Posts Tagged ‘S. T. Joshi’

Library Additions: Five Lovecraft/Arkham House-Related Items

Tuesday, July 31st, 2018

Cold Tonnage Books had their annual 40% off sale, so here’s the first batch of books I picked up, all related either to H.P. Lovecraft or Arkham House.

  • Datlow, Ellen, editor. Lovecraft’s Monsters. Tachyon Press, 2014. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine copy. Signed by Datlow. Mostly reprints, with a couple of originals. Bought for £6 after discount.
  • Derleth, August. The Chronicles of Solar Pons. Mycroft & Moran, 1973. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with a thin line of wear at the very bottom of the heel. Collection of Derleth’s Sherlockian Solar Pons stories from Arkham House’s sister imprint. Joshi, Sixty Years of Arkham House, M&M15, page 183. Jaffrey, Horrors and Unpleasantries, 128. Nielsen, Arkham House Books: A Collector’s Guide, M15, page 154. Bought for £9 after discount.

  • Lovecraft, H.P. and Willis Conover. Lovecraft at Last. Carrollton-Clark, 1975. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Oversized volume that reprints the correspondence between Lovecraft and the then-teen-aged Conover, some in two-color facsimile. Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: An Annotated Bibliography, I-A-62. Chalker/Owings (1991), page 91, who note that Conover lost tens of thousands of dollars on the project. Bought for £24 after discount.

  • (Lovecraft, H.P.) S.T. Joshi. An Index to the Selected Letters of H. P. Lovecraft. Necronomicon Press, 1980. First edition chapbook original, a Fine copy. Reference work. Joshi, H. P. Lovecraft: An Annotated Bibliography, Supplement C-III, page 412. Bought for £12 after discount.

  • Wakfield, H.R. Strayers From Sheol. Arkham House, 1961. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with just a trace of dust soiling to the white cover (exaggerated in the scan). Joshi, Sixty Years of Arkham House, 60. Jaffrey, Horrors and Unpleasantries, 60. Nielsen, Arkham House Books: A Collector’s Guide, 63. Bleiler, Supernatural Horror in Literature, 1647. Chalker/Owings (1991), page 30. Bought for £30 after discount.

  • Library Additions: Several Hippocampus Press Books

    Monday, December 4th, 2017

    These actually came in several months ago, I’ve just been too busy to catalog them. Most of these are still available through Lame Excuse Books.

  • Lovecraft, H.P. (edited by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi). Letters to C.L. Moore and Others. Hippocampus Press, 2017. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine copy, new and unread. Non-fiction.
  • Lovecraft, H.P. (edited by S. T. Joshi). H. P. Lovecraft’s Collected Fiction: A Variorum Edition: Volume 4: Revisions and Collaborations. Hippocampus Press, 2017. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine copy, new and unread. Companion to the three volume hardback Variorum edition volumes (but no hardback edition for this one, alas).
  • Lovecraft, H.P. and Clark Ashton Smith (edited by David E. Schultz and S. T. Joshi). Dawnward Spire, Lonely Hill: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith. Hippocampus Press, 2017. First edition hardback, one of 500 copies, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Huge 800 page non-fiction volume of Lovecraft/Clark letters.
  • (Shea, Michael). Shea, Linda, and S. T. Joshi. And Death Shall have No Dominion: A Tribute to Michael Shea. Hippocampus Press, 2017. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine copy, new and unread. A miscellany related to Shea, including short stories, novel segments, verse, unpublished work, and several tributes to him by other writers.
  • Library Additions: Two Bibliographies

    Friday, January 6th, 2017

    Still clearing out the backlog of books I bought in 2016. here are two bibliographies, each of which I bought quite cheap:

  • (Buckley, William F., Jr.) Meehan, William H. III. William F. Buckley Jr.: A Bibliography. ISI Books, 2002. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Bought this after picking up these Buckley boks. Alas, though it contains a great deal of information, it doesn’t include the one thing I bought it for: first edition pints on Buckley’s books.

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  • (Lovecraft, H.P.) Joshi, S. T. 200 Books by S. t. Joshi. Hippocampus Press, 2014. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine copy, signed by Joshi. A self-bibliography of H.P. Lovecraft’s supreme scholar, biographer, and bibliographer. So a bibliography of a bibliographer. Bought off eBay for $4.50 plus shipping.

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  • Library Addition: H.P. Lovecraft: A Life

    Wednesday, February 4th, 2015

    I finally found a copy of the definitive one-volume H. P. Lovecraft biography I could afford.

