Rediscovered: Kornbluth

Posted on July 5, 2025 by Don

How about another Autograph Hound Saturday? It’s been awhile, and on the side the topic came up of authors who have rare signatures — if you’ve got enough loot laying around, you can shell it out but the autos that are really rare, that takes some luck to find them.

A few tough ones are James Tiptree Jr, Henry Kuttner, Thomas Pynchon — and C. M. Kornbluth. The general toughest categories are writers who died young, and the writers who didn’t show up for the usual signings at conventions and bookstore promotions. Recluses can be quite elusive.

Our resident Autograph Hound Brian Leno of course has something to talk about in the form of a signed cheque to Kornbluth. Brian says, “Here’s my Kornbluth with the magazine appearance he got paid for, under a pseudonym.”

Take it away, Brian:

I bought this one a few years back and am very happy I did, undoubtedly it’s worth much more than I shelled out then.

The pulp is Super Science Stories, November 1940, and the story appeared under the Kornbluth pseudonym S.D. Gottesman.

Kornbluth is ultra rare, died at 34 after hurriedly shoveling his sidewalk and then running to catch his train. That’ll bring on a heart attack if anything will.

Plus his Wikipedia entry states that for some unknown reason he didn’t brush his teeth nor make appointments with dentists and as a result his teeth were green and he tried to hide this blemish by talking with his hands covering his mouth.

I think it would have been easier to just brush. This hygienic issue probably didn’t help his health any.

A signature that is as rare as hen’s teeth (sorry), very desirable.

Zenna Henderson is another rare one, I’m lucky enough to own a signed copy of The Anything Box. As a side note most people perhaps don’t know (or remember) but there was a Made-for-TV movie called The People from 1972 based on her series. The flick featured William Shatner and Kim Darby. Two words can sum it up. Crap. Crap.

More rare ones, not just science fiction, would include Good Old Mac Everett McNeil, Lovecraft’s buddy. Henry S. Whitehead is a tough, almost impossible one to find and a signed book by Weird Tales editor Edwin Baird is another daunting task.

Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith are easy, Robert E. Howard a bit more difficult. Once again it’s just a matter of finances. (Even Hemingway is easy if you’re rolling in the dough.)

But while anybody can own a good autograph collection if you’ve got the money, I would think most collectors would agree that it’s the rare ones that get the juices flowing.

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Hammett: A Jeopardy! One-Two Punch

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Don

Jeopardy! kind of laid off Hammett clews for while, then surprised me with a sudden two-fisted assault.

S41E154 — April 10, 2025 — in the initial round offered the category Mystery Loves Company.

The $1000 clew:

8 paragraphs in on “The Thin Man,” he narrates, “My glass was empty. I asked . . . what she (wanted) to drink, she said Scotch and soda”

Contestant came up with “Who is Nick Charles?”

Who else?

(And for the pure text fans in the audience, the words in that eighth paragraph read “My glass was empty. I asked her what she would have to drink, she said Scotch and soda.”)

Five days later on Tax Day, April 15 — S41E157 — in the Double Jeopardy round — category Real Housewives Taglines — $2000 clew:

My man exposed the means streets with crime mysteries like “The Glass Key”; I prefer Broadway & got there with “The Children’s Hour”

The contestant that time also nailed it: “Who is Hellman?”

They can keep dipping into that well of Hammett-related clews forever.

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Hammett: The Return of

Posted on April 20, 2025 by Don

Terry Zobeck keeps his eye peeled like a Pinkerton’s man and let me know the Hammett Tour book gets some nice blurbage from Max Allan Collins on CrimeReads. Thank you, thank you — to both.

Looks as if Hard Case Crime will be popping the Collins sequel to The Maltese Falcon in January 1926. And The Return of the Maltese Falcon will have this piece now excerpted for CrimeReads as an afterword.

Fun to read, and the sources Collins says he mostly relied on are ones I would have given top plugs. Surf over and check it out. Even if you have no interest in reading a Falcon pastiche, it’s one Hammett fan speaking from the heart to others.

The mini-review of my tour book is satisfyingly well-crafted. If I were going to do another edition of the tour book, it’d definitely make the cut for a lead blurb.

My favorite line reads, “Over the years, I have read every Hammett book-length biography I could find, and that’s more than a few; but the guidebook’s exceptional ‘brief’ bio is the only one I referred to before I began (and during the writing of) this novel.”

I selected as a main blurb for earlier tour book editions a couple of lines from The Mystery Fancier. One reads, “It contains photos, maps, bibliography, and the best capsule biography of Hammett I have ever read.”

I’m happy the little bio continues to get some recognition.

Without digging a copy out from deep in the Hammett Tour Files, I believe that issue of The Mystery Fancier — officially, I guess, The MYSTERY FANcier — came out in the 1980s. And my memory is that the reviewer was Marvin Lachman. Major genre scholar — and he wrote well.

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Mort: McGinnis

Posted on April 5, 2025 by Don

Brian Leno has prepared himself for decades with an ever increasing stock of John Hancocks, now coming in handy to memorialize people as they fall. For this particular Autograph Hound Saturday he offers:

I know I don’t get out much but I just heard Robert McGinnis died on March 10th, at 99 years of age.

