Red Arrow - Captain Nemesis

The tenth book published by Red Arrow Books is Captain Nemesis by F. Van Wyck Mason, first published New York: Putnam's, 1931.

Captain Nemesis is 288 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] by the same author,
[3] title page,
[4] copyright page,
[5] about Red Arrow books,
[6] blank,
7-279 Captain Nemesis,
[280-288] blank.

The copyright date is 1931.

There are three variant covers: one text, an illustrated one and a "Book Club" edition. The text and Book Club editions are illustrated below.

Red Arrow 10

Red Arrow 10 Book Club edition

Red Arrow - The Seven Sleepers

The ninth book published by Red Arrow Books is The Seven Sleepers by Francis Beeding, first published London: Hutchinson, 1925. Pseudonym of John Lelsie Palmer and Hilary St. John Saunders.

The Seven Sleepers is 288 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] by the same author,
[3] title page,
[4] copyright page,
[5] about Red Arrow books,
[6] blank,
7-280 The Seven Sleepers,
[281-288] blank.

The copyright date is 1925.

There are three variant covers: one text, an illustrated one and a "Book Club" edition. The text is illustrated below.

Red Arrow 9

Red Arrow - Girl Hunt

The eighth book published by Red Arrow Books is Girl Hunt by Laurence D(wight) Smith, first published Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1937.

Girl Hunt is 288 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] about Red Arrow Books,
[3] title page,
[4] copyright page,
5-279 Girl Hunt,
[280-288] blank.

The copyright date is 1937.

There are three variant covers: one text, an illustrated one and a "Book Club" edition. The text is illustrated below.

Red Arrow - My South Sea Island

The sixth book published by Red Arrow Books is My South Sea Island by Eric Musprat, first published London: Hutchinson, 1931.

My South Sea Island is 288 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] about Red Arrow Books,
[3] title page,
[4] copyright page,
[5-7] preface,
[8] blank,
9-288 My South Sea Island.

The copyright date is 1931.

There are three variant covers: one text, an illustrated one and a "Book Club" edition. The text and book club are illustrated below.

Red Arrow - Death Wears a White Gardenia

The fifth book published by Red Arrow Books is Death Wears a White Gardenia by Zelda Popkin, first published Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1938.

Death Wears a White Gardenia is 288 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] about Red Arrow Books,
[3] title page,
[4] copyright page,
[5] "All characters .. are intended.",
[6] blank,
7-281 Death Wears a White Gardenia,
[282-288] blank.

 The copyright date is 1938.

There are four variant covers: two text, an illustrated one and a "Book Club" edition. The text is illustrated below.

Red Arrow - Yankee Komisar

The seventh book published by Red Arrow Books is Yankee Komisar by S. M. Riis, first published New York: R Speller, 1935.

Yankee Komisar is 240 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] copyright page,
[3] title page,
[4] dedication,
[5] introduction,
[6] blank,
7-236 Yankee Komisar,
[237-240] blank.

The copyright date is 1939.

There are three variant covers: one text, an illustrated one and a "Book Club" edition. The text and illustrated are below.

"Voice of Death"

In 1941 Bantam Publications published The Shadow and the Voice of Murder by Maxwell Grant, pseudonym for Walter Gibson. The story was first published in the February 15, 1940 issue of The Shadow as “Voice of Death”. Now, seventy years later, the story has been reprinted again. The Shadow Volume 49 (San Antonio, TX: Sanctum Books) has just been published and includes the third Shadow story from 1931 as well as "Voice of Death".

The Bantam Publications book is mentioned but, as is often the case, details are wrong. The year is given as 1942 and it's called "an early Bantam book" which gives the impression that it was published by the later Bantam Books of New York. The illustrated cover is reproduced.

Red Arrow - Death in the Library

The fourth book published by Red Arrow Books is Death in the Library by Philip Ketchum, first published New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1937.

