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In this, the eighth of Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu novels, Fu Manchu attempts to establish a dictatorship in the United States.
“SAX ROHMER: Who is this author who has created characters known wherever English is spoken? He was born in England, is dark and spare, looks a little like Sherlock Holmes. He has homes in London and Madeira, but lives much of the time in Egypt and Damascus.
“It is estimated that 5,000,000 people in America alone read each new novel he writes. His books have been the basis of dozens of plays and motion-pictures, and are now the basis of a great nationwide radio series. He is the most popular mystery writer in the world.” [From the back cover]
Fu Manchu was an international pop-culture phenomenon and one of the most widely recognized fictional characters of his time. The character's popularity exploded beyond books into silent and sound cinema, radio dramas, comic strips, and pulp magazines. He was portrayed on screen by major Hollywood stars such as Boris Karloff and Warner Oland.
While massively popular, the character was also highly controversial. Chinese student groups protested the novels and films as early as the 1920s and 1930s. By World War II, the U.S. government even ordered the holders of the Fu Manchu copyrights to cease all production of films and radio programs to avoid offending the Republic of China, which was an allied force during the war.
The character's legacy lives on in modern pop culture through the iconic drooping "Fu Manchu" mustache style and the inspiration he provided for comic book villains like Marvel's “Mandarin” and DC's “Ra's al Ghul.”
No printing date; Koning Alcohol [John Barleycorn] by Jack London. Cover art by Corina. Paperback with Dust Jacket.
Dust jacket blurb:
"Because she was the way she was -- big, beautiful, and sexy -- there was no way on Earth Shara Drummond could become a professional dancer, in spite of her soaring genius. No way on Earth . . . but the zero-gravity environment of the orbiting Skyfac gave her the chance to create a new dimension in dance. She took that chance, though it meant catering to the whims of a perverse millionaire and being permanently exiled from her home world. And when the aliens appeared, a menacing swarm of lights from the depths of space, it was Shara who saw the only way to communicate with them -- with one last dance that repelled the threat and made her forever one with the void.
"Shara's legacy was a unique school of dance, free of the pull of Earth's gravity, in which her sister Norrey and her embittered lover Charlie explored new frontiers of movement and feeling , , , and unknowingly prepared themselves for an incredible ordeal and an unimaginable destiny.
"Stardance is a major novel of passion and adventure, of biting irony and tenderness, at once briskly entertaining and deeply moving."
In a connected series of short stories, 28 in all, Bradbury chronicles the human colonization of Mars. The stories originally appeared in the science fiction magazines of the 1940s. The planet Mars is a strange and breathtaking world where humans don’t belong. They are escaping a troubled Earth and their arrival on Mars leads, eventually, to plague and conflict and to the near extinction of native Martians. But by the final chapters of the book – or as Bradbury describes it, “a book of stories pretending to be a novel” – the humans themselves face extinction. This is certainly one of Bradbury’s best works, which became the basis for a TV mini-series in 1980:
“ICE swings past the Moon
NASA's ISEE-3 spacecraft streaks just 116 km above the lunar surface December 22, 1983, as it is catapulted by the Moon's gravity toward a September 11, 1985, encounter with Comet Giacobini-Zinner.”
Above at/from:
www.planetary.org/articles/0328-returning-explorers
Credit: The Planetary Society website
Also:
“An artist’s depiction of ICE during its last lunar flyby on December 22, 1983 that sent it into solar orbit.”
Above at/from:
www.drewexmachina.com/2015/09/11/ice-the-first-comet-flyby/
Credit: Andrew LePage/Drew Ex Machina website
I procured this primarily because I considered it an aesthetically pleasing work, with one of my favorite destinations of exploration prominently featured.
Or so I thought. Psyche!
However, what’s actually going on here, and the spacecraft’s mission(s) turned out to be quite interesting. But, I didn’t feel like copying/pasting/paraphrasing the story. So, if you’re so inclined, read any/all of the links I’ve provided. If you do, I think you’ll agree…heck, even crowdfunding was involved.
Reasons for the appeal of the artwork:
- Attention to detail of the spacecraft.
