Ubiquitous Fantasies of the late 1970s

When Del Rey published Terry Brooks's The Sword of Shannara in April 1977, they launched it with an unprecedented marketing campaign for a fantasy novel. Thus it reached the bestseller lists, a triumph of marketing over content.  Other publishers saw the opportunity for large sales of fantasy novels.  I remember a handful of books that were omnipresent for many months in every bookstore I visited during the wake of the success of The Sword of Shannara. These are the ones I recall. 

Niel Hancock's first tetralogy "The Circle of Light" sported covers by Gervasio Gallardo, which deliberately evoked the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series (for which Gallardo did many covers) which had ended a few years earlier. 

The first of the quartet, Greyfax Grimwald, came out in April 1977, followed by Faragon Fairingay in June, Calix Stay in August, and Squaring the Circle in October. These were followed by two further tetralogies, "The Wilderness of Four," in 1983, and "The Windameir Circle," in 1985-1991, along with a standalone volume, Dragon Winter, in March 1978 (which has a faux-Gallardo cover). The second quartet also had real Gallardo covers, as did the first volume of the third quartet. But sales must have diminished as the series went on, and the books went out of print. Tor's Starscape imprint, for young adult books, revived the first quartet in 2004, with silly, off-putting covers, and they sank without a trace. 

Richard Monaco's Parsival, appeared in hardcover and trade paperback in November 1977. The cover and interior illustrations are by David McCall Johnston, another cover artist of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. It was followed by The Grail War (hardcover and trade paperback, 1979) and The Final Quest (hardcover 1980, mass market paperback 1983).  A fourth volume, Blood and Dreams, appeared as a mass market original in 1985.

Stephen R. Donaldson's trilogy of "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" came out in hardcover in October 1977, but weren't ubiquitous until the Del Rey mass market paperbacks appeared, Lord Foul's Bane in August 1978, The Illearth War in September 1978, and The Power That Preserves in March 1979.  With static covers (by Darrell Sweet), Del Rey again reached the bestseller lists with these books, despite the main character being an unpleasant leper who refuses to believe in the fantasy world in which he finds himself. It was another triumph of marketing over content.  Donaldson went on to publish a second trilogy, "The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever" (1980-1983); and a third series, expanded to a quartet, "The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" (2004-2013). 

 And finally, there is Nancy Springer's The White Hart, published in December 1979 (cover by Carl Lundgren). It was the first of a five book series, later named "The Books of Isle" (1979-1983), though the second volume, The Silver Sun, is reworked from an earlier volume The Book of Suns, published in June 1977 and marketed as general fiction rather than as fantasy (cover shown below for comparison). 

 These are the books I thought of as ubiquitous between 1977 and 1980. Any one have other candidates?

Ballantine's Road Goes Ever On: Bibliographers Off by a Year!

I’ve been looking everywhere in my Tolkien files for something I need that is Hobbit-related, and I even braved my huge pile of unsorted research notes, some of which date back thirty or more years. But at least in the absence of finding what I’m looking for, I can clear up a long-standing mystery about the Ballantine edition of The Road Goes Ever On. It went through three printings, the first was a jacketless undated hardcover, with the Barbara Remington Lord of the Rings mural  inset on the lower half of the upper cover. The other two printings were trade paperbacks, the second printing is designated on the copyright page August 1975; and the third printing January 1978. But each of these list the first Ballantine printing as having been in October 1969. And that is how it is dated in J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography.

But I made a research note that I had examined one copy that was inscribed “Christmas 1968”—which, if true, would put the edition back a year in time.  Lin Carter, not normally remembered for accuracy, listed it as an October 1968 publication in his list of sixteen Ballantine precursors to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, in “Bibliography II” (page 268) of Imaginary Worlds (1973).

And Lin Carter was right. Publishers Weekly for 2 September 1968 lists it with a October 14th [1968] publication date, with notice of major promotion and publicity.

Publishers Weekly, 2 Sep. 1968, p.63

Details and cover scans of the Ballantine printings can be found at Devon Press’s TolkienBooks.US site: the hardcover here, and the paperbacks here. (Now updated with the correct 1968 date.)

 

 

 

Fantasy from Bantam Books after the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series ended

The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series ended in 1974. Other publishers had capitalized on the trend of marketing books as fantasy, and some publishers had started their own lines. Bantam Books was then well-known for their science fiction line, and at this time they marketed a small number of their titles as Fantasy. This advertisement (from a Bantam book published in the Spring of 1976) gives a list.