    (Lovecraft, H.P.) Joshi, S. T. H. P. Lovecraft: A Life. Necronomicon Press, 1996. First edition, one of only 250 signed hardbacks (the only hardback edition), a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with a very tiny wrinkle at head. Widely considered to be the definitive Lovecraft biography until Joshi’s two volume expansion I Am Providence (which I also have) came out in 2010. The hardback of H. P. Lovecraft: A Life peaked around $500, but has since drifted down a bit. I bought this one from the publisher off eBay for $160.

    Lovecraft A Life

    Library Additions: Three Lovecraft Titles From Hippocampus Press

    Tuesday, November 11th, 2014

    Got in three Lovecraft-related new books by Hippocampus Press, all of which I have available through Lame Excuse Books as well:

  • (Lovecraft, H.P.) Joshi, S. T. Lovecraft and a World in Transition. Hippocampus Press, 2014. First edition hardback, one of 500 copies signed by Joshi (the only edition), a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Collection of Joshi’s most important essays on Lovecraft (of which there have been many). List price $65.

  • (Lovecraft, H.P.) Derie, Bobby. Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos. Hippocampus Press, 2014. First edition trade paperback original, Fine. Gahan Wilson cover. Non-fiction work examining sexual themes in a wide variety of Cthulhu Mythos-related work. List price $20.

  • Webb, Don. Through Dark Angles: Works Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft. Hippocampus Press, 2014. First edition trade paperback original, Fine. List price $20.

  • Also, not in yet but forthcoming: H. P. Lovecraft’s Collected Fiction: A Variorum Edition, a three volume set of the definitive texts of all Lovecraft’s fiction, showing all the different edits made in his stories either by Lovecraft or his various editors. This will be a three volume set limited to 500 copies with a list price of $180.

    E-mail me at lawrenceperson@gmail.com if you’re interested in picking any of these up.

    Library Additions: Five Reference Works

    Tuesday, March 18th, 2014

    I also pick up science fiction-related reference works, especially when I see them cheap.

  • (Ballard, J. G.) Baxter, John. The Inner Man: the life of J. G. Ballard. Weidenfield & Nicolson, 2011. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Critical biography.
  • (Gilliam, Terry) McCabe, Bob. Terry Gilliam, The Brothers Grimm, and other cautionary tales of Hollywood. First edition hardback, a Fine- copy with what appears to be “delamination” of otherwise shiny area at base of the spine, in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. Book on the making of the Terry Gilliam film The Brothers Grimm.
  • Lovecraft, H.P. (S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, editors. O Fortunate Floridian: H.P. Lovecraft’s Letters to R. H. Barlow. University of Tampa Press, 2007. First edition hardback (stated), a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, new and unread.

    Barlow was an interesting fellow in his own right. He was studying ancient Mexican writings at Mexico City College (at the same time William S. Burroughs was there) when he committed suicide in January of 1951.

    Now I have the perfect thing to lay the envelope from Lovecraft to Barlow into.

  • (Moskowitz, Sam) The Sam Moskowitz Collection of Science Fiction b/w Comic Books and Comic Art. Southbys, 1999. First edition oversized trade paperback original, Fine. Auction catalog for the Sam Moskowitz’s science fiction collection held June 29, 1999 (plus a collection of rare comics sold the next day).
  • Stephenson, Neal. In the Beginning was the Command Line. Avon Books, 1999. First edition trade paperback original, a Fine copy. Long essay on the history of computing the Internet, and cyber culture.
  • Lawrence Person’ Library: Reference Books (Part 4: H. P. Lovecraft)

    Sunday, June 3rd, 2012

    Don Webb once said that “If you are obsessed with a writer, you own more in print about him than the total number of words in print by him.” In which case I guess I’m obsessed by H. P. Lovecraft (who is also who Don was talking about). However, while I do like Lovecraft, it’s really only because I’m obsessed about books in general, part of which is obtaining reference books about authors I like. Is it my fault there are just so many books on Lovecraft out there? I don’t have all of them, but I do have a goodly number.

    For In-print items, I’ve provided links to either the Lame Excuse Books page for things I have in stock, or Amazon links for those I don’t.

