Rare Books
Having collected hardcovers for over forty years, Bob's been able to assemble an impressive lineup of books ranging from the fairly common to the unbelievably scarce. Bob's owns over 4,500 hardcovers in the science fiction, fantasy and horror field. Included in the collection are complete sets of all the Arkham House books in fine condition, all the scarce Ballantine hardcovers from the 1950's, all of the signed Fantasy Press books, and many many others. Nearly 1,800 of those books are signed, with many of them inscribed to Bob from the authors. Over the past ten years, Bob has concentrated primarily on collecting 1930's and 1940's horror and fantasy books in dust jackets.
Bob also collects paperbacks and has a huge number of them. Some science fiction and fantasy paperbacks (especially early ones from England, Canada and Australia) are among the rarest pocket books ever published and feature spectacular covers. Bob's always on the look-out for unusual paperbacks. He's especially interested in finding more of the Golden Amazon series published by Harlequin Books of Canada in the 1950's.
Shown on this page are some of Bob's rarest books. These items are scarce!
Bob started collecting rare science fiction and fantasy books back in 1960 when he bought for $1.00 a copy of THE COMING OF CONAN by Robert E. Howard, published by Gnome Press, from an ad on the back of an issue of Fantastic Universe magazine. Soon after, Bob joined the SF Book Club and also started buying SF hardcovers from Pick-a-Book, an SF Book Club ran by Martin Greenberg, one of the co-founders of Gnome Press (no relationship to the prolific anthologist, Martin Harry Greenberg). Within a few years, Bob was making regular trips to New York City, where he bought hardcovers from Stephen's Book Service, the only store-front science fiction bookstore in the USA.
Bob currently collects early British and American science fiction and fantasy novels and short story collections in dust jacket. These books are difficult to find and every one is a treasure in itself. One of the most popular horror anthology series of the 1930's were the "Not at Night" hardcovers published in England. Here's the entire set of eleven books, in dust jacket.
![]() Not at Night #1 |
![]() Not at Night #2 |
![]() Not at Night #3 |
![]() Not at Night #4 |
![]() Not at Night #5 |
![]() Not at Night #6 |
![]() Not at Night #7 |
![]() Not at Night #8 |
![]() Not at Night #9 |
![]() Not at Night #10 |
![]() Not at Night #11 |
Bob also collects the Ward Locke editions of Edgar Wallace in dust jacket. Here are four of his favorite covers. He is always looking for more of these editions in very nice condition in very nice jackets if anyone has them for sale!
Along with collecting rare science fiction, fantasy and horror books, Bob also collects books reprinted from the pulp magazines.
Bob collects the science fiction and fantasy writings of H.G. Wells, who he considers to be the father of modern science fiction. While Bob has all of Wells' "scientific romances" in first edition hardcovers, they aren't very exciting to look at. Dust jackets were not put on books until the first decade of the 20th century, so most Wells' first editions were not published in jacket. Nor were they decorated with elaborate bindings.However, in the late 1920's and early 1930's, Collins Books in England reissued many of Wells' classic novels and short story collections in a "Readers' Library" series with extremely colorful jackets. Bob collects this series and considers them among the most interesting editions of Wells' work published. Here are some examples from his collection.
by Robert Weinberg Perhaps the oddest book ever published by Arkham House was the 100 copy hardcover edition of The Shunned House. While the basic facts regarding the book are common knowledge, the actual inspiration for its hardcover publication have never been known. This short article hopefully will serve as an answer to that question which has plagued collectors for nearly 50 fifty years. "The Shunned House," a long horror novelette, was written by H.P. Lovecraft during the week of October 16-19, 1924. The house of the story was based in part on a real house in Providence, R.I. located at 135 Benefit Street. Lovecraft's aunt lived in the house in 1919-1920. The inspiration for the story was another house, one located in Elizabeth, New Jersey (not far from where Bob grew up, which may explain many things!) at the northeast corner of Bridge Street and Elizabeth Avenue. Of that house, Lovecraft wrote that it was a "hellish place where night-black deeds must have been done in the early seventeen-hundreds." In the same letter, he further explained "its image came up again with renewed vividness, finally causing me to write a new horror story with its scene in Providence and with the Babbit House as its basis." In 1928, Lovecraft's friend, and fellow small-press enthusiast, W. Paul Cook, proposed publishing "The Shunned House," as a 250 copy Recluse Press hardcover book. Lovecraft was agreeable and Cook printed the sheets of the book. It was poorly typeset and contained a short introduction by Frank Belknap Long. However, according to August Derleth, Cook was always out of funds to pay to bind the book, and he totally abandoned the project when he moved from Massachusetts to Vermont several years later. Cook gave the unbound sheets to Lovecraft. In 1936, eighteen