Of the thirteen titles listed here, I have seen only five that were labelled specifically as "Fantasy." The three books by Samuel R. Delany were labelled science fiction, as are the titles by Frank Herbert, Mack Reynolds, and Joanna Russ. Bantam published a number of titles by Ray Bradbury, but all the copies I've seen are labelled science fiction instead of fantasy.

The most significant fantasy titles that were published by Bantam between 1974 and 1976 are the three volumes of the Earthsea Trilogy (back then there were only three books). All three have nice uncredited covers: the art is by Pauline Ellison (b. 1946)--there is a nice profile of her: Part one here; and part two here. (I confess I'm more fond of her style of illustrations as shown in part one.) The Bantam paperback of A Wizard of Earthsea came out in August 1975; The Tombs of Atuan in September 1975; and The Farthest Shore in October 1975.

The other two fantasy titles are odder and off-trail books. The first is The Man Who Lived in Inner Space, by Arnold Federbush (1935-1993), published in May 1975. It is labelled "Fantasy" on the spine.

The final book is Star of the Unborn by Franz Werfel (1890-1945), who was born in Prague but wrote in German. The original edition was posthumously published in 1946, and translated into English in the same year by Gustave O. Arlt. It is a strange visionary novel that reminds one of works by Olaf Stapledon and David Lindsay. The Bantam edition (labelled Fantasy on the spine) was published in May 1976. The intriguing cover art is by Gene Szafran.

These five titles make for an odd fantasy list, but most of them would not have been out of place in the original Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, and would also be of considerable interest to readers of the Ballantine series.

Competition for the Balllantine Adult Fantasy Series?

The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series proper began with the May 1969 publication of The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt. Over the next year Ballantine published one or two additional titles per month, and other publishers were certain to have noticed the success of the series.

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.

The three volumes in Jane Gaskell's trilogy had previously been published as "science fiction" by Paperback Library in 1968. With the new October 1970 printings, they are each now labelled as "A Paperback Library Fantasy Novel." And they have new uncredited cover art, but I'm pretty sure the art is by Michael Leonard.

There is one further release from Paperback Library of potential interest. This is the September 1971 issue of The Tritonian Ring by L. Sprague de Camp. It was published not as a fantasy, but as science fiction. Yet the cover art (uncredited, but probably by David McCall Johnston, who did some covers in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, including those for the Evangeline Walton books), and the blurb comparing it to Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, certainly give more of a fantasy vibe than a science fiction one. 

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.

Ephemera for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series

I cover here some ephemera related to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. First, the boxed sets.  I know of three of them.

The first is The World of Lovecraft (SBN 345-01300-X, $3.80).  It contained four books, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, The Survivor and Others, The Fungi from Yuggoth and Other Poems, and The Doom That Came to Sarnath.  I understand it contains (though I don't have this set myself) the Second Printing, July 1971, of Dream-Quest; the First Printing, February 1971, of Doom; the Second Printing, February 1971, of The Survivor; and the Second Printing, February 1971, of Fungi. I suspect that the boxed set came out in July 1971, with the new printing of Dream-Quest.

The second is The Gormenghast Trilogy (SBN 345-23525-8, $3.75). This came out in September 1973, containing Fourth Printings of all three volumes.  

The third is the Evangeline Walton set (SBN 345-24208-4, $6.00). This came out in November 1974, when Prince of Annwn was first published.  It contains a Second Printing of The Island of the Mighty, a Second Printing of The Children of Llyr, a Third U.S. Printing of The Sword of Rhiannon, and a First Printing of Prince of Annwn, all dated November 1974. Technically, this boxed set post-dates the series proper. 

Interestingly, Ballantine published three posters related to the series.  These all showcase artwork by Gervasio Gallardo, but his illustrations for the Lovecraft covers are not really his best work.  I have somewhat shabby copies of all three posters, and have (with difficulty) photographed them. All three were issued in the Spring of 1971, priced $2.50 each.

An another front, my copy of Excalibur by Sanders Anne Laubenthal has a review slip in it:

And finally, some of the file copies owned by Betty and Ian Ballantine were sold in the past, and my Cabellian friend Bill Lloyd (see The Silver Stallion website) sent me this scan:

Does anyone know of further Ballantine Adult Fantasy series ephemera?  I'd be glad to hear of any such items.