    Here’s a long view of everything that would fit laid out on a single tabletop:

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  • (Lovecraft, H.P.) Bell, Joseph. Les Bibliotheques Volumes 1-8. Soft Books, 1984-1987. Eight side-stapled A4-sized chapbooks, featuring a miscellaneous selection of Lovecraft material (including fiction, poems, letters, etc. from Lovecraft), the bulk of which is taken up by a chronology of his publications.
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  • (Lovecraft, H.P.) Migliore, Andrew, and John Strysik. The Lurker in the Lobby: A Guide to the Cinema of H.P. Lovecraft. Night Shade Press, 2010. First printing trade paperback original of this enlarged and updated edition. Normally sits among my film reference works.
  • Next comes a few Arkham House-related books I’m including here. (I already covered S. T. Joshi’s Sixty Years of Arkham House during my first reference book roundup.)

  • Jaffery, Sheldon. Horrors and Unpleasantries: A Bibliographical History and Collectors Price Guide to Arkham House. Popular Press, 1982. First edition hardback. Largely superseded by Joshi’s Sixty Years, it still has information not replicated there, including how the secret reprint edition of August Derleth’s own Someone in the Dark came to pass.
  • Nielsen, Leon. Arkham House Books: A Collector’s Guide. McFarland & Company, 2004. Trade paperback original. Goes a little farther than Joshi. Mostly superfluous if you have Joshi and Jaffrey, but useful if you don’t.
  • Derleth, August. Thirty Years of Arkham House: 1939-1969. Arkham House, 1970. First edition hardback. The official history up to that date. (I do not own a copy of Derleth’s Arkham House: The First 20 Years; it’s pretty pricey for a superseded paperback reference work, and insanely pricey for one of the 80 hardback copies…)
  • Finally, we get to the actual Lovecraft section, which starts off with several titles by HPL himself:

  • Lovecraft, H. P. Supernatural Horror in Literature. Ben Abramson, 1945. First separate edition, hardback (Currey A), sans dust jacket, as issued. His famous essay.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz) Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters. Ohio University Press, 2000. Hardback first edition. What the title says: chronological autobiographical information culled from Lovecraft’s voluminous correspondence.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by S. T. Joshi) Collected Essay Volume 1: Amateur Journalism. Hippocampus Press, 2004. Hardback first edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by S. T. Joshi) Collected Essay Volume 2: Literary Criticism. Hippocampus Press, 2004. Hardback first edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by S. T. Joshi) Collected Essay Volume 3: Science. Hippocampus Press, 2005. Hardback first edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by S. T. Joshi) Collected Essay Volume 4: Travel. Hippocampus Press, 2005. Hardback first edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by S. T. Joshi) Collected Essay Volume 5: Philosophy, Autobiography & Miscellany. Hippocampus Press, 2006. Hardback first edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei) Selected Letters I. Arkham House, 1965. Hardback first edition. Many later Lovecratt scholars have criticized the way the letters in these and subsequent volumes have been edited.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei) Selected Letters II. Arkham House, 1968. Hardback first edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei) Selected Letters IIII. Arkham House, 1971. Hardback first edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by August Derleth and James Turner) Selected Letters IV. Arkham House, 1976. Hardback first edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by August Derleth and James Turner) Selected Letters V. Arkham House, 1976. Hardback first edition.

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  • Lovecraft, H. P. and Donald Wandrei (edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz) Mysteries of Time and Spirit: The Letters of H. P. Lovecraft and Donald Wandrei. Night Shade Books, 2002. Hardback first edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz) Letters from New York. Night Shade Books, 2005. Hardback first edition.
  • Howard, Robert E. and H. P. Lovecraft. A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. Hippocampus Press, 2009. First edition hardbacks, two volumes. Shelved in my Robert E. Howard section.
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  • Lovecraft, H. P. (edited by L. Sprague de Camp) To Quebec and the Stars. Donald M. Grant, 1976. Hardback first edition. (Out of order in the pictures because it’s oversized and shelved one shelf down from where it should be.)
  • Next comes books about Lovecraft by other authors.

