Posts Tagged ‘George Locke’

Library Addition: Signed, Limited Hardback of George Locke’s Voyages in Space

Wednesday, July 12th, 2023

As part of (I assume) it’s ongoing sale of the Gary Monson collection, Heritage Auctions offered up a lot of oversized and non-fiction works. Of those, this title was one I was most interested in, and is the reason I bid. I won the lot for $240 plus shipping.

Locke, George. Voyages in Space: A Bibliography of Interplanetary Fiction 1801-1914. Ferret Fantasy, 1975. First edition hardback, #17 of 18 signed, numbered hardback copies (plus an additional 10 copies not for sale), a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. The definitive bibliography on early space travel fiction. Chalker/Owings, page 527. Tymn/Schlobin/Currey A Research Guide to Science Fiction Studies 47. Barron mentions this in Anatomy of Wonder 4 7-7 (on Currey’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors), but does not have a separate listing for it. Not in Justice. Supplements an inscribed copy of the trade paperback.

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Library Addition: Inscribed First of George Locke’s Voyages in Space

Sunday, May 19th, 2019

Science fiction bibliographer, bookseller and publisher George Locke died earlier this year. I knew George a bit (as pretty much every bookseller in the field must have), and we had lunch together on my 2005 trip to the UK. George was universally acclaimed as one of the most knowledgeable booksellers and bibliographers the field has ever known, and I already owned a fair number of his books, almost all published by his own Ferret Fantasy imprint, most inscribed to me, including the three volume Spectrum of Fantasy series and the two volume By the World Forget/By The Book World Remembered pairing about Stuart Teitler and Lost Race novels.

Now I’ve picked up another:

Locke, George. Voyages in Space. Ferret Fantasy, 2015. First edition trade paperback original (simultaneous with a very small hardback run of only 28 copies), one of 500 copies, a Near Fine copy with slight wear along spine and what appears to be a spot of dampstaining at heel. Inscribed to Australian-born, Paris-resident science fiction, film and travel writer (and fellow book collector) John Baxter: “For John Baxter/With all good wishes and the/hope that you’ll run into one of the Olde/Aussie Interplanetaries when you next meet/the banana-benders!/George Locke”. (I also own Baxter’s The Inner Man: the life of J. G. Ballard.) Subtitled “A Bibliography of Interplanetary Fiction, 1801-1914.” Tymn Schlobin Currey, A Research Guide to Science Fiction Studies, 47. Barron, Anatomy of Wonder 4 7-7 (though only in passing, since the main entry is for Currey). Reginald, Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature 1975—1991, 28470. Bought from a UK bookdealer for £40 plus shipping.

RIP, George.

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Library Addition: Arthur Waite’s The Quest For Bloods

Monday, September 12th, 2016

This is another book I picked up in the National Book Auction. In fact, I’ve wanted a copy for quite a while, ever since I saw publisher/bookseller George Locke bring them to the 2002 World Fantasy Convention in Minneapolis. However, three things kept me from picking up a copy then:

  1. It was a pricey book (there’s no cover price, and it’s not in the ISFDB, but I think George was selling them for somewhere in the $75—$125 range) at a time when I was buying very few books in that price range.
  2. The chances of my running across any first edition Penny Dreadfuls here in the United States of the 21st century ranges from exceedingly slim to absolutely nil.
  3. Worst of all, all the copies George had there seemed to have warped boards from the transatlantic flight.

So I was happy to pick up a copy through the National Book Auction as part of a lot for $30, less than cover price would have been.

Waite, Arthur Edward. The Quest for Bloods: A Study of the Victorian Penny Dreadful. Privately printed (Ferret Fantasy), 1997. First edition oversized (8 1/2″ x 12″) hardback, no limitation stated on this copy of the “regular” edition (though I get the impression that there were less than 500 printed total, and possibly considerably less than that), a Fine- copy in a Fine- dust jacket with a slight bump and associated wrinkle near the head (and possibly some slight fading of the spine and other portions of the yellowish orange dust jacket).

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Photos from Worldcon Part 2 (The 2014 London Worldcon, That Is)

Wednesday, August 19th, 2015

And here’s Part 2 of those London Worldcon pics.

Note that some pictures are labeled “…and company.” This is code for “I’m slightly less embarrassed about not remembering your name a year later than I would be about getting it wrong.”

