King Kong (1932)

Delos Wheeler; Edgar Wallace & Merian C. Cooper. KING KONG. Grosset & Dunlap, New York. [1932]

Current Selling Prices
$4000-$9000 /£2000-£4500

CULT FICTION / FANTASY / MOVIE RELATED
The great Grosset & Dunlap title. Normally books from G & D are worthless reprints but this time they published a true first. It is a photoplay edition based on the screen play by James Creelman and Ruth Rose; originally it was conceived from an idea by Edgar Wallace and Merian C Cooper. There are stills from the classic monster movie on the endpapers. The book itself has lime green boards. The rarest of all photoplay editions - better than Dracula, Rue Morgue, Metropolis etc.,

It is quite uncommon in the jacket which often shows up professionally restored due to its value. Copies on the web at present from $4000 to $9000 dollars, the latter for a decent but slightly frayed and slightly chipped example entirely unrestored. A fine copy would easily top $10,000. In auction a copy ('in d/j with minor wear & scratches') made $9500 in 2005 with commissions probably taking it towards $11K. It was at the Drapkin sale and was in folding case by the Dragonfly Bindery. These boxes are now generally considered slightly naff but at the time added value - in some cases a lot. One for the Edgar Wallace completist and probably worth 5 times more than any other Wallace item. Unlikely to show up in a library sale or thrift shop as King Kong is a big name known high and low and the book screams mega dollars. One dreams of a fine copy with a brown paper wrap protecting its fine jacket put there because the cover might frighten the nippers...one dreams on.

Outlook? Upwards and onwards. More movies will be made and books with visual impact are holding their own. It's the age we live in.

Bram Stoker. Dracula. 1897.

Bram Stoker. DRACULA. Constable, London, 1897.

Current Selling Prices
$20000 / £10000

FANTASY FICTION / VAMPIRES.
A press notice in a later edition says it all - 'The very weirdest of weird tales.' Also the most desirable book of its genre. An ebay perennial making fat sums even in the most obliterated condition. There are points which are not entirely settled, but basically the earliest issue does not have ads at the rear and the best of those 2 is on slightly thicker and better paper which tends to discernibly 'bulk' the book. Yellow cloth, of course, and a yellow which seems to attract dirt so that bright copies are something of a wonder and a faultless, factory fresh copy is almost unthinkable. I did hear of a copy that because of its supposed salacious content had been kept in brown paper wraps and emerged as bright as a new A.A. book but this was before prices for the book had become serious--until the early 1980s no copy had made over £100.  The second issue has a single page advertisement at the rear for 'The Shoulder of Shasta.' That is still a bloody good book.

Inscribed copies are not uncommon, Bram was well known in the theatre world (being Henry Irving's secretary) and presumably quite approachable. An inscribed early state Dracula is currently being offered at $55K, another, the Marlowe - Rechler copy, inscribed to one Henry A. Blyth made $40K in 2002. Both very reasonable condition but not remarkable copies. The first American edition, considered better looking, came out in 1899 and goes for a little less than half UK firsts. It was published by Doubleday & McClure, not Grosset as some people persist in thinking. Grosset is, with a few notable exceptions, a reprint house; however they did produce a very attractive 'Photoplay' edition in 1931 to coincide with the Bela Lugosi movie. (See below) This can go for over $1000 to $3000 in bright d/w. There is one on the net at present at $13,500 with an eminently sane bookseller. As we used to say in the hippy days "I cannot get my head round that, man."



VALUE? Condition, condition, condition-- those are the 3 things you need to know about this book. A friend once tried to sell a worn and soiled copy, excusing the condition on the grounds it had character and that the soiling was patina! It doesn't work that way and $20000 copies have to be as the song has it 'all yellow.' And bright. It is a  common book in mediocre to lousy condition. Soiled copies that are internally OK get bound up in fancy leather bindings and command about £4k max. Some sellers ask 4 figure sums for 4th, 5th and early 20th century editions. They very rarely sell, even on ebay they no longer work. One chap (at a shop nowhere near Scott Fitzgerald's old college) has a whole collection of them at buffoon prices that sit on the web year after year. I recall in one shop in San Francisco they had a Dracula in a cabinet in  poor and rather delicate shape woefully overpriced--every dealer and chancer who came in the shop would examine it and shove it back in disgust. Eventually it fell to pieces and was taken away in a bag by the peevish proprietor. The shop has now closed. Talking of bloodsuckers see poster below.



