Derleth’s continued writing pace and Wandrei’s infusion of $400 that Derleth was able to repay the money that he took from his construction loan.

Derleth and Wandrei soon decided to expand Arkham House and began a regular publishing schedule after its second book, Someone in the Dark in 1941, a collection of some of Derleth’s own horror stories.  Someone in the Dark was a profitable venture and allowed Arkham House to work on future Lovecraft titles.  Unfortunately shortly after the second publications Donald Wandrei had to sever most of his ties with Arkham House due to his induction into the U.S. Army.  That same year Arkham House published Out of Space and Time by Clark Ashton Smith at $3.00 which sold well.

Although the press started off slow it began picking up momentum and in a short time Derleth starting signing up the best macabre writers in the world, Algernon Blackwood, L.P. Hartley, Lord Dunsany, Lady Cynthia Asquith, A.E. Coppard, Clark Ashton Smith, Ray Bradbury, Arthur Machen and others just to name a few. So when then genre began to pick up steam Derleth hit the ground running.   As many other publisher’s were just getting started publishing anthologies Derleth was already years ahead of him and with the publication of Sleep No More in 1944 and Who Knocks?  In 1946, Derleth handily proved that he could get and publish the best horror fiction in the world.   Derleth went further to prove his editing competence with anthologies edited specifically for the Arkham House imprint, such as Over the Edge 1964 and Travellers by Night 1967, which both contained original stories by new and established authors, and are still used by publisher’s as models for genre anthologies.

It cannot be underplayed the role that Derleth played in making available to a new and wider audience many fine works of horrific fiction that would have otherwise remained ignored and neglected.

Derleth was eventually able to repay his literary debt to Lovecraft, and to change the face of the horror and dark fantasy genre in ways that are still felt today.

Larry L. Roberts

The Origin of Storms

The Origin of Storms by Larry L. Roberts

(for Willum Pugmire)

 

Providence reveals the kingdom

Arcane sects

A starry wisdom

 

Miasma of squally moisture

Swaying trance, droning chants

In Rhythmic ballets of torture

 

Borne of a yokeless egg

Under gibbous moons

Bringer of plague

 

Long dead cities under barren coasts

Slumbering nightmares

Worm white parasites feast on the host

 

Warming their hands on the embers of the burning

Pockets full of poesies

To the dust returning

 

In fog filled gloom, they gather at the gate

The siren’s hymn beckon

Sultry aquatic hunger, they eagerly await

 

Pounding at the doorway of our mind

Through the keyhole stares

Hooded vestments malign

 

The flame that never warms

Deafening silence

The origin of storms

Modern Mythos Library Update

S. T. Joshi and Larry L. Roberts have been hard at work on Arcane Wisdom’s new mythos series called MODERN MYTHOS LIBRARY.

The first two titles in this series have already been contracted and more will be announced soon.

This series is dedicated to publishing the best new “Mythos” novels, novellas and collections being written in the genre today.

Our first book in the series is THE CULT OF CTHULHU: A Novel of Lovecraftian Obsession by Rick Dakan. This title will be announced in the next few months. Below is the fantastic cover art by Alex McVey.

Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting new series.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

THE YELLOW WALLPAPER is considered by many to be a classic in modern horror literature.  The story was first published in 1892 and is told through the protagonist’s journal entries, which she writes secretly over several months, while staying in a rented secluded  mansion.  As she narrates the story, she reveals that she has been suffering from a nervous condition and has been prescribed rest with strict orders not to work or socialize.  Unfortunately, her husband is a physician who doesn’t think anything is wrong with her that a little rest and fresh air won’t cure.  As time passes and the narrator is alienated from the activities and people that enliven her spirit, she sinks deeper and deeper into a depression that preys upon her mind.  She becomes obsessed with the hideous yellow wallpaper in her room and succumbs to a delusion, which drives her across the line separating reality from fantasy.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935) was a prominent American sociologist, novelist, writer of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, and a lecturer for social reform. She was a utopian feminist during a time when her accomplishments were exceptional for women, and she served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical  short story The Yellow Wallpaper which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis.

In January 1932, Gilman was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer.  An advocate of euthanasia  for the terminally ill, Gilman committed suicide on August 17, 1935 by taking an overdose of chloroform. In both her autobiography and suicide note, she wrote that she “chose chloroform over cancer” and she died quickly and quietly.

Below is a free ebook of THE YELLOW WALLPAPER is brought to you by Arcane Wisdom Press for your digital library.  Enjoy!  Just click the cover art below to download the book.