Paperback Library was one such outfit. It had been founded in 1961 and by the end of the decade it was known for publishing a lot of science fiction, a lot of westerns, and a lot of tie-in books to the popular television series Dark Shadows. Their attempt to move into the fantasy market was in the end limited to four titles, all published in 1970. It was apparently not very successful. Warner Communications bought the firm in 1972, and by 1972 the Paperback Library output had descended to a trickle, with the final books coming out in early 1973.
The fantasy imprint apparently had no name, beyond the label of "Paperback Library Fantasy Novel" which appeared at the top of the front cover of each book. However, like the unicorn masthead of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, these four books each have a device of a centaur wielding a bow and arrow.
The four titles are as follows:
The Citadel of Fear, by Francis Stevens (August 1970).
The Serpent by Jane Gaskell (October 1970)
Atlan by Jane Gaskell (October 1970)
The City by Jane Gaskell (October 1970)
The Francis Stevens book has an introduction by Sam Moskowitz, riddled with his usual errors (this introduction is the source of the erroneous idea that H.P. Lovecraft had written an appreciation of Francis Steven back in 1919. Lovecraft's fellow Providence resident Augustus T. Swift had in fact written a letter to Argosy in 1919 in praise of Stevens. Moskowitz simply presumed that Augustus T. Swift was probably a pseudonym of Lovecraft's, and Moskowitz began his introduction by quoting a long passage from Swift's letter, attributing it to Lovecraft, and not even mentioning Swift's name). The cover artist's name is not printed anywhere, but you can clearly see the artist's signature, Steele Savage, in the art itself in the lower middle of the front cover.
P.S. I'm adding here the cover of the William Ready book on Tolkien as mentioned by David Bratman in the comments below. The cover art is clearly meant to recall Barbara Remington's mural published on the 1965 Ballantine editions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Paperback Library did publish, as I'm sure you know, some nonfiction titles of Tolkien interest. In January 1969, they published the paperback edition of William Ready's The Tolkien Relation under the title Understanding Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, with an uncredited cover which appears to be a cheap imitation of the Barbara Remington covers for The Lord of the Rings, which one must admit was a pretty extreme step; and in December 1972, under Warner, they issued J.R.R. Tolkien by Robley Evans. This was part of a series of "Writers for the 70's", of which the other volumes (each by a different author) are listed as covering Vonnegut, Hesse, and Brautigan, making a memorable quartet of what in fact as a group are 60's cult campus authors. I do not know for sure if the other volumes were published, though I have a vague recollection of seeing at least one of them on a bookstore shelf at the time. At any rate the Evans book, which refers to a character called "Theodan," had no lasting impact on Tolkien scholarship, not even Ready's infamy.
ReplyDeleteThanks, David. You are right an all points. I've added a PS to the blog post which reproduces the Barbara Remington-styled cover on the William Ready book. The Robley Evans book came out under the "Warner Paperback Library" imprint. The only other book in the Writers for teh 70s series that you don't mention is one of Thomas Pynchon (1974) by Joseph W. Slade. It came out two years after the first four volumes. The volumes on Tolkien, Vonnegut and Hesse were photographically reprinted in 1976 by Thomas Y. Crowell, in hardcover and trade paperback editions (these are undated, so are sometimes confusingly cited as the first editions). Robley Evans was a surprising speaker at the 1987 Mythcon in Milwaukee. I say surprising primarily because Evans's book had come out fifteen years previously and up to that time he had published nothing further on Tolkien. (He did have an article in Mythlore in 1987--so far as I know the book and the article are his only published writings on Tolkien.)
ReplyDelete