LA Bantam - When Were the Books Published?

With one exception the 29 books published by Bantam Publications of Los Angeles do not have dates when they were published. The only dates are copyright dates. All of the books, but one, have either a 1940 copyright or the copyright date of the original material. The exceptions are Red Threads (A1) which has the only published date, 1941, and Nobody Heard the Shot (25) with two copyright dates, 1940 and 1941.

External evidence for dates are copyright entries in the Library of Congress Catalogue of Copyright Entries. There are thirteen 1940 entries and four 1941 entries for Bantam paperback originals. The other external evidence is the 21 listings in Publisher's Weekly which are, with one exception, April 1941. See this earlier post for more.

The conclusion is that the books were published in 1940 and 1941. In another post I'll see if the likely year for each book can be teased out of this information.

Early Bantam references from 1981 to 1983 have a wide range of years:

"in 1940",      Putting Dell on the Map by William H. Lyles, p. 6,
'between 1939 and 1943",       Paperbacks, U.S.A. by Piet Schreuders, p. 59,
"late 1930's",        Undercover by Thomas L. Bonn, p. 123,
"debut in 1940 and terminating in 1942",       Mass Market Publishing in America by Allen Billy Crider (ed.), p. 167.

Dates from 1939 to 1945 continue to show up in dealer descriptions of the books. No specific images to go with post so I'll put up some of the Bantam books.

Bantam 2

Bantam 12

Bantam 14

Bantam 24