STOP PRESS.   The entry above was mostly done in January--since then about a dozen yellow 1897 'Draculas' have been seen in auction, the highest price was $10,200 in NY for a copy described as 'an unusually bright copy' (although it had a number of minor faults.) A few soiled copies made between £2000 and £3000. There were several high profile buy-ins where the reserve had been too ambitious. High reserves are sometimes forced on the chinless wonders who man auction houses by over demanding, not to say greedy, consigners. This tends to happen if the consigner has something sexy to sell or is a favoured client (i.e. rich ).

One of the buy-ins this year that, in the language of the saleroom hack, 'failed to impress' was a Dracula in a very fancy Sangorski box and slip-case estimated at $30,000 to $40,000. It was catalogued as  'a beautiful and unique hand-made leather slipcase and box by the legendary bookbinders of Sangorski & Sutcliffe with their anthemion located on the bottom of the back cover...the slipcase is supple black leather with applied white leather to form the stark image of Count Dracula about to feast on the neck of Mina Harker...' Slip-cases and such adornments tend to be site specific, once you take them out of an auction house they can lose much of their value and may only repeat the result in a similarly hyped up setting. This very binding had been sold  in London in 2005 at £6000 and had been returned to the rooms too fast. 15 firsts from 1897 can be found at ABE awaiting punters--from £3500 to £35000 for a copy inscribed on the day it was published.

George Locke. A Spectrum of Fantasy. 1980 - 2002

George Locke. 1. A SPECTRUM OF FANTASY: THE BIBLIOGRAPHY AND BIOGRAPHY OF A COLLECTION OF FANTASTIC LITERATURE. 2. A SPECTRUM OF FANTASY VOLUME II... ACQUISITIONS TO A COLLECTION OF FANTASTIC LITERATURE, 1980-1993 TOGETHER WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES ON TITLES COVERED IN THE FIRST VOLUME. 3. A SPECTRUM OF FANTASY VOLUME III... ACQUISITIONS TO A COLLECTION OF FANTASTIC LITERATURE, 1994-2001 TOGETHER WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES ON TITLES COVERED IN THE FIRST TWO VOLUMES AND AN INDEX TO ALL THREE VOLUMES.
Ferret Fantasy; Privately Printed, Tooting, London. 1980, 1994, 2002.

Current Selling Prices
$180 /£90 per volume.

REFERENCE/ BIBLIOGRAPHY / FANTASY
A rich treasure house of info about fantasy fiction. A catalogue in three volumes (so far) of his own mindblowing collection. No mere list, a bizarre bazaar of weirdness--Locke often summarises the plot, saving readers many hours of tedium, and has fascinating anecdotal evidence of how he ran the book to earth. Prices paid were often modest by 2007 standards and go back to the old predecimal days- 7/6 etc., Currey (who has a fine set at a not outrageous $525) describes it thus:

"...An essential source for information on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century science fiction and fantasy literature, especially British publications. In the first volume, approximately 3100 books are described with full bibliographical particulars, including identification "points" for Locke's personal copies plus other editions, printings, issues and states where relevant. Locke provides notes indicating thematic content of each title, a valuable feature for collectors of "forgotten fantasy" as his collection includes many of uncommon and/or obscure early works not recorded elsewhere in such detail. Thematic emphasis of the collection is interplanetary fiction to 1914, future war fiction, lost race fiction, utopian literature, and supernatural fiction (the latter of special interest as Locke identifies fantasy tales published in single author collections of mixed stories)."

Many of the books described are signed or have letters or additional info loosely inserted - sometimes very revealing. You find out that the David Nutt published 1898 work 'The Man with Two Souls' by E.W. B. Nicholson was, in fact, paid for by the author. These are 4 short stories with the title story one of mesmerism and a man who comes to believe that his dead sweetheart's soul is cohabiting with his. A letter from the author in the book reveals that having had the book turned down by major publishers "...I issued it through Nutt on my own hook..." George then goes on to mount an excellent defence of vanity publishing, often sneered at, saying "...the deeper one goes into the subject...one finds that even fairly well known books were at least in part financed by their authors."

