Tuesday 6 November 2012

Quillerbilia: Exclusive Look at Adam Hall / Elleston Trevor / Quiller Memorabilia for Sale


I've a couple of posts on Adam Hall – alias Elleston Trevor, thriller writer and, under the Hall alias, creator of the Quiller spy series – planned for this week, both of them to do with memorabilia. I'll be unveiling my personal piece of Hall ephemera later in the week, but first: earlier this year, quite out of the blue, I was surprised and delighted to receive an email from Elleston Trevor's son, JP Trevor. JP had spotted one of my posts on Hall/Quiller – my review of the second Quiller outing, The Ninth Directive, I believe, which I own in signed first – and wondered if I might know of a good place online to sell a number of Hall/Quiller items: books, posters, cuttings, photos; notes for the final Quiller book, Quiller Balalaika, which JP helped his dying father finish; even memorabilia related to the 1966 big screen Quiller adaptation, The Quiller Memorandum, and the 1965 film version of Trevor's novel The Flight of the Phoenix.


I told JP I'd ask around on his behalf, but also offered to post something myself on the items. JP agreed, and so I'm pleased to be able to present below the full list of pieces for sale. It's an extraordinary collection of Adam Hall memorabilia – Quillerbilia, if you will (or even memoraquillera... no, perhaps not) – and this is the first time any of it has been seen online; the photographs scattered about this post were kindly taken by JP especially for me, which makes them something of an Existential Ennui exclusive. Anyone interested in any of the pieces or seeking more information can contact me on the Existential Ennui email address, and I'll be sure to forward all inquiries and questions to JP.


QUILLER'S ORIGINAL BLACK BELT (ADAM HALL'S)

BALALAIKA A4 PLOT BOOK – 62 PAGES OF NOTES BY ADAM HALL

23 PAGE ORIGINAL QUILLER FORMAT

QUILLER'S RUN JOVE PUBLISHING POSTER WITH CUTOUT DRAGON

QUILLER JOVE PUBLISHING POSTER

QUILLER KGB WH ALLEN/STAR PUBLISHING LARGE POSTER

QUILLER BALALAIKA ORIGINAL OUTLINE

SIGNED A4 B/W ADAM HALL

QUILLER LONDON ODEON MARQUIS A4

ADAM HALL & SENTA BERGER AT LONDON PREMIERE

ORIGINAL QUILLER MEMBERSHIP ACETATE TEMPLATE A4

FIGHTING STARS MAGAZINE, MINT CONDITION, 4 PAGE ARTICLE ON ADAM HALL

21 PAGE ELLESTON TREVOR'S ORIGINAL LAST RITES OUTLINE

VARIOUS ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER CUTTINGS & PHOTOS


And:


ELLESTON TREVOR'S PERSONAL COPY OF THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX SHOOTING SCRIPT: a one-off edition made by Twentieth Century Fox for Elleston Trevor, plus sixty-four black-and-white photographs taken by Trevor on location in Arizona, and A4 cast photos, nine of them – including James Stewart and Richard Attenborough – signed.

Sunday 4 November 2012

An Existential Ennui Appeal: Give Us a Click

Quick(ish) update to the announcement the other week about Existential Ennui having moved from a ".blogspot.com" domain to a custom "www.existentialennui.com" domain: one consequence that I didn't foresee, and therefore didn't mention in that post, was that the migration of EE from one URL to another would end up having a massive, negative impact on the site's Google rankings. Heretofore, if you keyed in the search term "existential ennui", EE would be the top hit. Right now, however, that's no longer the case: as I type, EE is nowhere to be seen (other than, bizarrely, the mobile version of the blog; don't ask me what that's all about) in the results when you deploy that search term, and other phrases that used to produce results which led directly to EE – "Anthony Price", say, or "P. M. Hubbard", or "Sarah Gainham", and so forth – are no longer bringing up links to here.