Death in the Library is 240 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] about Red Arrow Books,
[3] title page,
[4] copyright page,
[5] disclaimer,
[6] blank,
7-239 Death in the Library,
[240] blank.

The copyright date is 1937.

There are four variant covers: two text with different colours on the spine and back cover, an illustrated one and a "Book Club" edition. The text is below.

LA Bantam - Children's Favorite Stories

The 13th book published by Bantam Publications is Children's Favorite Stories edited by Ellen Lewis, a pseudonym for Eleanor Packer. This is a paperback original.

In common with all but one of LA Bantam's books Children's Favorite Stories is 100 pages long and is 110 mm (4 5/16") wide by 152 mm (6") tall. Cover and pages are made from high acid pulp paper. The page collation is:

[1] title page,
[2] copyright page,
3-100 Children's Favorite Stories.

The copyright date is 1940.

The one cover I'm aware of is strong yellowish green/light yellowish green.

LA Bantam - Everybody's Dream Book

The 4th book published by Bantam Publications is Everybody's Dream Book by anonymous. This is a paperback original.

In common with all but one of LA Bantam's books Everybody's Dream Book is 100 pages long and is 110 mm (4 5/16") wide by 152 mm (6") tall. Cover and pages are made from high acid pulp paper. The page collation is:

[1] title page,
2-100 Everybody's Dream Book.

There is no copyright date.

In common with most LA Bantams there are two variant covers - strong yellowish green/light green and strong blue/light green. The former is below.

LA Bantam - The Spanish Cape Mystery

The 1st book published by Bantam Publications is The Spanish Cape Mystery by Ellery Queen. First seen in the April 1935 issue of Redbook Magazine the first book publication is New York: Frederick Stokes, 1935.

In common with all but one of LA Bantam's books The Spanish Cape Mystery is 100 pages long and is 110 mm (4 5/16") wide by 152 mm (6") tall. Cover and pages are made from high acid pulp paper. The page collation is:

[1] title page,
[2] copyright page,
[3] Forward,
[4] List of Chapters,
5-100 The Spanish Cape Mystery.

The copyright date is 1935.

In common with most LA Bantams there are two variant covers - strong yellowish green/vivid yellow and strong blue/vivid yellow.

Red Arrow - Pirate's Purchase

The twelfth book published by Red Arrow Books is Pirate's Purchase by Ben Ames Williams, first published New York: E. P. Dutton, 1931.

Pirate's Purchase is 288 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] BY THE SAME AUTHOR [list of 14 books],
[3] title page,
[4] copyright page,
[5] about Red Arrow Books,
[6] blank,
7-281 Pirate's Purchase,
[282-288] blank.

The copyright date is 1931.

There are three variant covers: one text, an illustrated one and a "Book Club" edition. The first two are below. 

Red Arrow - The Murders in Praed Street

The second book published by Red Arrow Books is The Murders in Praed Street by John Rhode, first published London: Geoffrey Bles, 1928. Pseudonym of Cecil John Charles Street (1892 - 1969).

The Murders in Praed Street is 288 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] about Red Arrow Books,
[3] title page,
[4] copyright page,
[5] CONTENTS,
[6] blank,
7-278 The Murders in Praed Street,
[279-288] blank.

The copyright date is 1939.

There are four variant covers: two text, a "Book Club" edition and an illustrated one. One text version has a red spine and back cover, the other a brown spine and back cover.

LA Bantam and Book Vending Machines Part VII

Article continued from part VI

At this point I began to wonder if the LA Bantam vender existed. I could find no one who had seen a machine, no documentary evidence for it and the only source for information on LA Bantam appears to be the 40 year old memories of someone who worked at Dell but it isn’t clear if he worked at Bantam.

