Rediscovered: Jack’s Pack

Posted on September 5, 2020 by Don

Famous Autograph Hound Brian Leno returns with a few items for yet another Autograph Hound Saturday. And of course he’s got a theme going:

I’ve been on a bit of a Jack London kick lately.

First up is a signed copy of The 25th Man: The Strange Story of Ed. Morrell — the Hero of Jack London’s “The Star Rover.”

This autobiography covers the life of the prisoner London based his science fiction novel on. Morrell was, to put it lightly, very ill-treated by the authorities at San Quentin. In fact one of the photos in Morrell’s book shows him in the strait-jacket.

Morrell’s autograph is not a tough one to locate — in fact it’s probably harder to find a copy of his book not signed.

Still, he’s not cheap, and his story is an exciting one.

Also in the photo is a pamphlet advertising London’s book, which I got a few years back. I believe it’s somewhat rare, and it sports a cool head-shot of the great writer.


Another item I picked up more recently: the signature of Martin Johnson, the man who signed on as head cook on London’s The Snark for its famous voyage.

Johnson, along with his wife, Osa, had plenty more adventures later in life in the South Seas and Africa as a photographer and film-maker. His life ended in a plane crash.

The last item is a signed copy of Stanley Waterloo’s The Story of Ab: A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man. Waterloo felt that London, with his novel Before Adam, plagiarized his tale of the Dawn of Time.

I should mention I have the signature of London, but I’m thinking he deserves his own post.

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

Rediscovered: Hawkwood

Posted on August 22, 2020 by Don

Autograph Hound Saturday jumps me!

Already?

Yep. Via the offices of that maniacal collector Brian Leno, who tells me he has “a Francis Lederer coming today. Remember him as the Count in Night Gallery‘s version of Manly Wade Wellman’s ‘The Devil is Not Mocked'”?

Brian also has his eye on a John Hancock of Fatty Arbuckle’s third wife, and he “picked up a signed first of Richard Tooker’s Day of the Brown Horde on ABEbooks, the other day. No dj, but I think somewhat scarce signed. A prehistoric novel along the lines of Jack London’s Before Adam. (At least I think so, haven’t read it yet, will when it gets here.) Also picked up a Barbara Remington signature. She’s the lady that did the Tolkien covers for Ballantine when I was in knee pants.”

And on top of his autograph mania, Brian does straight books, too: “Just got back from a booksale, lugged 63 pounds of them home. Buck a pound. As long as I have my collecting compulsion under control I’m doing fine.”

For today’s selection, he pulls out a siggie from yet another writer for the famous wood-pulp Adventure.

Here’s Brian with the dope:

A few years back I picked up the Black Dog Books edition of Adventure pulp writer Marion Polk Angellotti’s Sir John Hawkwood stories, and upon reading the introduction by Doug Ellis I was confronted with a challenge.


Ellis stated the Angellotti novel, titled Sir John Hawkwood: A Tale of the White Company, was first published in hardcover by R. F. Fenno in 1911 and that copies were “incredibly scarce.”

Naturally, I started looking. Didn’t have any luck until a couple weeks ago when I came upon 3 copies. They were all beat up and gave the appearance of having been in the wars with the famous White Company — and they were definitely on the losing side.


But one, the cheapest of the lot, to my astonishment was signed. It was also the most beat up.

A signature meant I couldn’t pass it up and I quickly ordered it and here are the photos.

I’m extremely happy with a full autograph inscription, and the book, while battered, isn’t all that bad. No bad odors, spine still intact, some water damage which didn’t affect the signature.

Angellotti lived into her eighties, so it might be presumed she signed quite a few items, but my research (which, admittedly, isn’t all that complete) hasn’t uncovered any, except this one.

I think copies of this book are rare and one signed by her is a bit of a pulp Holy Grail, so I hope my enthusiasm can be forgiven. 

Undoubtedly she signed more than one copy of her book, but show me another. Furthermore show me another that a collector is willing to sell for what I paid for this.

It just isn’t going to happen.

Right now I’m pretty glad I read Doug Ellis’ introduction a few years back. He spurred me into acquiring an autograph I thought I would never find.

Posted in Lit | Tagged , , , , , |

Hammett: Jeopardy! Struck Again!

Posted on August 11, 2020 by Don

Yesterday a Hammett clew made a reprise appearance on Jeopardy! as they mined their archives to fill in the weeks of summer with From the Vault: Million Dollar Masters.