year old Robert Barlow took it on himself to hand bind around a dozen sets of the sheets. One of the books was of course for Lovecraft. The others he sent out to some of Lovecraft's closest friends. The rest of the sheets remained unbound for the duration of Lovecraft's life. Lovecraft died on March 15, 1937. Submitted by his friends after his death, "The Shunned House" was finally published in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales. Robert Barlow took possession of the unbound sheets after Lovecraft's death. He did nothing with them. On January 2, 1951, Barlow committed suicide in Azcapotzalco, Mexico, where he had been studying early Mexican history. According to Derleth, Barlow's friends in Mexico City sent the sheets to Derleth based on the two men's correspondence about Lovecraft. Derleth received approximately 150 sets of the unbound sheets. Derleth did nothing with the unbound sheets for the next few years. Then, in 1959, he began offering sets of the sheets for sale at $15.00 each. Despite the reasonable price, (most Arkham House books from the period were price at $3.50 - $4.00 each), not many of the sheets sold. In the 1960 catalog, Derleth advertised the sheets again. The ad read "THE SHUNNED HOUSE . Unbound sheets of the rare first, never published edition, done by Cook in 1928. Only a few sets remain for sale. For collectors only. $15.00." It was in late 1961 that long-time fantasy book collector, Sam Peeples wrote to his friend Derleth about buying a copy of The Shunned House. Peeples, however, didn't want unbound sheets which would need some sort of special box or slipcase for storage. Instead, he proposed to Derleth that when the next Arkham House book was bound, Derleth would have a set of the pages of the unpublished book trimmed and bound with the press' usual binding. Derleth agreed, telling Peeples by return mail, that the cost of the binding, complete with lettering on the spine of the volume, would cost an additional $10. Peeples' idea of binding the unbound sheets of The Shunned House in Arkham House binding obviously appealed to Derleth. In a letter to Peeples written later that year, he wrote:
"I'm glad to know that the bound copy of The Shunned House reached you in good order. I had it bound uniformly with other Arkham House books, and, since I had a few other copies, I had them all done at once." In the new books announcement for 1962 Arkham House, Derleth listed the volume thusly:
"Lovecraft collectors may like to know that we have bound the last remaining sets of the sheets of The Shunned House in a binding uniform with the binding of most of our books, under the Arkham House imprint, sans jacket of course, and these last copies will be sold at $17.50 a copy." According to Derleth, approximately 100 sets of the sheets were bound in hardcover. Within a year, the bound hardcover copies of The Shunned House were gone. By late 1962, the book was listed out of print. What hadn't sold as unbound sheets, sold fairly quickly (for an Arkham House book), in hardcover book format. Thus, it was an unusual request from a dedicated Arkham House collector that brought into existence the rarest of all Arkham House hardcovers.
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by Robert Weinberg The other great hardcover horror anthology series of the 1930's (along with the Not at Night series) was the Creeps Library published by Philip Allan Publishers of London. These inexpensively produced volumes were edited by horror writer, Charles Birkin, though he was never credited as the editor on any of the books. At first, the Creeps series primarily published reprints, but later on, the volumes published original stories as well. The Creeps series consisted of fourteen anthologies and one triple-decker reprint volume. The books were extremely popular and featured some incredibly colorful jackets. A number of horror story collections and novels published during the 1920's and 1930's by Philip Allan were advertised on the dust jackets of the Creeps anthologies and are considered part of the series, though it is not clear if these books were edited by Birkin or not. Like most collectors, Bob considers the Creeps series to consist of all the anthologies, single author collections, and weird and fantastic novels published by Philip Allan. While Bob owns the entire Creeps library, he only has nine of the books in dust jacket. Finding these books in jacket is extremely difficult, and usually they only available at astronomical prices. Bob is always interested in hearing from people who own Creeps books in jacket. The following is a list of the entire Creeps series and is followed by pictures of those books Bob has in dust jacket. (also check above since several jackets are displayed in the main listing).
CREEPS (1932) SHUDDERS (1932) SHIVERS (1933) HORRORS (1933) MONSTERS (1934) NIGHTMARES (1933) PANICS (1934) POWERS OF DARKNESS (1934) QUAKES (1933) THE CREEPS OMNIBUS (1935) An omnibus of three earlier anthologies: 1. CREEPS 2. SHIVERS 3. SHUDDERS TALES OF DEATH (1936) TALES OF DREAD (1936) TALES OF FEAR (1935) TERRORS (1933) THRILLS (1935) |
![]() Nightmares |
![]() The Creeps Series |
![]() Powers of Darkness |
![]() Veils of Fear |
![]() The Air Devil |
![]() Tales of the Grotesque |
![]() Vampires Overhead |
![]() The Space Raiders |
![]() The Famous "Creeps" Series |
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