It is interesting to look up great fantasy rarities - most of which George has had. Vide possibly the greatest of all rarities of 20th century fantasy Chistopher Blayre's 'The Cheetah Girl" (1923, 20 copies only.) Referring to it as 'something of a Holy Grail for me' he eventually hears of one on a catalogue that has sold, but tracks down the buyer who admits that without George he wouldn't have heard of the book and sells it to him for £25 (1972?). A copy in the mid 1990s sold for £1600 at Sothebys. Blayre = Edward Heron Allen and the story is of the manufacture of a beautiful woman 'a hybrid between the human and the cheetah' - because the work had erotic elements it was deemed unpublishable in the 1920s. George had written about in his Christmas Annual and had doubts about revealing the existence of such a massive 'sleeper' - however as he recounts it he would not have found a copy if he hadn't made the book known. Tartarus have issued a reprint.

VALUE? I have all 3 beside me as I type, sitting next to Bleiler and Hubin. 2 of them appear to be limited editions and are signed, the first stating that it is one of 26 signed copies with 'Herlock's Own Mistake.' This is presumably a Sherlockian parody by GL but seems to have vanished. One of them, a signed subscriber's copy has a slip in it showing I paid a stonking £81 for the book new in 2002. These books were never cheap and it is hard to find them for less than a £100, even used copies. Condition, I find is less important with reference works. They could, of course, show up for 50p each at a muddy boot fair (some time in the far future...)

TRIVIA. Stuart Teitler, dealer, collector and scholar of old fantasy, especially lost race fiction is mentioned throughout George's works as a source of information and of books - as well as an American friend. I am indebted to fantasy buff and uber-runner Martin Stone for pointing out that Stuart is now to be found on YouTube tap-dancing (and with considerable aplomb.) Bookdealers are generally a cerebral bunch so it is good to see one with such elegant moves. Take it away Stuart:-

Thomas Pynchon. The Crying of Lot 49. (1966)

Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disc jockey. If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?
--The Crying of Lot 49, Chapter 1


Thomas Pynchon. THE CRYING OF LOT 49. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1966.

Current Selling Prices
$650-$1000 /£320-£500

MODERN FIRST EDITION / FANTASY FICTION
Short landmark American post modern work by cult hero Pynchon. It is his easiest work to get on with and at 180 pages if you don't like it you haven't wasted much time. He is famously reclusive and camera shy (possibly because of his buck teeth - he thinks he looks like Bug's Bunny). However he sits on a different side of the fence to the equally fugitive Salinger in the matter of plagiarism (see below.)

First editions of 'The Crying of Lot 49' looks like this -'Quarter-bound in yellow cloth over gray boards, with buff brown endpapers, black lettering to the spine, and three horns blind-stamped on the front board. Top edge dyed black. 183 p.p. plus (4) blank endpapers.' The seemingly lachrymose title refers to a late part of the book where the heroine Oedipa attends an auction, to bid on a set of a rare postage stamps, which she believes representatives of Tristero are trying to acquire. (Auction items are called "lots"; a lot is "cried" when the auctioneer is taking bids on it; the stamps in question are "Lot 49".) Tristero is a shadowy organization, their symbol a muted post horn (that's it on the cover of the book.)

Pynchon was a pupil of Nabokov at Cornell and in referencing aspects of popular culture (in particular Californiana) within the book he incorporates several allusions to Lolita. Nabokov could be seen as the 'miglior fabbro.' At Cornell Pynchon is said to have risen every day at 1PM and enjoyed the classic slacker's breakfast of Spaghetti and soda before studying, reading and researching until 3AM.

