Posts Tagged ‘reference works’
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2026
I’ve slowly been picking up some general literary bookselling references when I’ve found them cheap, and this purchase fits in that category.
Dingman, Larry. Bibliography of limited and signed editions in literature, Twentieth Century American Authors. James Cummings Press, 1973. First edition hardback, a Very Good+ copy in red cloth with a few faint spots, and slight wear at head and heel, sans dust jacket, as issued. Just what it says, and of very limited use to SF/F/H collectors, with only a few figures onn the literary end of the genre (James Branch Cabell, William S. Burroughs, etc.) included. Bought off a fellow Biblio dealer for $5.40 plus shipping.
Tags:bibliography, Books, reference works
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Tuesday, September 1st, 2026
A friend is gradually culling the book collection of his mother, a literary academic, and I’ve been helping him seperate out books that might have some value from those that don’t. Here are three SF (or SF adjacent) critical works I saved for myself.
Clareson, Thomas D. Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction: The Formative Period, 1926—1970. University of South Carolina Press, 1992. Second printing trade paperback, a Fine- copy with two small spots to page block edges. Clareson wrote a number of SF reference works, so I expect this to be pretty decent.
(Le Guin, Ursula K.) Cummins, Elizabeth. Understanding Ursula K. Le Guin. University of South Carolina Press, 1993. First edition trade paperback original of this revised edition, a Fine copy. Critical book on Le Guin.
(Pynchon, Thomas)Tanner, Tony. Thomas Pynchon. Methuen, 1982. First edition trade paperback original, a Poor copy since the center two leaves were falling out when I received this, but I’ve glued them back in. Critical companion to Pynchon’s work, covering early short work, V, The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity’s Rainbow. Part of Methuen’s Contemporary Writers series.
Normally I wouldn’t add reprints (or a book falling apart) to my reference library, but at “free” the price was certainly right…
Tags:Books, reference works, Science Fiction, science fiction criticism, Slipstream, Thomas D. Clareson, Thomas Pynchon, Ursula K. Le Guin
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Friday, December 26th, 2025
Three reference works I picked up on my DFW trip.
(Donaldson, Stephen R.) W. A. Senior. Stephen R. Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Variations on the Fantasy Tradition. Kent State University Press, 1995. First edition hardback (“03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96 95 5 4 3 2 1” numberline), a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket (although, oddly, it seems quite like a heavy grade of red construction paper). Critical companion to the Thomas Covenant books. Added mainly because Kent State has put out a number of interesting SF/F/H related books over the years, some of which (like Bleiler’s Guide to Supernatural Fiction) have gotten quite pricey on the secondary market. Bought for $8 at Recycled Books in Denton.
Moskowitz, Sam. Explorers of the infinite: Shapers of Science Fiction. World Publishing Company, 1963. Hardback reprint (Currey says First Edition stated on copyright page, and I’m not seeing it anywhere), a Near Fine copy with bend at head and heel and a few pinpoint spots to boards, in a Near Fine- Mylar-protected dust jacket with wear at head and heel, slight age darkening to spine, some rubbing, and slight darkening to white portions of rear panel. Mostly essays on individual writers, arranged chronologically, from well-known figures like Lovecraft, Stapledon and Burroughs to more obscure ones like Fitz-James O’Brien and Frank Reade Jr. Moskowitz was tremendously important as one of the field’s first historians and critics, but also tremendously controversial due to many tendentious opinions. Bought at a DFW Half Price Books for $6.99.
Westwood, Emma, editor. Midnight Movie Monographs: Bride of Frankenstein. Electric Dreamhouse/PS Publishing, 2023. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Essays on the celebrated second film in the Universal Frankenstein series. The only other volume I have in this series is their Plan 9 From Outer Space book. Bought for $6 from Recycled Books in Denton.
Tags:Books, Electric Dreamhouse, Emma Westwood, Fantasy, Frankenstein, Half Price Books, Horror, Movies, PS Publishing, Recycled Books, reference works, Sam Moskowitz, Science Fiction, science fiction criticism, science fiction history, Stephen R. Donaldson
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Monday, October 13th, 2025
Here’s a Kickstarter I backed all the way back in March of 2024 that finally came in.
(Lovecraft, H.P.) Eddy, Muriel E. & C.M. The Gentleman from Angell Street. Helios House Press, 2025. Third edition, first hardback and first thus, a greatly expanded version of the Fenham Publishing trade paperback of 2001 (which I also have), a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Biographical memoir of Lovecraft by two of his neighbors, now filled out with information gleaned from unearthed correspondence. Backed on Kickstarter for $65.
Tags:biography, Books, C.M. and Muriel E. Eddy, Cthulhu, H. P. Lovecraft, Helios House, Horror, Kickstarter, reference works
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Monday, August 18th, 2025
Here’s a rare case of my buying a book from Amazon:
(Howard, Robert E.) Willard M. Oliver. Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author. University of North Texas Press, 2025. First edition hardback (“10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1” numberline), a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Hefty 580 page biography of Howard that’s gotten lots of praise in the various REH-adjacent bibliographic groups I visit on Facebook. Bought for $20.80, a hefty discount off the $40 list price.
This is the fourth full-length biography of Howard I own, including the Mark Finn, Novalyne Price and de Camp et. al. biographies (plus two shorter ones), none of which I’ve read yet. I’ll probably read the considerably shorter Finn biographer before this one.
Tags:Amazon, biography, Books, Fantasy, reference works, Robert E. Howard
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Wednesday, June 18th, 2025
Another Dragonstairs chapbook:
Swanwick, Michael. S1ngular 1nterv1ews. First edition chapbook original, #57 of 60 signed, numbered copies, a Fine- copy with a slight crease in the middle. A series of one question interviews with science fiction professionals: David Hartwell (on editing Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun), Samuel R. Delaney, John Crowley, etc.