- Color/Appearance of the lunar surface, and earth, and similarity to the recent Artemis II photos.
- Color/Appearance of the lunar surface, and earth, reminiscent of some of the photos taken during Apollo 15, with that used on the dustjacket of James Irwin’s book, “To Rule The Night” coming to mind. In fact, a little researching revealed that it’s indeed the photo sequence that was used for it, but reversed left-to-right, along with the earth’s crescent being inverted. Artistic license, I guess. Linked-to photos below confirm.
Along those lines…and bear with me another excruciating moment…the crescent earth orientation selected dictates that the lunar surface depicted is in darkness. This got me to thinking, knowing squat about earth/moon celestial mechanics, if this view was even possible. Additional linked-to photos below do show such orientation, so it is.
spaceref.com/science-and-exploration/isee-3-an-old-friend...
Credit: spaceref website
refractor.io/space/crowdfunding-push-to-bring-36-year-old...
Credit: “REFRACTOR” website
Unfortunately, no signature is present. Jerry Elmore maybe? See yet another linked-to photo below for why it might be…maybe.
Finally, since I know you're wondering; the area depicted is between the craters Curie (foreground, out of frame) & Hecataeus (over the horizon), looking generally toward the west.
Thanks to the wonderful Lunar and Planetary Institute website, particularly:
www.lpi.usra.edu/resources/mapcatalog/apolloindex/apollo1...
The A. C. Gilbert Company was once one of the largest toy companies in the world. Alfred Carlton Gilbert (1884-1961) founded the company in 1909 as a company that provided supplies to magic shows. Then, in 1911, Gilbert invented the Erector Set and introduced it two years later. Beginning in 1922, A. C. Gilbert made chemistry sets and other sets for budding scientists. Microscope kits came in 1934, then a line of inexpensive reflector telescopes. In 1938, Gilbert purchased the American Flyer, a struggling manufacturer of toy trains. Gilbert re-designed the entire product line, producing 1:64 scale trains running on O gauge track. After WWII, Gilbert introduced S gauge model railroad kits. Although these new trains were popular, Lionel outsold American Flyer nearly 2 to 1. Once the largest employer in New Haven, Connecticut, the Gilbert Company struggled after the death of its founder in 1961 and went out of business in 1967. American Flyer was sold to Lionel. The brand name on its Erector Set and microscope products was retained by subsequent manufacturers. [Source: Wikipedia]
This is the first one-volume edition of two classic works, "Houdini's Escapes" (1930) and "Houdini's Magic" (1932). These books provided the most complete description available of Houdini's feats and how he performed them. Walter Gibson prepared them after Houdini's death in 1926, from the magician's private notebooks and with the assistance of his widow, Beatrice, and of Bernard Ernst, then president of the Society of American Magicians.
"It will soon become apparent to the reader that, although Houdini was daring, he never took an uncalculated risk. He would not accept a challenge unless he was sure he could meet it. He was physically fit, an athlete, and a strong swimmer. Yet his assistants were poised to rescue him if he didn't surface on schedule from an underwater box. A dozen less careful performers have been drowned, or seriously injured, because they attempted this feat without sufficient knowledge, or without taking the necessary precautions." -- Milbourne Christopher
Author Walter B. Gibson, after completing "Houdini's Escapes and Houdini's Magic" in the early 1930s, turned to fiction writing, creating the famed pulp hero of Lamont Cranston, also known as the Shadow. Under the pen name of Maxwell Grant, he wrote novel-length stories for "The Shadow Magazine" for more than fifteen years. These novels were adapted for the Shadow radio program and, today, they have been reprinted in paperback and hardcover editions. Under his own name, Walter Gibson has written many other books in the fields of magic, games and the occult.
This is the second book in Farmer's Riverworld series, a sequel to "To Your Scattered Bodies Go."
The planet was called Riverworld -- huge and mysterious, with one central river that flowed for countless thousands of miles from a hidden source to an unknown end. But worse than the violation of all known physical laws that the planet itself displayed was the mystery of how -- and why -- all humanity had been reborn along the shores of the great river. For reborn they were, every last soul, from the first prehistoric humans to the latter-day inhabitants of the Moon.