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The lovely and talented Gail Garriger contemplates her next cup of tea.

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It’s only a matter of time until leopard-skin gloves are all the rage…

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Tobias Buckell, straight from his performance in Hipsters of the Caribbean.

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I’m 99% sure this is Martin Hoare with David Langford. After all, it’s Worldcon. How many bearded, gray-haired men with glasses could there be?

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Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s Mike Walsh.

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John Kessel.

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John Kessel in jacket.

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John Kessel in jacket and the shoes he stole from Lew Shiner.

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Michael Bulmlein.

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Jo Walton contemplates the five kilometer hike to her next panel.

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Your Humble Narrator and Ian McDonald.

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Stephen Baxter, taking a short break from 100,000 words of galaxy smashing.

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The ageless Ben Yalow. He stays the same while the original painting for Confessions of a Crap Artist gets older.

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Signs of the horrific mental degeneration that comes from being a science fiction bookseller…

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Just ask George Locke!

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Charlie Stross, caught in the middle of a very geeky plan for world domination.

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Ben Bova.

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Ben Bova and Your Humble Narrator.

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Lawrence Watt-Evans.

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Lawrence Watt-Evans and company.

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Lawrence and Lawrence, coming this fall to Fox!

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Matthew Hughes

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Ann VanderMeer

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Jeff and Ann VanderMeer.

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Stephen Jones.

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Joe Haldeman, Gay Haldeman and Jim Burns.

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John Douglas.

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Michael Swanwick, yet again.

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“Come, Mrs. Peel, we’re needed!”

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Henry Wessels, rocking the seersucker.

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John Clute and company.

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Teddy Harvia fooling around with a married woman known only as “Mrs. Thayer.”

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Robert Jackson Bennett, who I somehow had to travel 5,000 miles to see.

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Andrew Porter.

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Scott Edelman.

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Jeff Orth, one of the three chairs of the 2016 Kansas City Worldcon. Expect him to look approximately 30 years older 380 days from now.

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James Patrick Kelly, of the Gets-photographed-a-lot-at-Worldcons Patrick Kellys.

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Has anyone seen Jack Dann and Russell Blackford in the same room at the same time?

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Janeen Webb.

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Betsy Mitchell.

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Library Additions: Two Reference Works by George Locke

Friday, September 5th, 2014

I saw grand old British bookseller/publisher/bibliographer George Locke at the London Worldcon. George has been book hunting and dealing in the field longer than I’ve been collecting, and has written a number of important bibliographies in the field, of which the three volume Spectrum of Fantasy set and Voyages in Space: a Bibliography of Interplanetary Fiction, 1801-1914 are perhaps the best known.

George has just published two books of genre bibliographic material, in editions of a mere 50 (!) copies each which, with a little prodding and discounting, he convinced me to pick up.

  • Teitler, Stuart A. By the World Forgot. Privately printed (Ferret Fantasy), 2014. First edition trade paperback original, one of 50 numbered copies (this one inscribed to me by compiler George Locke, noting he hadn’t gotten around to numbering them yet), a Near Fine copy with slight creasing near the spine (a result of carrying it around in my carry on luggage). A 130 page (plus a catalog at the back) annotated bibliographic compendium of lost race fiction compiled by Teitler, a noted American book scout and lost race collector. Probably destined to become the definitive book on the subject.

    By the World Forgot

  • Teitler, Stuart A., George Locke and Others. By the Book World Remembered. Privately printed (Ferret Fantasy), 2014. First edition trade paperback original, one of 50 numbered copies (this one also inscribed to me by compiler George Locke, but not yet numbered), a Fine copy. Another non-fiction reference book, 146 pages, something of a memorial to Teitler, told largely in epistolary format, of the friendship between the two, covering book hunting, finer points of lost race bibliographic information, catalog and collection listings, etc. If you’re a hardcore book geek, you’ll love this stuff; if you’re not, it will probably leave you cold.

    By Book World Remembered
    (Shadow effect is a scanner artifact.)

    • I paid £100 for the pair (a show special, since I believe George is selling them at £65 each).

