If you remember the spectacular debut of Terry Zobeck on the Guest Blogging scene here last year — only the tip of the iceberg — you won’t be surprised to see that he has surfed over to the Library of America for a Guest Blog there. Very nice, and don’t miss the first comment, by no less than Lawrence Block, on how good old Frederic Dannay screwed him over like he did Hammett, by retitling story after story.
We’ll be doing more on Hammett and the issue of pure texts — and which texts are purist — soon enough. Meanwhile, congrats to Terry for helping Library of America make their new edition of Crime Stories a definitive recapture of the original pulp appearances by the master of hard-boiled mystery.
Terry did ask that I make a correction on something I mentioned recently, that he had more original pulps featuring Hammett and Chandler in his collection than UCLA. “I was greatly mistaken. I’m not sure what I did the first time I searched their catalog. They have far more in their collection, including about 50% more of issues with Hammett.”
But wait. Here comes a definitive collectors moment.
“However,” Terry wrote, “some of theirs are only photocopies.”