Sam Clemens is one who finds himself reborn on Riverworld, and with a shipload of reincarnated Vikings and a blood brother whose first life was spent hunting saber tooth tigers and mastodons, he has sailed the great river as he did the Mississippi of old. But his voyage comes to an untimely end when a great meteorite plunges into the stream and he is knocked unconscious. When he comes to, the mysterious aliens who for their own reasons established the Riverworld have contrived to repair all the damage caused by the disaster. Only now one new element has been introduced -- iron. And with iron at hand, Clemens can build his own paddle steamer, and on this fabulous riverboat he can make his epic journey to the headwaters of the river and the heart of the panet-sized mystery which is the Riverworld.
A television series loosely based on the Riverworld saga went into production for the Sci-Fi channel in 2001 but only the feature-length pilot episode Riverworld was completed. It was first aired in 2003. It used elements from "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" and "The Fabulous Riverboat." In 2010, a 4-hour TV movie, Riverworld was produced and released by Syfy (formerly The Sci-fi Channel) in the US and by Studio Universal elsewhere, written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe. The protagonist is Matt Ellman, an American war reporter, played by Tahmoh Penikett. The main villain is Richard Francis Burton, although in the books he is the protagonist and is written more as a hero than a villain.
Walter Gibson was an accomplished magician as well as an author. Under the Street & Smith house name of Maxwell Grant, he created and wrote 282 of the 325 novels about the most famous crimefighter to battle evil-doers in the pages of pulp magazines -- "The Shadow." So in creating his other crimefighting hero, "Norgil, the Magician," Gibson combined his talents as a mystery writer and a leading authority on magic. "Magic and mystery are so closely interwoven," he once wrote, "that it is hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins."
Stories about Norgil first appeared in pulp magazines such as "Crime Busters" and "Mystery Magazine" during the 1930's and 40's. Each story employs a famous stage illusion as a plot device, and Norgil is a solitary representation of several real-life magicians who made those tricks popular. These long-lost stories are collected here for the first time in book form.
From the blurb on the dust jacket:
"Messiah" by Gore Vidal will arouse anger and resentment in many people, it will shock them as "The Way of All Flesh" shocked them when it was first published; it will arouse argument and controversy, such as raged around Huxley's "Brave New World" and Orwell's "1984;" it will grip people while they read it and it will make them think.
Brain washing has become a recognized weapon; will soul washing come next? Will all the isms besetting humanity drive it into the arms of a new Messiah? Can television, advertising copy and high pressure publicity by exploiting man's inward religious urge lead him to anything, even death in preference to life? Can this happen here? Can it happen now?
These are some of the basic elements which make "Messiah" by Gore Vidal an absorbing, frightening and stimulating experience. This extraordinarily imaginative novel has a story of motion and action told in simple, economic words; it satirizes men and techniques, ridiculous in themselves, yet sinister in their intent and singleness of purpose; it gives a horribly real and vivid picture of a world that may come.
André Maurois - Ariel
Penguin Books 1, July 1935
Cover Design: Edward Young
This paperback edition, reissued in July 1985, is reproduced here in facsimile, and is published to mark Penguin's fiftieth anniversary.
Art by John Coleman Burroughs.
Deep in the heart of Africa rises a mighty cone-shaped mountain, an extinct volcano, in the huge crater of which lies "The Forbidden City of Ashair" where Atka, the cruel queen, rules: and Brulor, the false god, holds forth in his mysterious temple at the bottom of a great lake of crystal clearness.
To reach this inaccessible stronghold two safaris endure hardships and perils that bring death to some and high adventure to all. Love and hate and jealousy and intrigue play their parts in a battle of wits and endurance where courage and loyalty contend with duplicity, cruelty, superstition, and savagery.
One safari is bent on the rescue of the son of its leader from the clutches of Atka and the false god; the other, headed by a wily and unscrupulous oriental, seeks only The Father of Diamonds guarded by Brulor and his priests and Atka and her plumed warriors. There are hand-to-hand encounters with terrifying marine monsters among the wrecks of ancient galleys at the bottom of the great lake that spreads across the floor of the crater of Tuen-Baka.