VALUE? Several booksellers call it 'increasingly scarce' but there are about 40 reasonable copies currently for sale about 10 fine in fine, possibly a year ago there were many more - certainly Pynchonmania shows no signs of abating. Fine copies are hard to find for less than $600, the 1967 UK Cape edition £200. A copy signed for a fund raiser at his son's school is currently on the web at $50K - in the dot com boom it would have gone like snow off a dike but with the markets in turmoil and the glory days over in the valley it may take a while. [ W/Q ** ]



I was prompted to do this Pynchon entry by reading of a semaphore version of the book that has been broadcast across mighty San Jose by artist Ben Rubin on the top floor of Adobe HQ. This is covered at the excellent Book Patrol - a cool book blog emanating from central Seattle. Ben Rubin's San Jose Semaphore is a "multi-sensory kinetic artwork that illuminates the San Jose skyline with the transmission of a coded message" - it was only after 3 weeks of 247 transmission that someone cracked the code and worked out they were doing 'The Crying of Lot 49.' Rubin explained:

Pynchon's setting is a fictional California city filled with high-tech industrial parks and the kind of engineering sub-culture that we now associate with the Silicon Valley. The book follows the heroine's discovery of latent symbols and codes embedded in this landscape and in the local culture. Is there a message here, she wonders, and what are these symbols trying to tell me? At its heart, San Jose Semaphore is an expression of what Pynchon calls "an intent to communicate."

It is kind of inevitable that they chose a Pynchon book-- he is a bankable and known name in the post literate computer community in the valley. They could have done Beowulf , the earliest Eng Lit or possibly something from the age of semaphore - Conan Doyle's 'The Sign of Four' would be appropriate.

Silly question-- should a bibliographer note that there was a semaphore version? Also should a bibliographer note the many Pynchon blurbs? There are several collections of them online. He must get a 100 review copies a day and occasionally gives a book the two thumbs up--ex book runner David Attoe's harrowing 1986 novel 'Lion at the Door' got this from the great man: '...In a quietly passionate voice that speaks to our hearts, David Attoe has brilliantly, honorably imagined himself into lives whose truths we recognize, lives otherwise only lost, and with his eloquent care, rescued them from the silence.' He was, reportedly, chuffed.

TRIVIA. Ian McEwan, a writer not in Pynchon's class, has been under fire for copying several details from the memoirs of a wartime nurse in London for his Booker-nominated novel, Atonement. Part of this whole debate about plagiarism. Pynchon and many other writers including the genius Martin Amis came to his rescue with letters to London's 'Daily Telegraph.' Part of TP's letter is shown below.

In 1996, Pynchon crossed genre lines and wrote the liner notes for "Nobody's Cool," an album by New York indie rockers Lotion. Two years earlier he wrote the liner notes for "Spiked," a Spike Jones compilation

Spending time in Santa Cruz, California I have picked up rumours of Pynchon. It's only 30 miles from San Jose. He is said to phone in to a local Blues radio sation with requests. At the post office there is a talk of a post man who delivers letters to him at a seaside property on the edge of town.

Edwin Abbott. Flatland, 1884

'I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.

Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows — only hard and with luminous edges — and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen...'



[Edwin Abbott.] FLATLAND: A ROMANCE OF MANY DIMENSIONS.(With illustrations by the author, A Square.) Seeley & Co, London 1884.

Current Selling Prices £500+/ $1000+



FANTASY / SATIRE / SCIENCE
Our image shows the cover of the Blackwell's later edition but it is substantially the same as the 1884 first from Seely and Co., 'Flatland' is a science and mathematics fantasy that satirises class consciousness in Britain through the depiction of a society where geometrical characteristics are the basis for class distinctions and protocol: circles are the elite, with squares, triangles and lines subordinate in that order. Three dimensional objects are encountered only in the dreams of the populace, and anyone who claims the reality of a third dimension is considered mad. I can be seen as an attack on the staid and heartless Victorian society, with its bigotry and stultifying prejudice. "Irregulars" (cripples) are put to death, women have no rights at all, and when the protagonist in the story Mr. A. Square tries to teach his fellows about the third dimension, he is imprisoned. There is a good discussion of the work and 'Dimensionality' in general at the University of Winnipeg Cosmology site.

A very popular and much wanted book although with 700 copies on the web it is not hard to find if you merely want to read it. Occasionally when you tell people you sell books they immediately ask for a copy of 'Flatland.' I saw a copy somewhere for $0.09, a hard price to beat. Interesting claims are made by purveyors of firsts of the book include:-

'... Prior to Einstein's general theory of relativity, it aimed at redefining the frame of reference of our perceptions of the world, and opening up the possibility of the kind of self-awareness that came to characterize the modernist, and post-modernist, perspective...."