    If you’re looking to pick one or both of these up, you’ll probably have to contact George directly:

    George Locke
    Ferret Fantasy
    27 Beechcroft Road
    Upper Tooting
    London, SW27 7BX
    020 8767 0029
    george_locke at hotmail.com

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    Lawrence Person’s Library: Reference Books (Part 1)

    Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

    I haven’t posted much the last week because I’ve been busy doing this and that, and one of the things I’ve been busy with is a long-overdue cleanup of my office, including doing something about those Nova Express review copies cluttering it up. Now that I’ve finally finished moving books around, and gotten a new camera (a Kodak Slice) to replace the one that died, I thought I would put up some long-overdue pictures of the books in my office, starting with the reference shelf right next to my computer, which contains the reference works I tend to reach for most often.

    (Click to embiggen.)

    Going left to right (left being the side closest to the computer, and thus the books I reach for most often) are:

  • Currey, L.W. Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors: A Bibliography of First Printings of Their Fiction. G. K. Hall, 1978. The bible of the field, and absolutely essential for any serious collector of science fiction first editions. Only goes up to 1978. For dates after 1983, you can use The Locus Online Database. Currey also sells a slightly updated CD-ROM version, which still only goes up to 1978. (Now if only someone would compile a book that covers 1979-1983…)
  • Chalker, Jack & Owings, Mark. The Science Fantasy Publishers: A Critical and Bibliographic History. Mirage Press, 1991 (“Third Edition Revised and Enlarged”). If you’re a serious SF collector, you need this. The problem is, you can’t trust it. No other reference work offers the wealth and scope of knowledge of SF small press publishers that this one does. There’s a lot of good information in here. The print edition shown above had major errors and omissions, and a very odd organizational structure, not to mention several sneers and the constant sound of ax-grinding for SF figures the authors disagree with; the CD-ROM version is more accurate, but no longer up to date as both Chalker and Owings have died. What this book is best for is the chatty, informative histories of the various publishing houses listed here. (If nothing else, I can unstintingly recommend this book for anyone thinking of starting up their own small press, as it provides numerous examples of what not to do.) It’s also quite useful for uncovering titles and publishers you might not have known existed before. In summary: A valuable tool for those who possess enough experience in the field to know which parts to take with a grain of salt.
  • Clute, John, & Nichols, Peter. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. St. Martins, 1993 (first U.S. edition, offset from the same plates as the Orbit (UK) first). An absolutely essential general reference work.
  • Clute, John, & Grant, John. The Encyclopedia of Fantasy. St. Martins, 1997 (first U.S. edition). Slightly more scattershot than the above, but still an essential guide.
  • Reginald, Robert. Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: Indexes to the Literature, Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature:Contemporary Science Fiction Authors, and Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: 1975 to 1991. Gale Research, 1980, 1981, 1992. Not the first reference work I reach for, but contains a lot of information that has slipped through the cracks of other works.
  • Levack, Daniel. Amber Dreams: A Roger Zelazny Bibliography. Underwood Miller, 1983. The first of the single-author bibliographies.
  • Levack, Daniel. PKD: A Philip K. Dick Bibliography. Underwood Miller, 1981. I have a copy of the trade paperback edition for sale over on the Lame Excuse Books page.
  • Hewett, Jerry. The Work of Jack Vance: An Annotated Bibliography & Guide. Borgo Press/Underwood Miller, 1994. I know Jerry pretty well, and not only has he signed my copy, he crossed out “Borgo” and wrote in “Bozo” on the title page. I think he had some problems dealing with them…
  • Bleiler, Everett F. The Checklist of Science-Fiction and Supernatural Fiction. Firebell, 1978. Slightly updated edition of Bleiler’s classic Checklist of Fantastic Fiction (which I have on another shelf), and an absolutely essential reference work for older SF/F/H books.
  • Joshi, S. T. Sixty Years of Arkham House. Arkham House, 1999. Not 100% accurate, but essential none the less.
  • Bleiler, Everett. The Guide to Supernatural Fiction. Kent State University Press, 1993. Very good, and very solid, as a general reference work, but not really concerned with first edition points.
  • Locke, George. Spectrum of Fantasy I-III. Ferret Fantasy, 1980-2002. Perhaps the only SF dealer as knowledgeable as Currey. These are Locke’s descriptions of his own personal library of fantastic fiction. Quite enjoyable works, and George is a nice guy.

    • One guideline I’d offer aspiring SF/F/H book collectors is: Don’t skimp on the reference works. Some of these books can be expensive, but all it takes is one real find (or one expensive dud avoided) for a good reference work to pay for itself.

    More pictures of my reference library when I have the time…

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