I will have one copy of this available in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
Tags:Books, chapbooks, David Hartwell, Dragonstairs Press, Gene Wolfe, John Crowley, Michael Swanwick, reference works, Samuel R. Delany, Science Fiction
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Monday, May 19th, 2025
This was a pleasant and unexpected addition to my reference library.
Rosenbach, A. S. W. Books and Bidders. Little Brown and Company, 1927. First edition hardback (“Published November, 1927), a Fine-copy with a faint 1″ groove at head near rear join and slight bend at head and heel, in a Very Good+ dust jacket with a 1” closed tear and associated creases at top rear, two much smaller closed tears, slight shallow loss at head and heel, and a bit of soiling to white rear cover, with dedication slip tipped in at the dedication page: “To Ben F. Wallace, with all best wishes/a.s.w. Rosenbach/ June 20, 1933.” Rosenbach was probably the grandest of the grand old men of the American bookselling trade in the first half of the 20th century. Given that Rosenbach sold multiple Gutenberg bibles throughout his career, I think my own bookselling efforts rather pale in comparison. Still, I expect this will be full of bookselling tidbits of yesteryear. Given to me as a birthday gift by Dwight after we watched The Booksellers documentary, which I recommend to bibliophiles, and in which SF bookseller/collector/publisher Henry Wessels gets a fair amount of screen time.
Tags:A. S. W. Rosenbach, Books, bookselling, reference works, signatures
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Friday, April 25th, 2025
Another pickup for my extended library of bibliographic reference works.
Lachman, Marvin. A Reader’s Guide to the American Novel of Detection. G. K. Hall & Co., 1993. First edition hardback, an Ex-Library copy with most of the usual flaws (though UT Law Library rather than APL, so it doesn’t have the hideous APL band glued to the dust jacket), otherwise it would be a Fine/Fine copy. Provides plot synopsis for American detective novels, along with a few different index sections (pseudonyms, series characters, settings, etc.). There are no entries for Joe R. Lansdale, Kinky Friedman, or even Dashiell Hammett, so I wonder what the criteria was for an entry here. Bought for the munificent sum of $1 at UT’s ReUse shop.
All the dirt on the scan is just wear on the dust jacket protector.
Tags:Books, Mystery, reference works
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Monday, April 21st, 2025
This was another purchase from that Facebook estate seller I bought the Howard chapbooks from.
Howard, Robert E. (Rob Roehm, editor). The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume One: 1923 – 1929. Robert E. Howard Foundation Press, 2007. First edition hardback, #267 of 300 copies, a Fine- copy with slight bumping at heel in a Near Fine+ dust jacket with slight bumping at heel, small fold to top of front flap, trace of wear at points, and slight haze rubbing to rear. Most of the letters in this volume seem to be to longtime close friend Tevis Clyde Smith.
With:
Howard, Robert E. (Rob Roehm, editor). The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume Two: 1930-1932. Robert E. Howard Foundation Press, 2007. First edition hardback, #266 of 300 copies, a Fine- copy with bump to top front point in a Fine- dust jacket with slight bend at head, bump at point, trace of wear at points, and faint non-breaking surface scratches to rear cover. In this volume we finally start to see a number of letters to H.P. Lovecraft (I haven’t looked yet, but I’m guessing most if not all are included in the two volume A Means to Freedom, which I also have).
With:
Howard, Robert E. (Rob Roehm, editor). The Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard Volume Three: 1933-1936. Robert E. Howard Foundation Press, 2007. First edition hardback, #265 of 300 copies, a Fine copy in a Near Fine- dust jacket with two long, faint scratches to the front cover, slight wrinkling at head and a trace of wear at points. Letters to a wide range of recipients: Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Emil Petja, etc.
All bought for $60 for the set, which I think is a great bargain, as the majority of the REH Press stuff, especially early books like these, are all long out of print and hard to find.
Tags:August Derleth, Books, Clark Ashton Smith, Emil Petaja, Fantasy, H. P. Lovecraft, Horror, Limited Editions, reference works, Robert E. Howard, Robert E. Howard Foundation Press, small press publishers
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Tuesday, February 25th, 2025
Two more items from that large Robert E. Howard purchase, both reference works on Howard.
(Howard, Robert E.) de Camp, L. Sprague. The Miscast Barbarian: A Biography of Robert E. Howard (1906-2936). Gerry de la Ree, 1975. Presumed second printing (no limitation statement on final page, as pr Chalker/Owings) oversize chapbook original, a Fine copy. A short (42 pages, including art, bibliography and notes), impressionistic biography of Howard by de Camp, who was later to do a much more extensive biography of Howard, Dark Valley Destiny, in collaboration with his wife Catherine Crook de Camp. It is an understatement to note that de Camp’s biography, and his long legacy collecting, editing and publishing Howard’s work, is not regarded with universal love by the Robert E. Howard community. Chalker/Owings, page 128.
(Howard, Robert E.) Lord, Glenn. The Last Celt: A bio-Bibliography of Robert Ervin Howard. Donald M. Grant, 1976. First edition hardback a Fine- copy in a Fine- dust jacket with bumped corners. About a hundred pages of biography of Howard by various people (including H. P. Lovecraft), with the rest taken up with a bibliography. This is one of those books I vaguely thought I already had, and one I’ve already started referencing for these Howard purchases. Chalker/Owings, page 218 (“Good and very useful.”).
Tags:biography, chapbooks, Gerry de la Ree, Glenn Lord, L. Sprague de Camp, reference works, Robert E. Howard
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