The precursor game is fun - I saw someone on TV recently claim that Saki was the forerunner of Monty Python and even The Mighty Boosh. John Betjeman once claimed Theodore Wratislaw was the first punk. Suvin in Victorian Science Fiction in the UK calls the book "A pioneer of SF as cognitive parable, and the culmination of UK SF up to that time." The 1884 first is cream-colored parchment over stiff wrappers. The US first a year later is a hardback. Much desired is the Arion Press 1980 edition in 275 copies, each signed by Ray Bradbury who provides the introduction, it comes with aluminum covers & aluminum case. There is a 1983 reprint with foreword by Isaac Asimov and in 2002 'The Annotated Flatland' appeared. The book is used in classrooms as a teaching aid and has been translated into many languages, it is especially liked in Spanish. There have been references to it in the Simpsons and people talk about it over at My Space, so it is still au courant.

VALUE? The first can go for £600 and more and because it is a fragile production it very seldom shows up in fresh condition, the 1885 US edition about half that and the 1980 Arion Press metal edition £500. In auction a compromised copy at Pacific Book Auctions made $600 in 2003 ('covers wrinkled & darkened, some loss, front hinge cracked - large spot on page 8...') and an Arion Press edition made $900 in 1998. There is a fine one for sale at the moment for $1350. Currey has a chipped but else fairly decent 1884 first at $1500. I guess a superior copy could top $2000 and a signed copy , so far unseen in auction at least, might go through the roof.[ W/Q ** ]



Edwin Abbott (1838 - 1926) was a London headmaster, a clergyman and author who wrote several theological works and a biography (1885) of Francis Bacon but is best known for his standard Shakespearian Grammar (1870) and of course this pseudonymous work. Dionys Burger has written 'Sphereland' (1965) a sequel to Flatland, that depicts the adventures of A Square's grandson, A Hexagon, who investigates the shape of flatland as it sits in three-space.

The Eye of the World. Robert Jordan, 1990.

Robert Jordan. THE EYE OF THE WORLD. Tor (Tom Docherty) New York [1990] ISBN: 0312850093

Current Selling Prices
$350-$800 /£180-£400













FANTASY LITERATURE
Only 1500 copies of this hardbound issue were produced. First book of "The Wheel of Time" series. Fine copies in fine dust jackets seem to be somewhat prized. With recent books, and especially fantasy, condition is paramount. The venerable Blackwell's, heirs to book Deity Basil Blackwell, say:

...in one short decade, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time has become the bestselling American fantasy series of all time--comparable in depth and scope to J.R.R. Tolkien's legendary trilogy," The Lord of The Rings. ... In the THE EYE OF THE WORLD three young friends; Rand, Matt and Perrin are attacked by subhuman monsters, bestial Trollocs. With the help of Lady Moiraine, an Aes Sedai, a woman who can wield the One Power and her Warder, Lan--the young boys flee their homeland. But they are pursued relentlessly by the forces of the evil Dark One--and begin an adventure across an imaginative, fantastical world of strange wonders and deadly horror--where goodness stands on the brink of destruction--for the Wheel of Time is weaving a web in the pattern of ages, a web to entangle the world...

I came across this book in a very useful list compiled by an assiduous ebayer which was part of an endless thread "A Book that Looks Like Nothing" ( very long list try here.) Here is the accumulated wisdom of 'one short decade' on ebay, a sharp learning curve with a few no hopers and netblown books thrown in. A long queue await 'Eye' at ABE presumably looking for underpriced examples. Btw the Wikiman informs us that: ' Robert Jordan has stated that he consciously intended the early chapters of The Eye of the World to evoke the Shire of Middle-Earth in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.' Jordan is a US author and the US eds usually precede. His real name is James Oliver Rigney, a decorated Vietnam Vet and '... a history buff ... enjoys hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool and pipe collecting.' A word of warning - pipe collectors can become shocking bores when you get them on their subject.