To be honest I'm not actually sure what can be done about this; the old links no longer have the same URLs, so I guess it'll simply take a while for old posts to receive enough hits at their new URLs to show up in the rankings again. But rather than let matters lie and hope for the best, it strikes me one thing I could do – or rather, you could do, if you feel so inclined – is to click on the masthead at the top of the blog or on some of the posts in the Existential Ennui Archive in the right-hand column. Doesn't matter which ones: pick a few favourites, maybe, or better still ones you haven't read before, and go and click the living bejeezus out of them. I have no idea if that will help, but I suppose at the very least it couldn't hurt.

This isn't mere vanity on my part, by the way (well, not entirely): the purpose, or perhaps point, of Existential Ennui, as has become gradually clearer over the past few years (to me as much as to anyone), is to be a repository of hopefully entertaining, amusing and diverting information about relatively obscure books and their publishing histories, and if no one can find that information, then the whole enterprise becomes essentially redundant. So, if you wouldn't mind: go, click. Click on the masthead, click on the posts... hell, click on Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s: that one's always worth another look. And thank you in advance for your time.

Friday 2 November 2012

Westlake Sleaze Scores: Man Hungry, Sally and Backstage Love by Alan Marshall (Midwood, 1959/1962)

NB: Featured as part of this week's Friday's Forgotten Books. A version of this post also appears on The Violent World of Parker. 

Let's get stuck into those promised Westlake Scores from the 2012 London Paperback & Pulp Bookfair, with a book which featured only very recently over on The Violent World of Parker – where I am, as you well know by now, co-blogger – as part of VWoP proprietor Trent's series of posts on Donald E. Westlake's now confirmed (by Westlake's son, Paul) pseudonymous 1950s/60s sleaze works. Although the cover on this particular printing differs from the one Trent featured:


Man Hungry, Westlake's fourth novel under the Alan Marshall pen name, and therefore Westlake's fourth (published) novel overall, published in the US by Midwood. The edition Trent spotlighted – as showcased in more depth on the official Donald E. Westlake website – was the 1959 first printing, i.e. Midwood #20, with cover art by Paul Rader, but the edition I found at the fair is the 1962 second printing, renumbered by Midwood as #147 and boasting completely different, magnificent, but sadly uncredited (and with no identifying signature) "good girl" cover art. Indeed, for its third printing, the novel would gain yet another new cover (and presumably a new number, too), although of the three, I think my favourite is the appropriately scarlet second printing.


But Man Hungry isn't the only Alan Marshall novel I've acquired of late; because, suitably inspired by Trent's posts, I went online looking for others of Westlake's early sleaze efforts, and from a British bookseller came across (so to speak) this:


A first printing of Sally – a title which, with its attendant sapphic plot, never fails to tickle me, as Sally is the name of my ex-girlfriend; don't worry, we're still friends (and she's still straight, which is more than can be said for another of my exes), and I know it tickles her too – published by Midwood in 1959. Westlake's third published novel, the cover art on this one is by the aforementioned Paul Rader (about whom you can read – and see – much more on this dedicated website, including an essay by Lynn Munroe), and a gorgeous piece (again, so to speak) it is too. The book isn't in quite so pristine condition as the copy of Man Hungry, but then again it didn't cost as much – not that Man Hungry was that expensive anyway.


Here in the UK it's unusual to come across (one last time: so to speak) American sleaze paperbacks, and especially pseudonymous Westlake ones; the only other time I have in the last few years, other than at the London Paperback & Pulp Bookfair, was when I found this in a secondhand bookshop in Essex:


Backstage Love, Westlake's second Alan Marshall novel, again published by Midwood in 1959 – cover art in this instance by the appositely named Rudy Nappi – and blogged about as a Westlake Score back in 2010. So now I own three Westlake sleaze efforts, which, given that these novels aren't exactly prime Westlake, I think is probably quite enough for any sane Westlake collector. Mind you, when has anyone ever accused me of being sane...?