  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Joshi, S. T. H. P. Lovecraft and Lovecraft Criticism: An Annotated Bibliography. Kent State University Press, 1981. Hardback first edition, sans dust jacket, as issued. If you haven’t figured out already by the number of times his name has already appeared on this list, Joshi is the Lovecraft obsessive that puts all the other Lovecraft obsessives in the shade. I have several criticisms of his Sixty Years of Arkham House, and disagree with significant bits and pieces of his critical approach to Lovecraft’s. But when comes to excessive knowledge of Lovecraft’s life and work, he has no equal, and this bibliography is ridiculously comprehensive up through the period covered. There were 14 Lovecraft books (including some chapbooks, pamphlets, etc.) printed before The Outsider and Others, each of which is either insanely expensive or simply not available anywhere at any price.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Joshi, S. T. I Am Providence: the Life and Times of H P Lovecraft. Hippocampus Press, 2010. First edition hardback, two volumes. Back in 1996, Necronomicon Press published Joshi’s H. P. Lovecraft: A Life, a definitive biography which was about 700 pages long, with very small margins, in a hardback edition of 250 copies which went out of print before just about anyone knew about it. (You can still get the trade paperback edition.) Well, guess what? Joshi had to leave out about 150,000 words of material for space constraints. That, plus everything he’s learned since 1996, is packed into these two volumse. (I see some people online are asking $550 for this set. I have sets available for $95, which is half-off cover price. [Sorry, sold out. – LP])
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Joshi, S. T. and David E. Schultz. An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press, 2001. Hardback first edition, in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued. Includes things both in Lovecraft’s fiction and his life.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) de Camp, L. Sprague Lovecraft: A Life. Doubleday, 1975. Hardback first edition, inscribed by de Camp, remainder speckling at heel, otherwise Fine in a Fine dust jacket. Considered the standard biography before Joshi went to work; not so much anymore.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Long, Frank Belknap. Howard Philips Lovecraft: Dreamer on the Night Side Arkham House, 1975. Hardback first edition. Biography of Lovecraft by a close friend and fellow writer.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Cannon, Peter, editor. Lovecraft Remembered. Arkham House, 1998. Hardback first edition with review slip laid in. Collection of remembrances of both Lovecraft and his writing by numerous contemporaries, much of it original published in very obscure journals or small-run pamphlets.
  • (Lovecraft, H.P.) Carter, Lin. Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos. Starmont House/Borgo Press, [1992]. First hardback edition, Fine in decorated boards, sans dust jacket, as issued.
  • (Lovecraft, H.P.) Cannon, Peter. H. P. Lovecraft. Twayne, 1989. Hardback first edition (a reasonably clean ex-library copy). Part of the Twayn’s United States Authors Series.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Joshi, S. T. H. P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism. Ohio University Press, 1980. Hardback first edition. Variety of essays on Lovecraft’s work.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Mark Owings and Irving Binkin, catalogers. A Catalog of Lovecraftiana: The Grill Binkin Collection. Mirage Press, 1975. Hardback first edition, Fine sans dust jacket, as issued. Catalog of perhaps the most extensive Lovecraft collection ever in existence.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) St. Armand, Barton Levi. The Roots of Horror in the Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft. Dragon Press, 1977. Hardback first edition, Fine sans dust jacket, as issued. Critical work.
  • And a few works on the Cthulhu Mythos more generally:

  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Jarocha-Ernst, Chris. A Cthulhu Mythos Bibliography and Concordance. Armitage House, 1999. First edition trade paperback original.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Harms, Daniel. Encyclopedia Cthulhuiana. Chaosium, 1994. Trade paperback original.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Harms, Daniel. The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia. Elder Signs Press, 2008. First edition hardback, one of 200 signed, numbered copies. “Updated and Expanded Third Edition,” and the first hardback edition.
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    And here are some chapbook that you can’t tell what they are from the spine. I pick up those Necronomicon Press chapbooks when I find them cheap, but usually not otherwise.

  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) St. Armand, Barton Levi. H. P. Lovecraft: New England Decadent. Silver Scarab Press, 1979. Perfect-bound chapbook.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Barlow, R. H. On Lovecraft and Life. Necronomicon Press, 1992. First edition chapbook.

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  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Cook, W. Paul. In Memoriam: Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Necronomicon Press, 1991. Chapbook, second edition.
  • Lovecraft, H. P. A History of the Necronomicon. Necronomicon Press, 1992. Chapbook, sixth printing.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) Barrass, Glynn. A Cthulhu Mythos Bibliography & Checklist: Second Edition. Blackgoat Books, 1996. An extremely barebones checklist (title, publisher, and whether it was issued in hardback). Probably the last thing you would reach for, but it does have a few obscure listings.

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  • Lovecraft, H. P. and Anthony Raven. The Occult Lovecraft. Gerry de la Ree, 1975. First edition chapbook.
  • (Lovecraft, H. P.) H. P. Lovecraft: A Symposium. The Los Angeles Science Fiction Society/The Riverside Quarterly, [1964]. First edition chapbook, with Errata sheet laid in.
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    Related Posts

  • Lawrence Person’s Library of Science Fiction First Editions
  • Lawrence Person’s Reference Books Part 1
  • Lawrence Person’s Reference Books Part 2
  • Lawrence Person’s Reference Books Part 3
  • 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…