VALUE? The cheapest copy available is $375, a signed one can be hand for $550, the word on the street is that Jordan isn't signing anymore -something you hear alot from autograph people. The UK from Orbit in 1990 seems to go for about the same. An ARC (Advance Reading Copy) is a BIN at ebay at $110 but you don't want those. There are no firsts on ebay which is a good sign. [ W/Q *** ]

Carnacki the Ghost Finder. William Hope Hodgson,1913.

William Hope Hodgson, CARNACKI THE GHOST FINDER, Eveleigh Nash, 1913.

Current Selling Prices
$2500-$6000 /£1200-£3000 Want level 25-50 Highish



FANTASY FICTION / HORROR / GHOSTS
6 short stories first printed in 'The Idler' between 1910 and 1912 and first collected together for this red cloth Nash book of 1913. Much reprinted - a recent edition (which has an afterword by the highly rated novelist and former bookdealer Iain Sinclair) has a blurb that says it all: 'Join the World's strangest Sleuth at the Outer Limits of classic Supernatural Horror... Terrifying, unearthly adventures of the world's strangest detective." Sometimes compared to Lovecraft but he is less totally alien and somewhat more accessible.

More Lovecraftian is his equally valuable 1912 book 'The Night Land.' We described our last copy thus: 'Death of the sun, other dimensional aliens, monsters, and sub-humans. .. a monumental phantasmagoric of the far future, later editions being considerably abridged; scarce.' It also has the reputation of being the hardest read of all Hodgson's oeuvre.


VALUE? At one point we bought some of Hope Hodgson's family copies of his books including his own annotated copy of the "Boats of the 'Glen-Carrig' " with Hodgson's jottings to himself regarding references to the moon in the text + a few marginal notations and corrections throughout. Sold in 1998 and now worth rather more (deep pang of regret, a sigh and a curse) at the time they didn't sell with alacrity in the £3000 range. £3000 tends to be the high asking price now for unsigned very good clean Hodgsons, the price which gives the buyer serious pause; although sales are not unknown at this level. Underneath these prices there is a good but possibly narrow trade in his works, usually in lesser condition.

Most of Hodgson's works are not fiendishly scarce but they are uncommon and valuable in bright collectable condition. They have also gone into the hands of collectors who cannot be parted from them.

Signed material is now almost unknown, Hodgson died relatively young (40). In 1917, while serving in World War I as a forward observer near Ypres, he was tragically killed by German artillery. His 1908 novel House on the Borderland (praised by Lovecraft) is probably the most difficult to get in sharp condition. Iain Sinclair cites the intriguing combination of John Buchan and Thomas de Quincy as influences on this work; his 'Radon Daughters' revolves around a quest for the missing WHH manuscript of a sequel to 'Borderland.'

Dust jackest are not completely unknown - his 1914 novel 'Men of the Deep Waters' turned up wearing a slightly shabby jacket at Bonham's in 2002 and collected £1800. Most jackets, however, tend to be on earlyish reprints--see the Pavilion / Tartarus site , from where this image below comes (with many thanks).

After the 1913 book 3 more Carnacki offerings appeared - "The Haunted Jarvee" posthumously in 1929, and two more Carnacki stories, "The Find" and "The Hog," were published in 1947 by August Derleth.

A Book of Bargains. Vincent O' Sullivan. 1896.

"What a midnight his soul seems to walk! And what maladies he draws from the moon." Oscar Wilde on O'Sullivan.

Vincent O' Sullivan. A BOOK OF BARGAINS. Leonard Smithers,, London 1896.

Current Selling Prices
$650-$1000 /£320-£520






DECADENT LITERATURE / 1890S/ HORROR / FANTASY
Several of O'Sullivan's books are much wanted. "A Book of Bargains' does show up at a price but his equally wanted but much rarer 1907 David Nutt published 'Human Affairs' is highly elusive. An American born writer who spent much of his life in Europe at first living well but ending up in the direst poverty. His parent's fortune was mismanged and misappropriated, one of his brothers killed himself over the loss but 'Sullivan carried on stoically. 2 of his books were published by the 1890s decadent publisher of Wilde and Beardsley Leonard Smithers, now a much collected publisher.