Thursday 1 November 2012

Non-Stop by Brian W. Aldiss (Digit Paperback, 1960, Ed Emshwiller Cover): from the 2012 London Paperback & Pulp Bookfair

For those who missed the notice on the Existential Ennui Facebook page – and if you haven't yet "liked" said page, then this is a prime example of the kind of exciting announcement you're potentially missing out on – I've had me mum down to stay for a few days, which is why things have been relatively quiet round here. Rest assured, however, that I've been enjoying myself immensely while you've all been staring at your computer screens, pining for the return of my (far-from) pithy missives: catching the latest Bond film, Skyfall, which, though very good, is by no means (as some have claimed) the best Bond ever; taking in a ballet – The Nutcracker at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill; checking out the excellent Peter Messer exhibition at Lewes' Hop Gallery; and attending the 2012 London Paperback & Pulp Bookfair at the London Victoria Park Plaza Hotel, which myself and the mysterious proprietor of The Accidental Bookshop (but not, oddly enough, my mum) trotted along to on Sunday. And while, for me, this year's event didn't prove quite so fruitful as last year's, I did still come away with a small pile of books the bulk of them of a crime/spy bent, but also one SF paperback:


The first British paperback edition of Brian W. Aldiss's debut science fiction novel (although his third published book overall), Non-Stop. Issued by Digit Books in the UK in 1960, two years after the Faber first edition, this particular edition is pretty scarce; I can't find any copies of it for sale on Amazon or AbeBooks. Possibly that's because it takes Ed Emshwiller's kinetic cover art from the 1959 Ace Double appearance of the novel – Ace D369, which retitled Aldiss's tale as Vanguard from Alpha and paired it with Kenneth Bulmer's The Changeling Worlds (thanks to Steve Holland at Bear Alley for that snippet of info). Whatever: it's a key work in both Aldiss's canon and science fiction in general, and one I've been meaning to read for a while, so not a bad purchase for a pound.

And there were certainly plenty of preposterously cheap paperbacks on offer from a variety of dealers at the Paperback & Pulp Bookfair – boxes and boxes of the buggers:


Not to mention freestanding stacks:


And some hardbacks too:


A selection of Jamie Sturgeon's hardback crime fiction pictured there. Certainly the fair seemed busy enough, and most of the dealers appeared to be doing brisk business; towards the end of the day Jamie told me he'd done pretty well, although the most expensive item he'd sold was something he'd brought along especially... for me! (More on that anon.) In fact, as Maurice Flanagan, owner of Zardoz Books and one of the organisers of the fair, told me, for a while it was touch and go whether or not the show would even happen: Peter Chapman, a co-organiser of the fair for twenty years, sadly passed away in December 2011, and Peter was the only person who had contacts for many of the regular dealers. Luckily, enough dealers were tracked down to make this year's event viable, among them this sterling chap:


David Hyman, who I met for the first time at the show, and who had some terrific paperbacks for sale, many of which can be seen on his Flickr stream (and a couple of which I bought). David introduced me to a genial American named Tom Lesser, who runs the Los Angeles Vintage Paperback Collectors Show, and is, according to David, "one of the original US paperback collectors from way back in the 70s, helped develop the hobby, organised the first shows of this type in the US and apparently also has a paperback collection that's to die for. He usually makes it over to the UK show every year." David for his part has his own splendid blog, Mr. Hardboiled, which is well worth a butcher's when you get a moment.

As for my ill-gotten gains from the show, well – they look a little like this:


Many of them, perhaps unsurprisingly, are by Donald E. Westlake (writing under various guises), and I'll be unveiling those as Westlake Scores over the coming weeks (in amongst some other business). But although I've angled the books in that photo to purposely obscure the Westlakes (I'm such a tease...), you might just be able to make out the identity of the author of the paperback on top of the pile, a man who I'll also be writing about shortly, having promised I'd blog about him bloody ages ago...