The next obvious place to look was the books which, except for the last one, have Bantam house ads on the back cover. There is also an ad on page 100 of some of the books. One of the ads on the back cover, after a list of LA Bantams, states “this store aims to have available at all times good books…at the lowest possible price.” The ad on page 100 states “look for these titles where you bought this book.” There is no mention of vending machines. The message is that the books were sold in the traditional places – bookstores, drug and other stores, newsstands. There are copies of LA Bantams with a red “10c” in the upper right hand corner of the front cover which must have been added by the publisher. If sold only in a vender the “10c” wouldn’t have been necessary. It is possible that these copies were sold in stores and on newsstands either simultaneously with or after books sold in venders but I believe the “10c” was added because Bantam learned that store and newsstand customers didn’t know the books were 10 cents and not 25 cents.

I learned when researching my book vender article that developing, producing and servicing a vending machine is not a simple undertaking. Large established companies like Pocket and Avon joined with vending machine companies to produce their short-lived machines to supplement traditional book selling methods. Little Blue Books was looking to replace the faltering mail order business with vending but it failed as well. It doesn’t seem to me credible that a small company like Bantam would choose vending, an expensive and complicated distribution method to put in place, first thing out of the gate.

So until a LA Bantam vender shows up I can only conclude that it is a chimerical machine.

LA Bantam 9 back

LA Bantam 9 with 10 cent sticker

LA Bantam 18

LA Bantam 23

LA Bantam 25

LA Bantam and Book Vending Machines Part VI

Paperback Parade 77 recently published an article of mine about Bantam Publications  and its vending machine. The article is my final word on the subject (unless new evidence shows up) and I'm going to post it here. I'll use two posts.

[LA Bantams] were distributed mainly on the West Coast and sold through
vending machines in the late 1930s.
     Thomas L. Bonn, Undercover: An Illustrated History of Mass Market Paperbacks, p. 123.

Bantam Books of Los Angeles was a perback [sic] series sold only [emphasis in original] from [vending] machines.
     Piet Schreuders, Paperback U.S.A.: A Graphic History, 1939 – 1959, p. 103.

When I began researching my article (see Paperback Parade 76) on book venders (industry term for vending machines) I expected that the Bantam Publications of Los Angeles vender would be an important part of the article. Here I’ll explain why a LA Bantam vender was not in the article.

Five of the six American machines discussed in the book vender article were noted in Billboard magazine so this was an obvious place to start researching the LA Bantam vender. I looked through the December 1939 to July 1941 issues but found nothing on the machine. Next I tried Publisher’s Weekly which had articles from time to time about book venders but nothing again. I asked some long time LA Bantam collectors if they had ever seen a vender or heard of anyone having one. Neither of them had.

The first mention of LA Bantam vending that I found is an article by Paul Payne in Collecting Paperbacks? volume one, number three. He acknowledges the help of Bill Lyles for the information in the article. This is William H. Lyles whose book Putting Dell on the Map: A History of Dell Paperbacks was published in 1983. In a paragraph on page six about LA Bantam we learn that “the books were designed for sale in vending machines.” His source for this and other information about LA Bantam is a letter dated June 1978 from Lou Nielsen who is described as working on Dell Books from 1944 to 1951, editing humour books and assisting Lloyd E. Smith, the editor at Dell. Smith had also been the editor at LA Bantam. The only source that Bonn and Schreuders give for their information about LA Bantam is Shreuders mentioning Paul Payne. The article on LA Bantam in Allen Billy Crider’s Mass Market Publishing in America says “LA Bantams apparently were intended for distribution through the unusual medium of vending machines.” The article provides no sources. All the books mentioned here were published from 1981 to 1983, after the Payne article was published. The only clear source for the information about LA Bantam in the article and books is the letter from the now deceased (1979) Lou Nielsen.

LA Bantam 14

LA Bantam 15

LA Bantam 20

LA Bantam 21

LA Bantam 22

Red Arrow - Murder-on-Hudson

The second book published by Red Arrow Books is Murder-on-Hudson by Jennifer Jones, first published New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1937. Pseudonym of Margaret Lane (1907 – 1994) and Enid Johnson (1892 – 1969).