What a talent. All those James Bond posters. All those great book covers with sexy women driving tough guys wild.

It’s too bad, but at 99 he certainly lived a full life.

Here’s a signed print I have, in tribute.

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Rediscovered: John Hancock Writes Some Science Fiction

Posted on March 8, 2025 by Don

Autograph Hound Saturday once again and Brian Leno sends in a few siggies from a recent purchase. Nothing too exciting, meat & potatoes stuff. He already had several of these banked in his files. One nice angle is that Will Jenkins also signs as his most famous penname Murray Leinster, and puts quote marks on the pseudonym.

Just recently Brian showed off an L. Sprague de Camp autograph in connection with landing a much bigger fish, a signed original snapshot of Robert E. Howard’s father. That find impressed even Brian.

DisCon was the 21st World Science Fiction Convention, Washington, D. C. — August 31-September 2 1963.

Here’s Brian:

This is a pretty cool little program book from 1963. Interesting stuff. At one o’clock on Sunday there’s a muster of the Hyborian Legion with “de Camp and his cohorts on Conan.”

But the coolest thing is the Autograph page. I already had most but I saw no reason not to have two H. Beam Piper — a suicide like REH — signatures in my library.

Asimov, de Camp and Leiber were already in my collection.

Randall Garrett is a new one for me. I think he’s a bit tough to get as his life evidently took a dive into shit as his health got bad.

And Gordon R. Dickson might be a new addition. Not sure.

The program book is in tough shape. Pages are loose as the staples have disappeared.

Still, all this fun for a couple of Franklins. Lots of cool ads. A bargain.

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

Rediscovered: The Chandler Machine

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Don

Remember last year when a bunch of stuff that belonged to Raymond Chandler went on the block? Everything from drafts of fantasy stories to the typewriter he used during his Last Stand writing Playback?

Turns out that none other than Mark Coggins nabbed the machine out from under everyone else, and tells the tale in a new bit for The Rap Sheet.

Scoot on over and check it out. Behind-the-scenes derring-do, unexpected add-ons by the auction house. Fairly big money changing hands.

Posted in Lit, News | Tagged , |

Rediscovered: The Conniving Curley

Posted on February 13, 2025 by Don

Hop over to Crimereads to peruse Nathan Ward’s latest research into the flimflam and frayed borders of the legends and lives that populated the Wild West.

Most recently Nathan made the Up and Down These Mean Streets scene with his superb Western biography of Charlie Siringo, range detective.

His glory days, so far, involved a biography of Dashiell Hammett, when Nathan stalked the burg, speaking and signing copies in the Mechanics’ Institute Library. If a book has “tough guy” written all over it, Nathan might have done the scribbling.

Posted in Dash, Frisco, News | Tagged , , |

Hammett: After Chandler

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Don

Mark Coggins just dropped a bit on The Rap Sheet about how Raymond Chandler got to San Francisco before Hammett hit town. Check it out.

Got some dates, some buildings and addresses.

The elephant in the burg, though, is the idea that Chandler just might have begun writing first and made Frisco his own. Intriguing, worth a little mulling over.

Would — all else being equal — Hammett have rolled into his residences in Eddy Street and others and still begun his Black Mask career? So you’d have had — all things being equal — two major talents working these mean streets.

But the all things being equal hits the pause button when you factor in that Chandler only began his crime writing career after encountering Hammett and the Mask crew. No Hammett at the typewriter keys in San Francisco, no Chandler with the brooding meditations on Los Angeles and environs.

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

Rediscovered: Is It Doc’s John Hancock? Is It the Suicide Car?

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Don

After Brian Leno’s stunning eBay coup of a signed — and seemingly previously unseen — photograph of Dr. Isaac Howard, people (you know people) are getting in on the action. Some think the signature is authentic. Some feel it can’t possibly be the autograph of Robert E. Howard’s father.

Gary Romeo of the blog spraguedecampfan even sent along the image of a 1981 letter from Vera Baker to L. Sprague de Camp where she mentions just coming across the photo. De Camp’s letter in which he returns the original to her was in with the group of items Brian bought.

But he was after the photo, not a note from de Camp.

Rob Roehm commented, “Long time no see. Great find! I’m not sure about the signature, either, but it could be. Attached are a couple of samples.”

The holograph on stationery from The West Texas Clinic dates from March 8, 1943. The note in blue ink dates closer to the creation of the photo — January 22, 1940. The end letters “rd” of Howard match the signature on the photo, or match as closely as any individual signature matches another.

Rob adds, “The car in the background looks like it has ‘suicide doors’ on the back doors, which REH’s last car, a 1935 4-door Chevy Standard, had. Not to be confused with the 1935 Chevy Master, that had ‘suicide doors’ on all four doors. So, another could be. Still, super cool find. Congratulations!”

How Rob doped out the suicide door angle amazed me for a minute, but then he first burst on the scene in the magazine The Cimmerian by tracking down the specific site in the extensive ruins of Fort McKavett where Robert E. Howard once had a snap taken. I mean, you can barely see the car in the background.