"A Book of Bargains' is a collection of morbid studies and stories somewaht in the line of fellow yank Poe but as Clute and Grant put it 'distinctly fin de siecle in their sin-soaked diabolism.' One of the stories, the after-death nightmare "When I Was Dead" is considered a minor masterpiece. He was a key figure in the decadent movement that was loosely based around 'The Yellow Book', Smithers, Wilde, the Cafe Royal and poets like Dowson and Lionel Johnson. Several of his early works like 'Houses of Sin' (1897) are decadent poetry. They are also wanted and worth money.

A good collection of his short stories 'Master of Fallen Years, Complete Supernatural Stories of Vincent O'Sullivan 'was published in 1995 by Ghost Story Press (London), 1995. There is a very good essay on him by Jessica Amanda Salmonson of Violet Books.It has many details of his amazing life. [ Want level 15-25 Modest ]

VALUE? Several online at between £300 and £600, one dealer holding 3 which is not encouraging. To get serious you either want a superb copy or an association copy. The text is prone to foxing. A copy inscribed to Swinburne's friend and protector Theodore Watts Dunton made £420 8 years ago.

As mentioned above his 1907 work 'Human Affairs' which has some fantasy stories is more difficult, much wanted and probably of equal or greater value. 'Houses of Sin' isn't especially scarce - in fact I think I have a copy online somehere.

Decadence is one of those movements where each writer tries to take it a little further. Front runners usually include Wilde, Huysmans, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Wedekind, Viereck, Wratislaw, Kuzmin, Gumiliev,Jean Lorrain, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Catulle Mendès, Rachilde, Robert de Montesquiou, Edmund John, Stanislas de Guaita, Count Stenbock, Andre Raffalovitch, Dowson, Ada Leverson, Vernon Lee, Olive Custance and the Eckhart Tolle of the decdent movement Walter 'hard gem like flame' Pater. The leader is usually Lautreamont with his staggeringly decadent Les Chants de Maldoror. In a catalogue entry for this outfit in 2005 Martin Stone came up with a chap who would seem to outdo even Lautreamont. It's Edouard Dubus author of 'Quand Les Violons sont Partis' (Paris 1892) MS wrote: 'A crucial book of symbolist verse, sulphurously decadent. Much admired by fellow poets, Dubus was plagued by insanity, occult delusions and drug addiction, and, on release from an insane asylum, was found dead from a morphine overdose in the pissoir of Place Maubert in the Paris Latin Quarter..." A current description in French echoes Martin's 'sulphurously decadent' - "Figure extrême du mouvement décadent, opiomane et morphinomane...' Dubus takes the biscuit when it comes to decadence.

The last word on decadence comes from no nonsense people's poet Robert Service:

Oh Wilde, Verlaine, and Baudelaire,
their lips were wet with wine,
Oh poseur, pimp, and libertine!
Oh cynic, sot, and swine!
Oh voteries of velvet vice! . . .
Oh gods of light divine.

Judas and Other Stories. John Metcalfe. 1931.

John Metcalfe. JUDAS AND OTHER STORIES. Constable. London, 1931.

Current Selling Prices
$750-$1200? /£400-£650? Want level 15-30 Quite High

FANTASY / WEIRD
10 short stories, supernatural, weird and contes cruels. British author who lived in France and America (he was married to the US writer Evelyn Scott) and wrote mainly fantasy. His books are much sought after and possessed of 'rare artistry, wit and intelligence...' (Sullivan - Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural) George Locke wrote in the first vol of his 'Spectrum of Fantasy' that `'...it's a toss up as to whether this or 'The Smoking Leg' is the more difficult." Both are collections of short stories with fantastical elements but the net has shown Judas to be far more difficult and hence more searched after. There are currently 5 'Legs' but no Judas at ABE.

VALUE? A decent copy lacking the fep and sans jacket listed by the great fantasy dealer Currey has sold (or vanished) at £275. Locke bought his for 3/6 in the 1960s. From this flimsy evidence it could be inferred that nice in jacket it would probably fetch £600+. Same goes for the 'Smoking Leg' in sharp condition with its jolly Jarrolds jacket, the Doubleday is a year later and not uncommon. Short stories always seem to have an added value factor in fantasy and even more so with mystery and detection. Can't quite explain it, probably to do with variety, also scarcity.