Murder-on-Hudson is 288 pages long and is 111 mm (4 3/8") wide by 179 mm (7 1/16") tall, the same size as the early Penguins. The page collation is:

[1] half-title,
[2] BY THE SAME AUTHOR [list of one book],
[3] title page,
[4] copyright page,
[5] about Red Arrow Books,
[6] "The persons, places ... fictitious.",
7-8 contents,
[9] "Sworn Statement",
[10] blank,
11-280 Murder-on-Hudson,
[281-288] blank.

The copyright date is 1939.

There are four variant covers: two text, a "Book Club" edition and an illustrated one. One text version has a red spine and back cover, the other a brown spine and back cover.

LA Bantam Illustrated Covers Part IV

The first three posts in this series highlighted seven of the nine illustrated covers published in 1941 by Bantam Publications of Los Angeles. Here are the last two. Like all but one of the first seven the art is not signed. The back covers are similar to six of the other seven with the the book in hand not listed.

These are the two most famous and expensive Bantams although not the most uncommon. They are the first appearance of The Shadow and Tarzan in mass market format.

Bantam 21

Bantam 21 back

Bantam 23

Bantam 23 back

LA Bantam - Tarzan in the Forbidden City

The 23rd book published by Bantam Publications is Tarzan in the Forbidden City by Edgar Rice Burroughs. First published Tarzana, CA: ERB, 1938 as Tarzan and the Forbidden City. The Bantam edition is abridged.

In common with all but one of LA Bantam's books Tarzan in the Forbidden City is 100 pages long and is 110 mm (4 5/16") wide by 152 mm (6") tall. Cover and pages are made from high acid pulp paper. The page collation is:

[1] title page,

[2] copyright page,

3-100 Tarzan in the Forbidden City.

The copyright date is 1940.

In common with most LA Bantams there are variant covers, three with text and one illustrated. The text covers are dark blue/light green, strong yellowish green/light orange yellow and strong yellowish green/light blue. The illustrated cover is below.



LA Bantam - The Shadow and the Voice of Murder

The 21st book published by Bantam Publications is The Shadow and the Voice of Murder by Maxwell Grant. Pseudonym for Walter Gibson. Paperback original. First published in the February 15, 1940 issue of The Shadow as “Voice of Death”.

In common with all but one of LA Bantam's books The Shadow and the Voice of Murder is 100 pages long and is 110 mm (4 5/16") wide by 152 mm (6") tall. Cover and pages are made from high acid pulp paper. The page collation is:

[1] title page,
[2] List of Chapters,
3-100 The Shadow and the Voice of Murder.

The copyright date, 1940, is noted on the title page.

In common with most LA Bantams there are variant covers, three with text and one illustrated. The three text covers are strong blue/light orange yellow, strong yellowish green/light blue and strong yellowish green/light orange yellow. The last two text and illustrated covers are below.



La Bantam Bibliographically Speaking Part II

In part I of the blog I discussed the differences between various issues (variants) of the books published by Bantam Publications. Here I'll look in detail at one of the books.

Book 22, The Green Death and other stories by Brett Hutton, has five variant covers, four with text and one illustrated. The text covers are strong blue/light blue, strong blue/light gray, strong blue/light green and strong yellowish green/light blue.

Aside from the colours, there are two sets of text covers. The strong blue/light blue and strong yellowish green/light blue versions have the following:

• "Green Death" all in capitals
• the cover blurb not italicized and large type face
• a blank Bantam eye
• the title in small type face on spine
• list of 11 books on back cover.

The strong blue/light gray and strong blue/light green versions have the following:

• "Green Death" capital and lower case with a smaller "G" and "D"
• the cover blurb italicized and small type face
• a black Bantam eye
• the title in large type face on spine
• list of 12 books on back cover with the book titles in slightly larger type face.

The text block is identical in all variants. So far I have seen no way to establish any printing priority for the text cover issues of the second group of books - 21 through 28.

The difference in the blue colour below is not evident on the books.