Here is what Bok's original illustration looks like:
www.flickr.com/photos/57440551@N03/15933477262/in/album-7...
H. H. Munro - The She-Wolf and Other Stories
(A Saki Sampler)
Bantam 143 (DJ), 1948
Cover Artist: Norbert James ("Bert") Lannon
"Horror and High-Jinks"
This Bantam issue from 1948 is a Superior Reprint (M656, 1945) with a Bantam dust jacket. There are no Bantam logos or insignias on the dust jacket, but the words "A Bantam Book" appear on the back flap of the dust jacket.
The subject of motorway construction in London, especially during the 1960s after the proposals for widespread construction of such highways across the city, was very contentious. In reality only elements of the 'Westway' M40 extension that pushed through inner west London were constructed - the clamour of opposition (and one suspects the cost) finally told against other plans such as the A1 Archway scheme. The cover is illustrated by the great artist David Gentleman (who did the Charing Cross tube station murals for London Underground) and is very of his style - it also rather neatly captures the scale of Westway and the modern UK road signs.
No printing date; Moord achterstevoren [The Chinese Orange Mystery] by Ellery Queen. Cover art by Auke A. Tadema
Kepes, G. (ed.), Structure in Art and in Science, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1965.
Essays by: Max Bill, Jacob Bronowski, R. Buckminster Fuller, Richard Held, H.L.C. Jaffe, Richard Lippold, F. Maki & M. Ohtaka, Pier Luigi Nervi, I.A. Richards, Eduard F. Sekler, Cyril Stanley Smith, Alison & Peter Smithson, Margit Staber, Lancelot L. Whyte
"Wallace Memorial Edition -- BEN-HUR: A Tale of the Christ by General Lew Wallace with halftone autographed portrait of General Wallace. Gorgeous jacket in colors and gold -- The Chariot Race -- and illustrated pictorial end sheets, 560 pages. . . It is a thrilling grand story and the handsome book of the year. The picture on the other side is a copy of the jacket . . ."
(Description on the back of the postcard)
The picture of the chariot race which first appeared on the dust jacket of this 1908 memorial edition of the book had an enormous influence on later film adaptations of the story in 1925, 1959 and 2016.
This book presents an anthology of gems selected by Peter Haining from the pages of Weird Tales. The book presents them as facsimile reproductions of the actual pages of the magazine. According to fantasy enthusiasts, Weird Tales was the first and the best of all the fantasy periodicals. It spanned thirty years of publication as a pulp from 1923-1954.
Some of the authors appearing in Haining's anthology are Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Henry S. Whitehead, Fritz Leiber, Theodore Sturgeon, Eric Frank Russell, August Derleth, Seabury Quinn, Henry Kuttner, Manly Wade Wellman, Robert Bloch, Algernon Blackwood, and nearly every other major figure who contributed to Weird Tales.
Cover artist Margaret Brundage (1900-1976) sold 66 original pulp cover illustrations to Weird Tales from 1933 to 1945. Her covers were signed “M. Brundage” and were very popular with readers, but most of the public wasn’t aware the artist was female. When puritanical social forces complained about the overt sexuality of the art, the editor finally revealed that the artist was a woman, hoping to mollify the perceived offensiveness of her work.
As a woman in a field dominated by men, Brundage brought a unique aesthetic to pulp art. Most of her work was created with pastels on illustration board and often featured fantasy scenes of women trapped in sexually vulnerable situations. Brundage continued to create fantasy scenes in pastels for the rest of her life but was unable to find a steady publisher of her work after the publisher of Weird Tales moved to New York City in 1938. After a divorce from a drunken husband and the death of her only son, Brundage’s later years were spent in relative poverty. Check out the “Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists” for more on Brundage (www.pulpartists.com/Brundage.html).