I checked it more carefully and spotted the clew: the door handles. The handle in front is like any you’d find today, but there’s a small visual break and then the next handle, placed at the front of the door frame — meaning it swung open with the inside of the door facing oncoming traffic.

Even Brian could not quite make the boast of grabbing off eBay a shot of Doc and the car in which REH killed himself with a bullet to the brain. He may have wanted to believe it, sure. “After Rob’s letter I can see the suicide doors, so who knows? Picture raises a lot of questions.”

The Vera Baker letter from Gary Romeo did bring Brian to a stop for a moment. Flat-out, she says the autograph IDing Dr. Howard on the front of the photo was done by either her mother or by Hester Howard.

“Well, I guess that takes care of that,” Brian stated.

“Yeah, but Brian,” I chimed in, “the only problem is that the signature is by Doc Howard.”

Obviously Vera Baker doesn’t know who signed the snap. Her mother or Hester Howard? Confidence returning, Brian noted, “If Vera is not so sure who wrote it, how can we be sure it was anybody but Doc? Apparently she doesn’t know for sure, she wasn’t there when the photo was signed. So why could it not have been the Doc himself?”

And chances of Hester Howard signing it are more than remote, at best. REH committed suicide because she was at death’s door. She died the next day. Doc had the car cleaned up and the hole in the roof patched and drove it around for awhile. If he took REH’s car over to Coleman, Texas to visit the Baker family on their farm, odds are strongest that the date followed the deaths of his son and wife.

So don’t worry much about Brian, he’s hanging tough. “I have a photo that so far no one has ever said they’ve seen before, which was my main worry. Rob Roehm does so much with the genealogy stuff that if he hasn’t seen it, it ain’t been seen.”

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Rediscovered: A Little Birthday Treat

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Don

For birthday 119 for Robert E. Howard — should he have lived so long — Brian Leno roars into Autograph Hound action once more, pulling an original photo of REH’s father, actually signed by Doc Howard, from the time-lost ruins and scattered yard sales of eBay.

Brian has out two eBooks on the creator of Conan, his classic Lovecraft’s Southern Vacation as well as Ringside with Robert E. Howard. He has been a fan and collector from his early teenage years. And today he is a very happy camper.

Brian’s a bit hesitant to say with complete assurance that the autograph is by Doc, but I have no such reservations. Check out my own small eBook on REH Famous Someday for many examples of Doc’s hand, both holograph material and his fascinating doodles. Do a bit of detective work (and it’s not that hard to recognize the distinctive touches). Famous Someday features interviews with two of the Baker Kids, younger siblings of Vera Baker Nichols, with lots of talk about Doc Howard visiting their family in Coleman, Texas. Plus other material for the arch-Howard enthusiast of the Brian Leno ilk.

(If a small eBook isn’t enough for bona fides, I also have a huge eBook on REH, The Dark Barbarian That Towers Over All —- and just recently I collected even more writings about the Texan in Death Lit. After fifty years of Howardian research and litcrit, I’m confident I can spot a scribble from Doc.)

And now here’s Brian with his saga of the hunt:

As usual I was checking eBay for something I couldn’t live without and I came across a copy for sale of the Howard biography Dark Valley Destiny by L. Sprague de Camp. 

Normally that book would not warrant a second look. But I happened to notice it came with two letters, one signed by de Camp and another signed by his wife.

Still no real interest from me. On the seller’s photo, though, I was just able to see what looked like an old, small picture. Just beat to a pulp.

I thought, there’s something different here.

A little nervous, thinking I could be on to an interesting find, I clicked in and saw that this copy of DVD had belonged to Vera Baker Nichols, once a childhood acquaintance of Robert E. Howard.

Suddenly the letters became a little bit more . . . momentous. The one signed by de Camp thanked Vera for the original photo of Dr. Howard “and the copy negative and print made from it.”

He added that he was returning the original.

I looked at the image and realized this was the original photo of Dr. Howard de Camp was writing about.

With shark-like speed I made my way to the checkout line.

The picture is 2 inches wide, 2-1/2 inches high. It’s a tiny bugger.

A stamp on the back states that the photo was taken by Martin’s Studio, Coleman, Texas. As noted, in far from perfect shape.

It’s a photo I’ve never seen before. Regardless of whether or not it is known, it is an original of Howard’s father, apparently signed by the good doctor, as the signature does closely match other signatures of his I have seen.

It’s tough to make out, but Dr. Howard is standing proudly in front of his (I would guess) vehicle. It would be great if it was the automobile that belonged to his son, at the time of REH’s suicide, but it’s probably just the car Doc used when making his rounds.

The photo shows a stoop-shouldered old man with a rather disheveled appearance, and a wistful smile as he looks straight at the photographer. Those shoulders had seen much heartache.

Through all this literary archaeology I have been able to add something to my Howard collection that I’ve pursued ever since I realized how few photos exist of Howard and his family.

A true original.

The photo is in a top loader now for safety. I wonder how many times people’s greasy thumbs rubbed against the poor doc’s face.

Like the no-holds-barred Howard fanatic I am, I’m afraid one photo in the collection just makes me want more.

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