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
Tag Archives: Donald Wandrei
Rediscovered: Arcane Arkham Arch-Collectors Corner No. 2
I don’t know how many obscure tidbits of Arkham House collecting lore Paul Dobish is privy to, but I’ll bet it’s more than you or me or the average joe walking down the street. The average joe might dream of … Continue reading
Posted in Lit
Tagged Arkham House, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, Donald Wandrei, John D. Haefele, Paul Dobish, Richard Jefts, Shorty Dunwichs, Stan McNail
Rediscovered: The Lure of Arkham House Ephemerae
The last few days have been devoted to the glory and the grandeur — and the morass — of that old hobby, collecting Arkham House ephemera items. Paul Dobish, the book dealer who helped with some dope for my article … Continue reading
Hammett: And Wandrei
John D. Haefele’s blurbage on Creeps by Night nudged me to get my copy of the Belmont paperback The Red Brain off the Donald Wandrei/E. Hoffmann Price/H. Warner Munn shelf where it lives, to look into once more. The Don/Ed/Harold … Continue reading
Posted in Dash, Lit
Tagged "The Red Brain", Book Collecting, Carl Jacobi, Creeps by Night, Donald Wandrei, Dorothy McIlwraith, Farnsworth Wright, Fritz Leiber, John D. Haefele, Weird Tales
Hammett: And Derleth
Yesterday we had a guest post from Brian Leno, and today John D. Haefele drops back into the action. Want to find out what August Derleth of Arkham House had to do with Creeps by Night, the anthology of weird fiction edited … Continue reading
NONPAREIL: The Robert E. Howard WORD OF THE YEAR
For some of us, Robert E. Howard is nonpareil — which my India paper copy of Webster’s Third says is “Something of unequaled excellence; a nonesuch; a paragon,” and, while you might not think of it, is a word “often … Continue reading
Rediscovered: Derleth and Little Reviews
If you know much about August Derleth, you know he made his rep equally between writing for pulps such as Weird Tales and doing the more artsy wordplay for Little Reviews — eventually he even combined the two fields of … Continue reading
Posted in DMac, Lit, News, Tour
Tagged August Derleth, Donald Wandrei, Frank Belknap Long, James Crumley, John D. Haefele, Lovecraft, Missoula, The Frontier, Weird Tales
Rediscovered: John D. Haefele on Fungi from Yuggoth
Remember how John D. Haefele was nudging me to do a reread on H. P. Lovecraft’s Fungi from Yuggoth sonnet cycle a few months ago, which led to my micro-essay “Pigeons from Hell from Lovecraft”? I give Haefele a blurb … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, News
Tagged "Pigeons from Hell from Lovecraft", Donald Wandrei, Fungi from Yuggoth, John D. Haefele, Lovecraft, The Cimmerian, Weird Tales
Tour: What Fell Heir to the Pulps?
Waking up today, trying to pour enough joe down around my lungs to get fumbling fingers to lace the gumshoes so I can go out and do another tour, I find an email from Patrick McEntee. He’s the guy who … Continue reading
Posted in Lit, Tour
Tagged Batman, Bill Finger, Bob Kane, Comic Book Jungle, Donald Wandrei, Lovecraft, Mike Friedrich, Neal Adams, Patrick McEntee, Pulps, Steve Ditko, The Shadow
Two-Gun Bob: The Flivver Controversy Erupts!
After my post yesterday about flivvers being Fords they added “A Note from the Editor” to the Word of the Week on Two-Gun Raconteur, which reads: Apparently Don Herron has his ignition wires crossed in a recent post on his … Continue reading
John D. Haefele’s “A Testament to His Influence”
To celebrate the third edition of John D. Haefele’s A Look Behind the Derleth Mythos going live on Kindle — illustrated in full color from his pristine holdings of Arkham House books and ephemera — we present a review intimately connected … Continue reading