If I heard right, this tournament rounding up previous champions was the first time the show offered a purse of one million dollars for the winner. When the episode originally aired on May 8, 2002, that was pretty serious money. Not bad today, but you can do better.

In the Jeopardy! Round, $1000 clew in the category Strain Thy Brain:

In the 16th C., it was the unusual annual rent paid by the Knights of Malta to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

Man. Talk about easy.

Not one of the three eggheads of yesteryear buzzed in with a guess!

Morons.

A look of disappointment seemed to cross Alex Trebek’s face.

He gave them the info: “And that was. . . the real Maltese Falcon.”

Of course it was.

Posted in Dash | Tagged , |

Rediscovered: More Ted on the Block

Posted on August 10, 2020 by Don

My blurb yesterday on Ted Schulz, noted Holmesian, inspired Brian Leno to poke around on the side on eBay, after he’d made a few early morning passes looking for John Hancocks.

He discovered a tribute to Ted, listed for only $15 or best offer. Issue 14 of Sherlock in LA, celebrating 37 years of Ted on the 221B scene.

The seller’s capsule notes that Ted was invested in the Baker Street Irregulars in 1961 by Julian Wolff, and gives an extensive list of his club affiliations.

Posted in Lit, News | Tagged , , , |

Two-Gun Bob: From Sherlockian Shelves

Posted on August 9, 2020 by Don

Brian Leno noticed a copy of my 1984 litcrit anthology on Robert E. Howard — The Dark Barbarian — on the block at eBay for $150 or make an offer. Hunt around and you can find copies much cheaper, but those copies are not this copy, inscribed to Ted Schulz in the year of publication.

Ted was a bigwig Sherlockian in the Bay Area, and in that era in the early 1980s I often attended meetings of the local Baker Street Irregulars club, known by the handle The Scowrers and the Molly Maguires (if memory serves). Ted was ex-military and used his connections to host meetings in the old Officers Club in Fort Mason. 

I said at the time— and still think — that Ted must have been the nicest guy I ever met. He radiated niceness.

He was, however, a crummy driver (like many guys I’ve encountered from the military). Made me nervous as hell. Clutching the seat with clawed fingers stuff.

Once we were heading to SFO to pick someone up — I think it was Jon Lellenberg. Jon was another bigtime Holmesian, from around D.C, I think — some sort of government work, the detail I remember was that he had just spent a few weeks or months at the Arctic Circle staring down the throat of “the Russian Bear.” Another nice guy. Hosted a Bouchercon once. You may have seen his name recently because John D. Haefele singles him out in his Firsts article on modern Arkham House ephemera as the author of what — currently — is the final book published under the Arkham banner: Baker Street Irregular.

So, we drifted toward SFO with Ted at the wheel, just poking along, wandering across lanes, and finally I couldn’t take it any more and said something like, “Jeez, Ted, you drive like a mother-in-law.”

Ted took his eyes off the road and just beamed at me.

He said, “You know, I like my mother-in-law.”  

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

Sinister Cinema: A Fistful of Autos

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Don

Like Clint Eastwood in a Spaghetti Western, Brian Leno saddles up every day and tracks down one John Hancock after another.

He doesn’t turn them in for bounty, however. If Leno guns down a signature, he keeps it:

Got a Marianne Koch auto — she’s the woman in A Fistful of Dollars. Played Marisol.

It’s a cool signature — on a 4×6 photo image of the iconic poster.

I do have Eastwood, Eli Wallach — who you’ve already used — and Lee Van Cleef.

Also the recently deceased Ennio Morricone.

Perhaps another time.

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , |

Sinister Cinema: Count Zaroff

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Don

And here’s Brian Leno once again — Brian plays the game of tracking and hunting down the most elusive John Hancocks lurking in the sweaty climes of the Internet jungles:

Leslie Banks was the evil (but cool) Count Zaroff in The Most Dangerous Game.

Goes along with the Fay Wray auto you used awhile back, as she was Eve Trowbridge in that 1932 movie.

Joel McCrea, who played Rainsford, is also in my collection — somewhere.

Unfortunately I don’t have the author of that great story, Richard Connell, but I keep looking for just the right one.

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , , , |

Rediscovered: Freddie Mills Leads the Pack

Posted on August 1, 2020 by Don

Autograph Hound Saturday once again. Kind of snuck up on me.

I mentioned the other week that Brian Leno has been collecting signatures like hell recently — on top of collecting like hell his whole life — and he’s here today to unholster a few new items from his horde of John Hancocks:

I’ve been going a little nuts lately with the autographs, Don.

Got Freddie Mills in the mail yesterday.

