Mort: DMac & DSF

Posted on May 14, 2026 by Don

Man. A Couple of Really Bad Days at Black Rock.

A few days after the fact I heard from fellow Posse McMillan member Kent Harrington that our pal, publisher Dennis McMillan, had passed away on Friday May 1st. Word as of now, from pneumonia. I believe Dennis was around 76 years old.

I mentioned earlier that I was working on a new memoir of Dennis for the Crime and Company section of the follow-up collection to Death Lit. Got it done a couple of weeks ago. One of the best parts was calling up Dennis to check on the accuracy of the reportage, chatting for an hour or two each time. And it turns out his quotes now will be the last word on the subject. I was expecting him to be around to read it, for his amusement, since he’d totally forgotten about getting the speeding ticket in West Texas as we pointed his Pontiac Aztek toward Austin for the 2002 Bouchercon and the launch of Measures of Poison. That whole trip, one of my fave Dennis memories.

I met Dennis in San Francisco in 1982, when he was on the cusp of jumping into publishing. A couple of earlier memoirs, written for convention program books, appear in Death Lit — and I guess I need to do at least one more, about the time Dennis poisoned me.

And maybe I ought to do something about the Most Absurd Moment I Ever Experienced, when Dennis — who drove giant cars, Packards, Caddies, Lincolns, Hummers, Sherman Tanks — his entire adult life suddenly became a proponent of the views of that moron Greta Thunberg. I’ve never been more flabbergasted.

Poisoning aside, it was always fun to hang out with Dennis. I was lucky to know him.

Word drifted in that on May 2 Donald Sidney-Fryer — The Last of the Courtly Poets, Arkham House author, etc. & etc. — died at the age of 91. The death of DMac was unexpected, but DSF had been in hospice care for terminal cancer for a few months, so it was just a matter of time. One of my great pals — I met him late in 1973.

Yes, I’ll be doing bits on DSF for that next book — I would have done them if he had made it to 100. So far, I have only jotted down key words or ideas on scraps of paper, but soon enough it’ll be time to fill the moments out, get them in some sort of order. DSF gets his own section in the book, but appears throughout, notably in other sections on Fritz Leiber and Clark Ashton Smith.

Posted in DMac, Frisco, Lit, News | Tagged , , , , |

Rediscovered: Belly Band Tuesday

Posted on April 21, 2026 by Don

We’ve done belly bands before — notably, one on Michael Connelly’s first crime novel. But now I sense that our maniacal book collecting pal Brian Leno might have picked up a jones for those bands.

Just in case, I better set aside a day for it.

Last one he showed us was for an August Derleth title. With this Al Blackwood, that’s two. I bet he has more. And I’d really bet he wants more.

Here’s Brian:

Not a tough or expensive book but I’ve never seen one with a belly band so I had to have it. As I keep repeating, it’s the rarity that fuels my collecting fingers.

Nothing that will cause an earthquake in book collecting circles, but still pretty cool.

I’ve seen a first edition copy of Orwell’s 1984 with a belly band. But I’ll not be selling the house anytime soon.

Posted in Lit | Tagged , , , |

Rediscovered: Gene and Joe

Posted on April 18, 2026 by Don

Autograph Hound Saturday. Courtesy Brian Leno, today let’s spotlight a favorite writer here on These Mean Streets.

“Some good news,” Brian reports, “I picked up a signed Eugene Cunningham’s Texas Sheriff for 20 bucks. No dj but it supposedly has a long inscription with a drawing. Bought it sight unseen but couldn’t pass it by for 20 smackers.”

The inscription mentions Chihuahua Joe, one of Cunningham’s best characters, who sometimes drops into the action mid-novel and always adds some firepower to the fun. It also features the “brand mark” EC on the flank of the galloping steer. The brand is featured on the front boards of the early Cunningham Westerns.

Brian got a great deal on this 1934 novel — of course, now he’ll have to pony up more loot to get a copy with a nice dustjacket he can marry to his copy. Still, cheaper than the usual $300 or so for an inscribed Cunningham first in dustjacket. In my experience, I can’t remember Gene just flat-signing a book. He always lays out the wordage and the flourishes.

A couple of years ago Brian thought I landed a great deal on Cunningham’s Texas Triggers, the 1938 Houghton Mifflin first edition in dustjacket, for about $130. Inscribed full page on the ffe and signed “Gene” — also with his full autograph and brand mark on first half-title. On front pastedown Gene made the note “San Francisco — Along in February, ’38”.

Aside from the fact that I like his word-slinging, Cunningham hits several sweet spots for me.

First: San Francisco. He obviously passed through a few times, and finally bought a home overlooking Cliff House and lived his last years here — I detail it in The Literary World of San Francisco.