Outliers and the Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series

The iconic list (or at least the starting point) for a definitive bibliography of all of the titles in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series is the one by Lin Carter which appears as “Bibliography II” in his book Imaginary Worlds, published in June 1973, itself a volume of the series. Carter lists 57 numbered volumes of the series, as published from May 1969 through May 1973.  The series would officially last one further year, bringing the official total to 65 volumes.

But Carter’s list, even when extended with the further official titles, doesn’t cover outliers that, for one reason or another, seem like they should be considered as part of the series. There are three main types of potential outliers—fantasies published by Ballantine 1) before the series; 2) during the series, and 3) after the end of the series. Carter began his Bibliography in Imaginary Worlds by listing sixteen such precursors, noting “they are all books I would certainly have urged Ballantine to publish.”

I will consider these sixteen titles first, and list them here with Carter’s numbering.

1. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit [published August 1965]

2. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

3. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

4. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

5. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Tolkien Reader

6. E.R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros

7. E.R. Eddison, Mistress of Mistresses

8. E.R. Eddison, A Fish Dinner in Memison

9. J.R.R. Tolkien and Donald Swann, The Road Goes Ever On

10. Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

11. Mervyn Peake, Gormenghast

12. Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone

13. David Lindsay, A Voyage to Arcturus

14. Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn

15. J.R.R. Tolkien. Smith of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham

16. E.R. Eddison, The Mezentian Gate [published April 1969]

The J.R.R. Tolkien books (nos. 1-5, 9 and 15) were never published under the imprint of the unicorn’s head logo, but some of the others were. 

Seventh Printing: September 1973

Of the E.R. Eddison books (nos. 6-8, and 16), the U.S. “Seventh Printing (September 1973) of The Worm Ouroboros is the only printing of any of the titles with the unicorn’s head logo.  The first U.S. printing of The Mezentian Gate, however, is marked “A Ballantine Adult Fantasy” in small print running up the spine on the upper cover (it appeared in April 1969, the month before the series proper started).  All four Eddison titles were advertised and sold in their Pan/Ballantine editions as part of the Pan/Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, though they did not have the unicorn’s head logo.  

Fourth Printing: September 1973

Mervyn Peake’s books (nos. 10-12) have the unicorn’s head logo only on two U.S. printings of each of the three books:  the “Fourth Printing: September, 1973” and the “Fifth Printing: January, 1974”.  The Peake titles were not published in the Pan/Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, because the U.K. rights were held by another publisher, Penguin Books, who published editions of all three books in 1968, 1969 and 1970, respectively. The Penguin editions were reprinted a number of times over the next several years.

Second Printing: April 1973

Two U.S. printings of David Lindsay’s A Voyage to Arcturus have the unicorn’s head logo on the cover, the “Second Printing: April, 1973 (SBN 345-03208-X) and the “Third U.S. Printing: September, 1973” (SBN 345-23208-9).  The Pan/Ballantine edition of March 1972 (SBN 345-09708-4) has the unicorn’s head logo on the front cover; the second U.K. printing from 1974 (330-24057-9) has not been seen. 

Fourth Printing: October 1972

As for Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, the unicorn’s head logo appeared on the “Fourth Printing: October, 1972”, probably on the “Fifth Printing: February 1973” [not seen], and definitely on the “Sixth Printing: September, 1973” and “Seventh Printing: February, 1974.”  Also, the phrase “A Ballantine Adult Fantasy” appears in small print running up the spine on the upper cover, on the first printing (February 1969) through the third printing (November 1970).

First Printing: February 1969

The Ballantine edition of Peter S. Beagle’s novel A Fine and Private Place also preceded the series proper. It came out in February 1969, but that the author was Beagle and that the cover art is by Gervasio Gallardo make it of interest to fans of the series. Also, as with The Last Unicorn and Eddison’s Mezentian Gate, the words “A Ballantine Adult Fantasy” appear in small print running up the spine on the upper cover.

First Printing: March 1969

Carter’s list excluded his own Tolkien: A Look Behind “The Lord of the Rings,” “First Printing: March, 1969,” which came out just before the series started. It is not usually considered to be part of the series, but it is probably of interest to most fans of the series.

Next come the various titles published by Ballantine while the series proper was ongoing (May 1969 through April 1974) that have some elements in common with the Ballantine  Adult Fantasy series, but which were never considered as officially part of the series.

First Printing: February 1971

H.P. Lovecraft. Fungi from Yuggoth and Other Poems. “First Printing: February, 1971”

This is a retitling of Lovecraft’s Collected Poems (1963), as edited by August Derleth and published by Arkham House.  The Ballantine Adult Fantasy series published other Lovecraft title, with cover art (as here) by Gervasio Gallardo.

