Pocket books

Pulps Authors in Paperbacks

July 22, 2015Book covers, PublishersChandler, Hammett, Pocket booksdjeannerod Leave a comment

Both Hammett and Chandler had their novels originally published as hardbacks. But both of them, like so many original hardboiled writers from the first generation reached a mass readership through two other forms created by the publishing industry: The pulp magazines in which their short stories were first published, and the paperback. The latter’s rise, starting in the early 1940s, ensured the continued circulation of their work. In 1933 Chandler published his first fiction (“Blackmailers Don’t Shoot”) in Black Mask (which had been launched in 1920) and continued publishing there and in other detection magazines until 1941. Continue reading →

A Crime classic a day (10)

July 20, 2015Book coversChandler, Knopf, Pocket booksdjeannerod Leave a comment

Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, Pocket Books, 212, New York, 1943

Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely was published by A. Knopf in 1940. It opens, memorably, with Philip Marlowe following released convict Moose Malloy into Florian’s nightclub and searching for for showgirl Velma Valento. Chandler without doubt the most gifted author in the noir genre and Farewell, My Lovely is one of his very best novels.

First edition (New York, Knopf, 1940)

British Golden Age Authors and the classic age of the American Paperbacks

June 19, 2015Book covers, PublishersAgatha Christie, Dell, Golden Age, Paperbacks, Pocket booksdjeannerod Leave a comment

Raymond Chandler once wrote “The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers”. Himself a British subject for most of his life and career, one of his most obvious targets, conversely, was eminent author of “British-style” mysteries, John Dickson Carr (alias Carter Dickson), who was in fact an American. This is of course not strictly about nations, rather it is about sub-genres of crime fiction and the different forms and interpretations of its evolution. It is also against a well-recognized literary coterie; “the famous Detection Club, which is a Parnassus of English writers of mystery”. The statement helps to build an opposition, mostly between 1920s English mystery novels (and their authors and their readers), and American Pulp magazines of the same decade (and their authors and their readers). Continue reading →

Crime Fiction in Ullstein Pocket Books

April 2, 2015Book covers, Data Visualisation, Database, IllustrationsAmerican novel, Arnau, Chandler, Hammett, Henry Kane, Jean Bruce, Lorac, Peter Cheyney, Pocket books, Translation, Ullstein, Widocdjeannerod Leave a comment

Created in the early 1950’s, the series of mass market paperback books Ullstein-Büchern, started in the mid 1950’s to offer a subdivision devoted to Crime Fiction, the Ullstein-Bücher Kriminalromane. This series had different numbers than the rest of the Ullstein- books, to differentiate them from the general series (Allgemeine Reihe). It started at number 701. Further differentiation, the big K on the title banner stands for Krimi. This is the mid and late 1950’s, and American authors are now predominant, in stark contrast to the original Ullstein Gelbe Reihe in the late 1920’s and 1930’s. A canonisation of the noir genre has happened elsewhere, and Ullstein books reflect this. The two first books published as Ullstein-Bücher Kriminalromane are Hammett (Der Malteser Falke) and Chandler (Einer weisst mehr). Hammett’s Bluternte is the sixth volume in the series. Continue reading →