Welcome to a hard-boiled and not without noir blog with news and reviews, occasional outbursts of maniacal Autograph Hound activity, plus archival records from the forty-five year run of The Dashiell Hammett Tour. 
The Dashiell Hammett Tour
1977-2022
Arkham House Ephemera
The Classic Years 1937–1973
Death Lit
Essays and Reviews Selected from Fifty Years of Writing 1974–2024
Willeford
The Book
Author Archives: Don
Rediscovered: More Burnham
Autograph Hound Super-Sunday and the intrepid John Hancock Hunter Brian Leno drops in a note to say, “I know I’ve written about Burnham on your blog but I don’t think I ever showed you his signature. “This book he inscribed … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Autographs, Brian Leno, Frederick Russell Burnham, Henry Fairfield Osborn
Rediscovered: 19 Minutes with Fafhrd and the Mouser, and Fritz
Over on The Pulp.Net I just gave Bill Lampkin the okay to put up an article I did back in 2014 for his zine The Pulpster — a good one, if I say so myself (hell, even definitive), on the … Continue reading
Posted in Frisco, Lit, News, REH
Tagged Bill Lampkin, Fafhrd, Fritz Leiber, Harry Otto Fischer, Leo Grin, Sword-and-Sorcery, The Cimmerian, The Gray Mouser, The Pulp.Net, The Pulpster
Hammett: Top Ten
ABEbooks just released a list of their top money-makers for 2021 and Hammett comes in at no. 10 — not with a first edition, but with a much later reprint of The Maltese Falcon inscribed to Bebe Daniels. Bebe played … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Film, Frisco, Lit, News
Tagged ABEbooks, Bebe Daniels, Book Collecting, Dwight Frye, The Midget Bandit, Wilmer Cook
Hammett: Another “Dead Yellow Women” (Heavily Illustrated)
Today Evan Lewis uncovers yet another newsprint serialization of an Op yarn, beginning November 29, 1942 in the Albuquerque Journal — almost 79 years ago exactly. The yarn in question is the excellent “Dead Yellow Women” from Black Mask, November 1925 … Continue reading
Posted in Dash
Tagged "Dead Yellow Women", Albuquerque Journal, Black Mask, Evan Lewis, newspaper action
Rediscovered: On Library Shelves. . .
Got a note and a couple of pics from Tom Krabacher, academic, to let me know that “Great Tales has arrived in the academy!” If not earlier in other venues, John D. Haefele’s recent and monumental tome Lovecraft: The Great … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Dictum Morgmanius
Morgan “The Morgman” Holmes just noticed that I invoked his famous dictum on Art in my review of the George Sterling caveman book the other day: Any work of art is made better by the inclusion of cavemen and dinosaurs. … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Steinbeck, Classical Puzzle Mystery Writer
Brian Wallace pops in a link to a long article from the Los Angeles Review of Books covering a crime novel — with werewolves, kind of — John Steinbeck wrote at the start of his career. It was 1930 and … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged Brian Wallace, Edgar Box, George Sterling, Gore Vidal, John Steinbeck, Los Angeles Review of Books
Hammett: Yet Another “Clew”
For those keeping track, Evan Lewis has uncovered from the newsprint of yesteryear yet another reprint of Hammett’s Op yarn “The Tenth Clew” — this one from the Deseret News in 1942. Plus he’s added a couple more installments to … Continue reading
Rediscovered: FrankenHammer
To keep Autograph Hound Super-Sunday going, Halloween-style, how about a glance at a formal display from Brian Leno’s extensive collection of John Hancocks? A couple of days ago Brian informed me: “Got up this morning and figured today would be … Continue reading
Posted in Film
Tagged Autographs, Brian Leno, Christopher Lee, Halloween, Hammer Films, Hazel Court, Peter Cushing, The Curse of Frankenstein