Second: Dashiell Hammett — and thus connected to San Francisco. Gene was one of the earliest critics to hail Hammett’s work, in the El Paso Times, I think it was — and before The Maltese Falcon. He also sold stories to the pulp Black Mask, and was one of the first to show the explosive influence of Hammett’s 1929 Red Harvest in his Western Riders of the Night in 1932. For the next several novels, if you enjoy high body-counts. . . .

Third: Robert E. Howard. In his personal library the prolific Texan Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan and Bran Mak Morn, had a copy of Gene’s non-fiction history of Wild West gunfighters — Triggernometry.

Posted in Dash, Frisco, Lit, REH | Tagged , , , |

Rediscovered: Shiel and Floyd and an Absurd Adventure of Dennis McMillan

Posted on April 16, 2026 by Don

Just noticed a quick email from 2022 where Brian Leno told me:

Came across a letter where Lawrence of Arabia — in his T. E. Shaw alias — tells a bookseller he will take a copy of Shiel’s The Purple Cloud.

Pretty cool.

But over 3,000 bucks cool.

I replied, “Man, if only John D. Squires and Steve Eng were alive to fwd this delightful tidbit to!”

My M.P. Shiel pals JDS and Eng were back in mind recently as I was prepping a section of essays about the author of The Purple Cloud for my next LitCrit MegaPack. The sequel to Death Lit.

The section Crime and Company this time spotlights Shiel and Floyd Salas — last time Hammett and San Francisco and Charles Willeford ate up most of the space. Plus other pieces. I’ve been poking along on a rumination about The Shadow, getting it where I want it.

And I realized that I had never written up one of my top fave humorous anecdotes about Dennis McMillan — an incident Dennis himself doesn’t even remember any more. I eased a mini-memoir about Eddie Little in as an aside in that one.

Buried in that material, I realize I haven’t done much posting lately — now you know why. The general intent is to have the book ready for Halloween — or Xmas — release. May be able to do it. All-new memoirs of Fritz Leiber, Ed Price and others. A touch-up on my long article about H. Warner Munn. And if you wondered why Clark Ashton Smith and Donald Wandrei didn’t seem to get mentioned much in Death Lit, hey, here you go.

Posted in DMac, Lit, News | Tagged , , , , , , , |

Rediscovered: And an Opinionated John Hancock

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Don

Autograph Hound Saturday, sure, but it’s always Autograph Hound Saturday in Autograph Hound Brian Leno’s redoubt. Here’s another one, which just fell into Brian’s clutches today — an hour ago.

Only the latest, in a legion. Let’s allow Brian to describe it:

Not that you needed to see another signature, but this one arrived this morning. Elliott O’Donnell was of course the ghost guy (who you gonna call?) — but he also wrote for Weird Tales.

In fact, as you know, he took the February 1928 cover away from Lovecraft and his story “The Call of Cthulhu.” Now a landmark in literary history. 

Farnsworth Wright had already rejected this Lovecraft story once, I believe. The cover went to O’Donnell’s “The Ghost Table,” depicting a tough-looking table with a woman getting the vapors — and some numbskull holding a gun, eyeing the table with ill intent.

To be fair to old Farnsworth, Elliott was kind of a big deal back then with his haunted house and ghostly animal books. But it’s clear evidence that Wright certainly had no idea whatsoever about future literary classics.

Of course now that issue is worth a boatload of cash, courtesy Cthulhu. That ghost table looks like one mean son a bitch, but it’s nothing compared to Cthulhu.

No Ghost Table Mythos out there, is there?

Posted in Lit | Tagged , , , , , , |

Rediscovered: Vathek You Very Much

Posted on April 11, 2026 by Don

Autograph Hound Saturday, and our favorite maniacal collector Brian Leno has landed a John Hancock he’s been after for years: William Beckford.

Here’s Brian with some remarks:

Just won the bidding on a William Beckford signed letter, an autograph I never ever thought I’d get. Coming from England. I will have to pay a tariff fee when it gets here.

Can’t find my Ballantine Vathek, which is no surprise, so I’m going to read my Penguin Classics edition. Due to read it once again anyway.

The Penguin Classic cover is the great painting by Elihu Vedder The Questioner of the Sphinx. Not to brag but I have Vedder’s signature also, just not sure where it’s at. God, I can be a bragging bastard. . . .

Nice little letter. Didn’t think I’d ever get him, but every so often the time I spend looking for this stuff pays off.

I believe it’s written one year before Beckford died.

Here’s what it says:

I have much pleasure, my dear Sir, in acknowledging your kind congratulations upon my grandson’s marriage. Having made so excellent a choice, there lies before him the fairest prospect of happiness — I shall not fail conveying to the Duke and Duchess of Hamilton your sentiments upon this auspicious occasion, and am ever, my dear Sir, with true regard, Most sincerely yours, WBeckford

Posted in Lit | Tagged , , , , |

Rediscovered: More Caveman Lit

Posted on March 21, 2026 by Don

Autograph Hound Saturday yet again, and as ever, Brian Leno is on the prod.

