John D. Haefele and I actually have been slaving away on a book on Arkham House ephemera from the Classic Years — 1937-1972. We’ve got guys eyeballing some of the largest private collections (as I post, one stalwart has the legendary Phil Mays Collection under review), and we’re riding the whirlwind trying to juggle the info into order.
May I say, brutal. If I seem to disappear from the scene, rest assured I am drowning under ephemera.
Recently our pal and longtime consultant, bookseller Paul Dobish, sat down with his holdings and made scans of five Classic Era Items that did not appear on the list I did for Firsts: The Book Collector’s Magazine back in October 2002, our baseline for establishing what is known vs what is unknown.
Of the five Items, Haefele and I had tracked down all of them in recent years and are working them into the queue. That’s very good news. The less unknown, the better.
But Paul also collects the ephemera that followed the 1971 death of Arkham publisher August Derleth — the Modern Era. Only recently Haefele took on that subject himself for Firsts, with a history of the post-Derleth press in one issue, and a checklist of Items in the following number for November/December 2019.
Turns out Paul has an Order Form for August 2006 that slipped through the net. Looks as if it would go between Haefele 91 and Haefele 92.
For those of you who collect the Modern Era, take note. Literally, if you want. I have a working copy of the Classic Era Firsts that I have annotated to death, circling the listed Items I have, inserting thumbnail descriptions of previously unknown Items as we found them.
It’ll probably be years before Haefele updates his Modern Era list, so if you want to be in the know, pick the issue up. So far only two unknown Items have surfaced.
This Order Form is one of them.
