Paperback Fanatic 9

Man, this is so hot through the letterbox, I haven’t even managed to extract it from the envelope!

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #9 (February 2009)

A quick flick through before i settle down to actually read the thing, and what immediately catches the eye? Plenty! There’s a lengthy feature on The Man From O.R.G.Y. and his fellow international men of mystery as “The Fanatic dives into the world of sexy spies and double-d double agents.’ Curt Purcell of the incomparable Beyond The Groovy Age Of Horror investigates The Twilight World Of Eli Podgram, star of Nel’s six-part ‘Specialist’ series from the early ‘seventies. There’s an interview with and overview of Peter Tremayne’s career as a horror, fantasy and Crime author and John Mains’ interrogates Chris Lowder about his Mills & Boon Blood Of Dracula outing as Jack Hamilton Teed. Bootboys and Bovver girls are as well catered for as man or woman can ever be with Skinhead Revival: Richard Allen and his delinquent spawn unleashed across seven pages, one of which is commandeered by a certain Franklin ‘Suedehead’ Marsh! As you maybe guessed from the cover, the featured classic artist of the issue is Nel/ Mayflower serial offender Richard Clifton-Day and, of course, there is Fanatical Thoughts, the unmissable letters department, and a right old fiends reunited affair it is with loads of names familiar from this board offering their support and encouragement. Fanatical Thoughts is my absolute favourite department of any publication you care to mention.

As you’re no doubt aware, Justin is currently being kept very occupied by baby Sophie (wish you well, little one) so “No chance to update the PF site, but maybe you could mention £5.25 inc postage by paypal to my e-mail address and to pm me if they don’t know it.”

The email address is justinATjustincultprint.free-online.co.uk (replace the AT with @, obviously. Anti-spam precaution)

Thank you Justin!

Vote In The Wordsworth Editions Poll!

It’s one of the enduring mysteries surrounding the awards that horror people are so fond of bestowing upon one another: Why  Wordsworth Editions, arguably the best thing to happen to the genre in the noughties,  are so notably absent from each and every nominations list? Over the past few years their ludicrously tiny staff have been responsible for reissuing long sought novels and collections by the likes of R. Murray Gilchrist, Marjorie Bowen, Dennis Wheatley, May Sinclair, G. W. M. Reynolds and Mrs. Everett at a budget price (most of their stock retails at £2.99) and now here’s YOUR chance to have a shout in which authors they publish in 2010!

There are two polls: one comprising twenty authors whose work is out of copyright from which you may select up to five to be considered for publication in the ‘Mystery & The Supernatural’ series.

The second is limited to five authors – H. R. Wakefield, L. T. C. Holt, A. M. Burrage, Hugh Walpole & Arthur Machen – from whom you may select the two you’d most like to see back in print.

also, our friends at Wordsworth have kindly stumped up for a lucky dip!

“As a token of our thanks, everyone who votes in our poll (or has previously contributed a suggestion through email) will be put into a lucky dip, and 2 of you will win £50 of Amazon vouchers to use as you wish (although if you want to spend them on Wordsworth books, that’s fine with us!)”

Details on the Vault of Evil forum (i’m afraid you’ll have to register: don’t worry – just delete your account at the end of February once you’ve been entered for the lucky dip!)

Polls close on 28th February 2009 so get in quick!

Choose wisely, now.

Direct Links

Out of copyright
Still in copyright

Wordsworth Editions

Jack Adrian – Strange Tales from the Strand

Jack Adrian (ed.) – Strange Tales from the Strand (Oxford University Press, 1991)

Mick Brownfield

Julian Symons – Foreword
Jack Adrian – Introduction

Graham Greene – All But Empty (March 1947)
J. B. Harris-Burland – Lord Beden’s Motor (Dec. 1901)
Hugh Walpole – The Tarn (Dec. 1923)
Rina Ramsay – Resurgam ( Aug. 1915)
F. Tennyson Jesse – The Railway Carriage (Nov. 1931)
Beverley Nichols – The Bell (Aug. 1946)
W. W. Jacobs – His Brother’s Keeper (Dec. 1922)
Sapper – Touch And Go (Feb. 1926)
W. L. George – Waxworks (July 1922)
B. L. Jacot – White Spectre (Jan. 1950)
D. H. Lawrence – ‘Tickets, Please!’ (Apr 1919)
Villiers de l’Isle-Adam – A Torture By Hope (June 1891)
L. T. Meade – A Horrible Fright (Oct. 1894)
H. Greenhough Smith – The Case Of Roger Carboyne (Sept. 1892)
Ianthe Jerrold – The Orchestra Of Death (Dec 1918)
C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne – The Lizard (June 1898)
L. G. Moberly – Inexplicable (Dec. 1917)
L. de Giberne Sieveking – The Prophetic Camera (The English Review, Nov. 1922)
Henry A. Hering – Cavalanci’s Curse (March 1899)
H. G. Wells – The Queer Story Of Brownlow’s Newspaper (Ladies Home Journal, Feb. 1932)
Edgar Wallace – The Black Grippe (March 1920)
Morley Roberts – The Fog (Oct. 1908)
Grant Allen – The Thames Valley Catastrophe (Dec. 1897)
Martin Swayne – A Sense Of The Future (Aug 1924)
Arthur Conan Doyle – The Silver Mirror (Aug. 1908)
E. Bland (Edith Nesbit) – The Haunted House (Dec. 1913)
Arthur Conan Doyle – How It Happened (Sept. 1913)
Edith Nesbit – The Power of Darkness (April 1905)
Arthur Conan Doyle – The Horror of the Heights (Nov 1913)