Back in 2020 Brian landed an inscribed copy of The Day of the Brown Horde and thought he’d read it immediately when it rolled in. Didn’t happen, but he just got slapped in the face with another copy, this time in dustjacket.

He’s been raking in the caveman lit lately, no question.

Here’s Brian:

I have a signed copy of Richard Tooker’s Jack London-inspired prehistoric fiction The Day of the Brown Horde, but mine did not have a jacket. Now thanks to a sale from Currey, it does.

It fits, both copies are first editions.

My original copy is the only signed example I’ve seen of Tooker’s book, but I’m sure he must have signed a few in his lifetime.

I’ve never read it, but I’m going to, since I’ve been digging up some information about Tooker that’s pretty cool. I don’t know if he was born in North Dakota, but he spent at least some of his childhood years here. Had a story published in an early issue of Weird Tales, and wrote letters to the pulp.

Created the character Zenith Rand. Day of the Brown Horde was reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, I believe. From what I’ve read, in his caveman book his protagonists actually fight dinosaurs, not just spear Woolly Mammoths to death.

I finally started Tooker’s caveman drama. About thirty pages in, and it’s decent, only it would appear the bit I heard about big reptilian dinosaurs eating humans and then picking their teeth with a leg bone might not be true.

Tooker does mention Plesiosaurs lumbering about, so maybe they’ll get with the action.

Day of the Brown Horde got to be kind of tough going. Usual kind of caveman thing. Mean leader has to be taken down in a fight for superiority. Volcanos erupting. Floods. All sorts of general mayhem.

Tooker, and I give him credit for this, threw in a couple of unexpected surprises. However, it’ll be another Neolithic Age before I read it again.

One cool thing about my original copy is that it bears a stamp from a store called Woodmansee’s in Bismarck from the early thirties. Back in the sixties my brothers and I haunted that place, buying from their stock of true Western books. They always had a good selection, James D. Horan and others. (Although how factual Horan was remains a debatable point.) Upon their poster board we drew pictures of artistic excellence. Good memories.

Did some digging and found my first copy was owned by some lawyer in Minot.

Posted in Lit | Tagged , , , , |

Hammett: A Jeopardy! Infiltration

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Don

Jeopardy! used a Hammett clew less than a week ago, but the legend and lore can muscle its way in any time.

S42 E127, March 3,2026. The Final Jeopardy! shoot-out question in the category 20th Century Movie Memorabilia:

In 2025 a pine hardwood prop famously known by this name sold at auction for $14.75 million

All three contestants had to try an answer. The do-or-die moment.

Guess one: “What is the Spruce Goose?” (Nope.)

Guess two: “What is Rosebud?” (What else, right?)

Guess three from the current champion: “What is The Maltese Falcon?”

Out of a finite number of really famous Hollywood props, the guy grabbed the Black Bird and lost the game.

Posted in Dash, News | Tagged |

Hammett: The Jutting Jaw of Jeopardy!

Posted on February 27, 2026 by Don

Once more the clew crew at Jeopardy! dips into the deep trough of the life and career of Dashiell Hammett to summon up hard-boiled ghosts of the past.

Seas42 Ep124. February 26, 2026. First round. $400 clew.

Category: First Lines of Literature.

Samuel Spade’s jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth.

One contestant jumps on it. Buzzes in. Says — you can hear confidence in his voice — “What is The Big Sleep?”

Once again, the typical problem. The inherent confusion between the two masters to emerge from Black Mask magazine. Hammett. And Raymond Chandler. Even among people who make the cut for Jeopardy! it occurs in half the possible cases. One or the other.

Nanoseconds drip past as the poor guy waits for the verdict from host Ken Jennings, so he can jump to the next square. The suspense is almost Hitchcockian.

“No,” Ken says.

Next contestant buzzes in. “What is The Maltese Falcon?”

Ken: “That is the book.”

Posted in Lit, News | Tagged , , , |

Rediscovered: Postcards from Sauk/Arkham

Posted on February 26, 2026 by Don

Brian Leno has decided to throw his collection of postcards promoting August Derleth and his home in Sauk City, Wisconsin onto the market. Search eBay for “August Derleth Signed Postcards” — though I guess technically only one card is signed.

In Arkham House Ephemera: The Classic Years we mention this set of postcards in an aside. Certainly ephemera, but just a shade away from the materials we designate as our subject matter of promotional Arkham House Stock Lists, Booklets, Brochures, Letters and even Postcards — but the cards that make the cut actually advertise Arkham House books.

These cards create some atmosphere on the side. For prospective buyers at least Derleth uses the back of one to report on an Arkham order to one of his customers.

Posted in Lit, News | Tagged , , , |