Second Printing: February 1971

H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. The Survivor and Others. “Second Printing: February 1971”  This title was first published by Arkham House in 1957, and Ballantine published a first printing in mass market paperback in August 1962. For this Second Printing, a new cover was commissioned from Gervasio Gallardo. That these stories are bylined as “by H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth” is a fraud.  They were entirely written by Derleth, who claimed them to be “posthumous collaborations” based on notes by Lovecraft, but these notes were (when discernable) minor idea fragments that barely resemble the stories Derleth wrote.

Fourth Printing: November 1971

Sometime, Never  (“Fourth Printing: November, 1971”) was originally published by Ballantine in June 1957.  It consists of three tales of “science Fantasy” by William Golding, John Wyndham, and Mervyn Peake. It was reprinted in September 1957, November 1962, and in November 1971 when it was given a new cover by Gervasio Gallardo.  The classic Peake story, “Boy in Darkness,” and the Gervasio Gallardo cover make it of special interest to fans of the series.

First Printing: November 1971

Isidore Haiblum. The Tsaddik of the Seven Wonders. “First Printing:  December, 1971”. This title is occasionally erroneously included in lists of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, but it had only one printing, and it never had the unicorn’s head logo on it. It is called by the publisher on the cover a Science Fantasy Novel.  The cover art is by David McCall Johnston, who did other covers in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series proper.

First Printing: February 1972

Lin Carter. Lovecraft: A Look Behind the “Cthulhu Mythos.” “First Printing: February, 1972”  Of Carter’s three works of nonfiction published by Ballantine, his Tolkien book preceded the Adult Fantasy series proper, and his Imaginary Worlds book was included as part of the series. Why his book on Lovecraft was not included in the series is unknown, but beside Carter’s authorship, and the subject, the cover art is by Gervasio Gallardo, and these three points make it of interest to fans of the series.

Finally, the last of the outliers come from June to November 1974, and comprise two books published after retirement of the unicorn's head logo.  These were originally intended for the series before it was cancelled. The first has a Carter introduction and the second completes a set of four begun during the series proper.

First Printing: June 1974

H. Warner Munn. Merlin's Ring. “First Printing: June, 1974” Munn’s book was clearly intended for the series, as it has the usual Lin Carter introduction proclaiming it to be in the series, and the wraparound cover art is by Gervasio Gallardo. It is among Gallardo’s very best.  There remains a small white circle on the front cover, here filled with the words “First Time in Print” but which was likely intended to house the usual unicorn’s head logo. A volume of associational interest, Merlin’s Godson by H. Warner Munn, came out as a “Ballantine Fantasy” with a gryphon logo on the cover in September 1976. It contains two prequel novellas, “King of the World’s Edge” and “The Ship from Atlantis,” originally published in 1939 and 1967 respectively.

First Printing: November 1974

Evangeline Walton. Prince of Annwn. “First Printing: November, 1974” This is the final volume of Walton’s reworkings of the four branches of the Mabinogion. The first three were published as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series proper, and doubtless the fourth volume would have been too, if the series hadn’t ended some six months earlier.  And instead of an introduction by Lin Carter, Prince of Annwn has a puff piece from an article by Patrick Merla published in a November 1972 issue of The Saturday Review, that was also used to replace Carter’s introductions in the other three volumes as they had been reprinted.  The cover art is by David McCall Johnston, who also did the cover art for the second and third volumes of Walton’s series.

First Printing: July 1975

Also of interest to readers and collectors of the series is the one-volume edition of William Morris’s The Well at the World’s End which was published in July 1975 (345244826  $2.95), and reprinted in May 1977 (now labelled a “Ballantine Fantasy Classic,” 0345272390  $2.95), which uses two panels of Gervasio Gallardo’s art from covers of the two volume edition.

Any one care to suggest other possibilities?  Please do so in the comments below.

Update (8/26/18):  Per the second comment below, I add here the cover of Tales of a Dalai Lama by Pierre Delattre, published by Ballantine in January 1973 (345030486 $1.25), cover art by Philippe Gravesz.

First Printing: January 1973

Update (9/29/18): Here's another outlier of interest. For the sixth printing (June 1969), the seventh (January 1971), and the eighth (July 1971), Ballantine used a Bob Pepper cover on the classic Ray Bradbury collection The October Country (first published in mass market paperback by Ballantine in April 1956):