R. R. Ryan. Echo of a Curse. 1939

R. R. Ryan. Echo of a Curse. ECHO OF A CURSE. Herbert Jenkins,London, 1939.

Current Selling Prices
$1900+ /£1000+ Want level 25-50 Highish

FANTASY FICTION / HORROR
Contes Cruels. Horror, dark and demented. Even more cruel than Charles Birkin. Something of a sleeper, Ryan is little known outside of that sub sect of fantasy collectors who want horror, Contes Cruels and the darkness. There are collectors who boast they have all 7 Jenkins books, but they have usually been at it since the Summer of Love. A critic writes 'without a doubt one of the most deeply disturbing and perverse works to ever appear in the genre.' Reprinted 2002 by Midnight House in 450 copies. Some confusion as to who R.R. Ryan was, the money used to be on a cruel sapphist, one Rachel Ryan. However a runner who comes in the shop suggested it was in fact a a man and he wrote other books for Jenkins under a second name. George Locke who records his nice jacketed copy (colour illustrated with 3/6 on spine) takes a fairly dim view of the book in his indispensable 'Spectrum of Fantasy':

"Weird horror story, an uneasy hybrid of the vampire and the werewolf themes. My notes on the story when I read it include the following remark: badly written, poorly constructed, reads as though dictated onto tape and not revised...'

VALUE? Fantasy and horror titles published by Jenkins are bastards to find, whereas their main fare of bright & breezy books (Wodehouse, D.E. Stevenson etc.,) turn up all the time in jolly jackets. I was called to a house which was the estate of a 1930s CEO at Jenkins and expected to find 'A Gent from Bear Creek" and a clutch of jacketed Ryans at very least. Clue, they are mostly in orange cloth, even the Robert E. Howard. The best book there was 1935 book called 'Truncheons: Their Romance and Reality' + a bunch of A.S. Neill books. A horror website refers to RR Ryan's books fetching 'astronomical prices' when they do show up, and those holding don't tend to sell until they are firmly in the crypt. Possibly worth the price of a decent second hand car. Reprint may have put a ceiling on the price. Our pic shows the cover of the Darkside Press (Midnight House) 2002 reprint, for which many thanks.

The Hobbit. Or There and Back Again.

Today's book is a highspot, not especially easy to sell at highly ambitious prices. The right price tends to be the wrong price. Our own true 1937 first has been languishing on the internet for nearly a year at £4500. OK it is rebound, but the binding is exquisite ('squizz') green full leather, raised bands, gilt - the works. This is a book guide, nothing for sale...not here. Take it away JRR.

J.R.R. Tolkien. THE HOBBIT. Allen & Unwin, London 1937.

FANTASY FICTION/ MODERN FIRST EDITION
The most loved and wanted fantasy classic of all (apart from Alice.) The ultimate backpacker book - admired by Auden, Isherwood, C.S. Lewis and J.K. Rowling and many others from nine to ninety.It started life in the 1920s as a story that JRR told to his children to get them off to sleep.1500 printed off the first. 60 million sold so far. Often top of polls for best ever book in the history of the world etc.,

VALUE? Not especially scarce even as a first edition but seldom cheap unless in despicable condition. There were rumours of a nice unsigned copy in jacket having changed hands at over $100K back in 2003 at a US bookfair and there is currently a signed copy on line in a very nice unrestored d/w at $150,000, and it is not entirely impossible that it could sell, esp if dotcom fever came raging back. Ebay has brought a lot of firsts out and there is a voracious market in reprints esp the second edition which is the first with colour illustrations ($10K + for sweet copies). The true first almost always has an ink correction on the rear of the jacket (Dodgeson has been changed to Dodgson.) This was done by the publisher although it is sometimes claimed it was done by Tolkien himself. Jacketed and incsribed copies have twice made about $75K in the last 3 years at Sotheby/ Christie auctions and in 2002 a signed copy with a 4 line caligraphic note by JRR in Elvish made nigh on $90K. Healthy market in fancy leather bound first eds sometimes with elaborate tooling and even illustrated characters Frodo, Strider, Bilbo etc., Restored jackets are around , almost always declared as such. Caveat emptor.

Current Prices £20000+/ $40000+ Want level 100- 125 Extremely High