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

LA Bantam - Publisher's Weekly

"The Weekly Record" was a list "of American book publication in the week of issue" that Publisher's Weekly provided as a "convenient reference and buying list for bookstores and libraries." By sending in 21 of the 29 books to PW for inclusion in this list Bantam Publications did something unique; no other mass market books were listed in the "The Weekly Record."  For three weeks in 1941 Bantam's books were listed in a section for "pamphlet material and books of lesser trade interest."

Bantam books joined such items as Folk Dancing for Jewish Centers, Methods for Diagnostic Bacteriology, The Geology of the Cleveland Region and Just a Moment Please! Dedicated to All Those Persons Whose Future is Still Ahead of Them.

Why did Bantam bother with sending their first 20 books plus one more to PW for inclusion in this listing? I can't imagine it having much impact on sales. Libraries would not be interested in mass market books and bookstores would not expect to see them in PW, particularily in the "lesser trade interest" section. Another one of Bantam's mysteries. Below is a list of the books and the PW issue and the listing for The Tower of Flame [and] Jaragu of the Lost Islands.

April 5, 1941:

1 The Spanish Cape Mystery     Ellery Queen    
2 Little Known Facts About Well Known People     Dale Carnegie    
3 Your Health Questions     Morris Fishbein    
4 Everybody's Dream Book     anon.    
5 How to Make Friends Easily     S. Currie
6 Everybody's Book of Jokes and Wisecracks     Jerome Gregory
7 The Voice of Experience     [Marion Sayle Taylor]
8 Favorite Poems     Henry C. Brown (ed.) 
9 Enter the G-Men     William Engle
10 1000 Facts Worth Knowing     [Joseph Nathan Kane]

April 12, 1941:

11 How to Win and Hold a Husband     Lucille Martin
12 The World's Great Love Affairs     Eleanor Packer (ed.)
13 Children's Favorite Stories      E. Lewis
14 The Lone Ranger and the Secret of Thunder Mountain     Fran Striker
15 Poems of Passion     Ella Wheeler Wilcox
16 Grimms' Fairy Tales     Emily Wayne  E. Lewis
17 Private Lives of Movie Stars     Eleanor Packer (ed.)
18 Love on the Run     Fred MacIsaac
19 The Tower of Flame [and] Jaragu of the Lost Islands     Rex Beach
20 The Story of Rabelais and Voltaire     Hendrik Willem van Loon

September 6, 1941:

25 Nobody Heard the Shot     Donald Barr Chidsey