“The Moon and the Planets” contains 40 double-page and fold-out plates featuring the work by space artist Ludek Pesek. It was his first publication. Ludek Pesek (1919-1999) was born in Kladno in what is now the Czech Republic. He produced his first artwork around the age of 19 and, later, attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. His art first reached US readers through the National Geographic Magazine which commissioned him to do a series of works about Mars. Previous to the Mars article he had painted 15 scenes for an article called “Journey to the Planets” in August 1970. He produced several 360-degree panoramas for projection in the domes of the planetariums at Stuttgart, Winnipeg and Lucerne, and has exhibited in Washington, DC, Boston, Nashville, Stuttgart, Berne, Lucerne, Zurich, and other venues. The asteroid 6584 Ludek Pesek is named for him and his work is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.
Kepes, G. (ed.), Module Proportion Symmetry Rhythm, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1966.
Essays by: Lawrence B. Anderson, Rudolf Arnheim, John Cage, Ezra D. Ehrenkrantz, ANthony Hill, Erno Lendvai, Arthur L. Loeb, Richard P. Lohse, Francois Molnar, Philip Morrison, Stanislaw Ulam, C.H. Waddington
A charming and unusual wartime edition of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám issued by F Lewis in Essex, England, published in 1944 in a limited edition. It was printed by W S Cowell, the well known printers of Ipswich, on hand made paper. I suspect this must have been quite an achievement given wartime shortages of supplies, paper and inks.
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is a loose translation by Edward FitzGerald made in 1859 from Persian to English of a selection of quatrains (rubāʿiyāt) attributed to Omar Khayyam (1048–1131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia". This edition is illustrated by the artist Elijah Albert Cox (1876 – 1955) who had trained with Brangwyn. He was commissioned by, amongst others, London Transport for whom he produced posters.
1944; Christmas Holiday by W. Somerset Maugham. Printed in Sweden by Esselte AB, Stockholm. Dust Jacket edition
First, a man and a woman are subjects of a top-secret government experiment designed to produce extraordinary psychic powers. Then, they are married and have a child. A daughter. Early on the daughter shows signs of a wild and horrifying force growing within her. Desperately, her parents try to train her to keep that force in check, to "act normal." Now the government wants its brainchild back - for its own insane ends.
"Firestarter" was adapted into a movie in 1984:
“THE ULTIMATE FANTASY ADVENTURE STRIP
“The planet Mongo is a strange world, inhabited by fantastic races and weird creatures. Though its technology is far advanced, most of the planet lives in primitive savagery under the oppression of Emperor Ming the Merciless. The cruel dictator has sworn to capture and kill the three Earthling castaways who threaten his power on Mongo. Flash Gordon, an American sportsman, lovely Dale Arden, and near-mad genius, Dr. Hans Zarkov, find themselves in a never-ending series of heart-stopping adventures as they are pursued across the wilds of Mongo.
“Artist Alex Raymond has created what many consider the apex of fantasy strips. It is an original classic from the Golden Age of Comics. Nostalgia Press and King Features are proud to present this color album of Flash Gordon comic strips from the 1930’s and 40’s.” [Quoted from the blurb on the dust jacket]
Photo by Redfern Natural History Productions. These are the covers of our second edition of "A Compendium of Miniature Orchid Species" due to be released mid-2021!
The dust wrapper to a charming book - a classic on English pubs, written by Maurice Gorham and illustrated by Edward Ardizzone. This edition - 1949 - was a revision of the real classic, the 1939 edition, most copies of which (and the original plates) had been lost in the London Blitz of 1940/1 when the offices of Cassells', the publishers of Belle Sauvage Yard, was destroyed along with many other publishing houses in the vicinity. This makes the first edition quite rare. The pub shown is the old Warwick Castle in Maida Vale a pub that is, amazingly, still with us.
An early acolyte of H. P. Lovecraft, Brian Lumley emerged as a talented and versatile writer in the domain of the uncanny. He developed his own imaginative adaptation of the Cthulhu Mythos in stories that range from the nethermost regions of subterranean dread to the star flung spaces beyond the rim of the world.