Picked up a Delos Lovelace, the guy who wrote the movie adaptation of King Kong back in the thirties, and on the same theme I got Helen Mack, the lady from Son of Kong — she also starred in She, alongside Randolph Scott.

I’m waiting for a Malcolm McDowell signed 8×10 from A Clockwork Orange.

Also picked up a Frank E. Schoonover auto — did the great dust jacket for Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars. Tough to find at a decent price.


Right now I have my beady eyes on Valerie Hobson, Baroness Frankenstein from The Bride of Frankenstein. She was married to John Profumo — remember him and the big political sex scandal in England in the sixties?

For all you sports fans I picked up some handwriting examples of Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth. Nothing major there, but they will do until I can grab their autographs, which because they are so goddamned expensive, could take a while.

The boxer in the shot above of course is Freddie Mills. The Secret Life of Freddie Mills, by Michael Litchfield, is a very good book and I recommend it. Litchfield delves into all the murky business of Freddie and the infamous Kray Brothers, and the Jack the Stripper case. How much is believable is up to the reader.

And speaking of the Krays I received Reg Kray’s A Way of Life in the mail today from the U.K. I was told it was signed and I took the seller’s word for it and let that be a lesson to me. It looks like an authentic signature, but when it’s compared to other copies of the same book it’s revealed to be a facsimile.

I should have tracked down other “signed” copies and I’d have seen right away what it was. I didn’t do my homework on that one, which I usually do.

Let my guard down and got banged with a left hook.

Still it was cheap enough that I won’t kick up a fuss. Live and learn, and I’m sure the book will still be an interesting one.

Posted in Boxing, Film | Tagged , , , , |

Rediscovered: Willeford Talks

Posted on July 21, 2020 by Don

Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus — big Charles Willeford fan — just sent me a link to a 1987 interview with Willeford, posted to YouTube in March this year.

Ten minutes, with Willeford reading some snippets from his books, covering many bases in the Q&A.

If you too are a Willeford fan — or merely curious — check it out.

Posted in News, Willeford | Tagged , |

Two-Gun Bob: And Hugh Pendexter

Posted on July 19, 2020 by Don

Our prolific guest blogger and Robert E. Howard maven Brian Leno jumps in to keep the Two-Gun Bob pot cooking.

Here’s Brian:

I’ve never read Hugh Pendexter, but Robert E. Howard did.

In a 1931 letter to H. P. Lovecraft, Howard heaps praise onto Pendexter’s “Devil’s Brew,” a two-part serial that had appeared that year in the pages of Adventure. 

The Texas author liked it so much he informed Lovecraft that he was going to mail the two issues to him, so he could judge for himself.

Obviously he valued the opinion of the Gentleman from Providence. 

Lovecraft replied favorably upon the pulp tale, and Howard was pleased. Always nice to have a friend confirm our own literary tastes.

Pendexter, one of the giants of Adventure, is not read so much today. He didn’t write about barbarians battling sorcery or multi-tentacled creatures arising from dark oceans. 

Instead, Pendexter wrote historical fiction, books about the taming of the American Frontier, and these types of yarns just aren’t much in favor with the readers of today.

But back in his time he must have been something, filling the pages of Adventure with stories so strongly based in truth that, for the edification of his readers, he would list the books or articles he had used during the creation of his story.

Here is his autograph, in a battered copy of Gentlemen of the North, which had appeared in Adventure in 1919. He signed it on November 2, 1931 in his hometown of Norway, Maine. A very nice example of his penmanship, even if a couple of letters are a trifle smudged.

His signature isn’t common but I have come across a few books that he inscribed, and so far they all have one thing in common. They’re all beat to crap, as if they went a few rounds with Rocky Marciano.

Either his books were tossed aside and not regarded highly — or conversely they were valued greatly, and read again and again.

I think it’s the latter of those two, and for proof we can look at the March 20, 1926 issue of Adventure from my collection. It showcases a beautiful painting by Raphael Cavalier but a former owner has scrawled “Pendexter part three” across the cover, which does irritate me — but only a little.

On the spine of the magazine this desecration continues with the letters “HP” penned — this time neatly — into the side. How can anybody be irritated at witnessing a reader displaying such love for a favorite author?

The story inside was titled “Log Cabin Men,” and if I ever find the other 4 parts, I’ll have to give it a try.

But for now I’m going to start reading— soon — Gentlemen of the North. I just hope the book doesn’t crumble to pieces as I’m handling it.

If Pendexter was good enough for Robert E. Howard, I’ll bet he’s good enough for me.

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