The title story, "The Horror at Oakdeene," begins within the eerie confines of Oakdeene Sanatorium, where an invocation from the pages of the Cthaat Aquadingen leads the reader into the realm of nightmare. Another story, "The Statement of Henry Worthy," opens on the bleak Yorkshire moors and culminates in a primeval cavern where a race of hideous fungoid anomalies lurk.
Also included in the volume is Lumley's short novel, "Born of the Winds," in which the reader is taken on a trek across the Great White North, lacerated by icy arctic winds and confronted by the Ithaqua legend, an entity of awesome cosmic malevolence. Other tales of the occult and the macabre in this collection are "The Viking's Stone," "Aunt Hester," "No Way Home," "The Cleaner Woman," and "Darghud's Doll."
Nelson Algren - The Man with the Golden Arm
Cardinal Books C-31, 1951
Cover Artist: Stanley Meltzoff
"More powerful than a woman's love... more binding than a man's word... It was DOPE!"
Kepes, G. (ed.), Education of Vision, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1965.
Essays by: Rudolf Arnheim, Mirko Basaldella, Julian Beinart, Will Burtin, Anton Ehrenzweig, William J.J. Gordon, Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr., Gerald Holton, Johannes Itten, Tomas Maldonado, Wolfgang Metzger, Robert Preusser, Paul Rand, Robert J. Wolff
Dust jacket for book by Yugoslavian writer and dissenter Mihajlo Mihajlov. His book Moscow Summer is critical of the Soviet Union. In 1966 he was arrested and sentenced to jail by the Soviet authorities. The book has a foreword by Myron Kolatch, the editor of the New Leader, a publication that Lubalin designed (p.67). The design of Moscow Summer relies on the mon umental power of a block of tightly spaced typography redolent of prison bars, and in its utilization of an unusually vibrant colour palette. Client: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Date: 1965. www.uniteditions.com
“Pirates of Venus” is the first book in the Venus series and was first published in six installments in Argosy magazine in 1932 and in book form two years later. The novel contains elements of political satire aimed at communism and there are fantastic creatures, amazing landscapes, picturesque kingdoms with strange customs, a resourceful hero with telepathic abilities, and, of course, a beautiful and strong-willed princess. Carson Napier, the hero of the story, is on a journey to Mars, misses the red planet by a wide margin and crashes on Venus, a water world called Amtor by its humanlike inhabitants. And it’s there that many new adventures begin. “Pirates of Venus” is generally considered one of Edgar Rice Burroughs best books from the 1930s. [Source: Wikipedia]
“This novel portrays in an absorbing way one of the very greatest events in American history, the building of the first transcontinental railway. It is an epic of titanic labor, Man pitted against Nature in the shock of combat. Across the great trail falls the majestic shadow of Lincoln, the Builder, Lincoln who foresaw that an empire would spring to life with the first magnetic touch of the steel shod hoof of the Iron Horse. Against the background of the thrilling life of the Old West is thrown a vivid picture of the terrific building race between the two roads which were to unite and make one: Of the battles with the hostile Sioux and Cheyennes, of the bad, mad towns which mushroomed and decayed as the rails thrust forward like shining rapiers: Of the heroic exploits of unconquerable men: the whole mellowed with a love story of the most appealing charm.” [Quoting the blurb on the dust jacket]
“William Fox’s “The Iron Horse: A Romance of the East and the West,” a John Ford Production, Three Years in the Making. The Characters and the Players include:
Davy Brandon (George O’Brien)
Miriam Marsh (Madge Bellamy)
Abraham Lincoln (Charles Edward Bull)
Thomas Marsh ( Will Walling)
Deroux (Fred Kohler)
Peter Jesson (Cyril Chadwick) . . .
. . . And a regiment of United States troops and cavalry, 3,000 railway workmen, 1,000 Chinese laborers, 800 Pawnee, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, 2,800 horses, 1,300 buffalo, 10,000 Texas steers. (Special Note: The actual old-time locomotives and equipment which figured in the building of the Trans-Continental Railway are used throughout “The Iron Horse” – “Jupiter,” of the Central Pacific, and “119,” of the Union Pacific.) [As stated on the rear panel of the dust jacket]