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Post by ChrisLAdams on Jan 28, 2019 8:17:39 GMT -5
With awesome covers like that it might be time to make a digital inventory of your collection? Not a bad idea
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Post by deuce on Jul 6, 2019 21:02:53 GMT -5
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Post by deuce on Aug 3, 2019 0:19:11 GMT -5
A friend of mine was displaying the "page one" typescript page of Dwellers in the Mirage (which he now owns) on Facebook and Chet Willamson, one of the grand old men of horror/weird fiction, commented, "Wow indeed — Holy Grail stuff here." I didn't know Chet was a Merritt fan, but I'm not surprised. Chet's ISFDB page: www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1278
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Post by sorcerer on Aug 3, 2019 15:31:51 GMT -5
He has work online here; which story would you suggest I read first?
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Aug 4, 2019 9:00:17 GMT -5
He has work online here; which story would you suggest I read first? The Ship of Ishtar was where I lost my Merritt cherry. Excellent tale.
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Post by sorcerer on Aug 4, 2019 10:01:38 GMT -5
OK; I'll let you know what I think!
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Post by dougellis on Aug 21, 2019 15:40:19 GMT -5
A few weeks ago, Deuce alluded to me in this thread -- not by name -- in connection with owning the original manuscript for "Dwellers in the Mirage." The fuller story on this is that a few weeks ago, my company, Adventure Pulp LLC, acquired the rights to the works of A. Merritt. I'm already chatting with some folks regarding a few possible projects, and I hope to have some exciting Merritt publishing news soon! But I'm very open to hearing suggestions from other folks. Along with the rights, I acquired the remaining papers and art owned by the Merritt estate. Included within them were several manuscripts, including the one for "Dwellers", which I'll post here. Among the art was several originals by Virgil Finlay. Argosy reprinted Merritt's classic "Seven Footprints to Satan" in five installments in 1939, starting with the June 24, 1939 issue. Merritt insisted that they use Finlay (with whom Merritt was working at American Weekly) to provide the illustrations for the story. This was Finlay's entry into the Munsey pulps, and besides further work for Argosy, he would shortly be turning out great work for two of Munsey's other pulps, Famous Fantastic Mysteries and Fantastic Novels. Here's the illo for the first installment which I picked up as part of this deal. Attachments:
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Aug 22, 2019 7:47:08 GMT -5
A few weeks ago, Deuce alluded to me in this thread -- not by name -- in connection with owning the original manuscript for "Dwellers in the Mirage." The fuller story on this is that a few weeks ago, my company, Adventure Pulp LLC, acquired the rights to the works of A. Merritt. I'm already chatting with some folks regarding a few possible projects, and I hope to have some exciting Merritt publishing news soon! But I'm very open to hearing suggestions from other folks. Along with the rights, I acquired the remaining papers and art owned by the Merritt estate. Included within them were several manuscripts, including the one for "Dwellers", which I'll post here. Among the art was several originals by Virgil Finlay. Argosy reprinted Merritt's classic "Seven Footprints to Satan" in five installments in 1939, starting with the June 24, 1939 issue. Merritt insisted that they use Finlay (with whom Merritt was working at American Weekly) to provide the illustrations for the story. This was Finlay's entry into the Munsey pulps, and besides further work for Argosy, he would shortly be turning out great work for two of Munsey's other pulps, Famous Fantastic Mysteries and Fantastic Novels. Here's the illo for the first installment which I picked up as part of this deal. Doug, This is all very exciting. I've seen your posts on Facebook ( The A. Merritt Fan Group). Would have loved to have made it to the Windy City Pulp convention and met you there and seen some of this Merritt stuff up close. That's Holy Grail material, my friend. Really looking forward to seeing what you and Adventure Pulp LLC do with the material. What has excited me in recent years is the effort done by Hippocampus, Paizo and Altus Press to restore the expurgated texts to their original magazine appearance. I recently finished reading the restored version of The Metal Monster and really enjoyed getting immersed in the same version Lovecraft read and became enthused about. Any effort geared toward restoration of the texts would for sure be welcome indeed. You might have seen links from Dave Ritzlin of DMR Books to a couple of articles he was kind enough to publish on his blog relative to Merritt (and thanks go out to Deuce who extended the invitation in the first place). For posterity, I'll provide links to these. For the Merritt fan, you might enjoy the photos. All come from my own collection, sparse though it be. Collecting Merritt: You Collect Who? Collecting Merritt: The Metal MonsterDo keep us posted, Doug, as your plans firm up. It's really super news.
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Post by dougellis on Aug 24, 2019 19:19:20 GMT -5
Chris,
Thanks. I actually read those great posts of yours several months back. Dave is a friend of mine; we had lunch two weeks ago and discussed the Merritt acquisition a bit.
There's definitely some interesting stuff in the material that's not been seen before. For example, for "Dwellers in the Mirage," it's common knowledge that the Argosy editors had Merritt change the ending for its original appearance in 1932, but Merritt's preferred ending later appeared in the fanzine, Bizarre in 1941, and then in the Fantastic Novels reprint later in 1941. I have around a half dozen slightly different versions of that preferred ending in manuscript, which appear to have been written around 1940. But even more interesting, I have the original ending that Merritt wrote in 1931, which has never been published. It's the same in concept as the 1941 ending, but it's not the same.
Best, Doug
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Post by dougellis on Aug 25, 2019 17:06:03 GMT -5
Still digging through the Merritt stuff. I thought folks might enjoy seeing this, page 26 of the manuscript for "The Face in the Abyss," giving a glimpse at Merritt at work, editing his own material. Attachments:
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Aug 26, 2019 7:53:26 GMT -5
Still digging through the Merritt stuff. I thought folks might enjoy seeing this, page 26 of the manuscript for "The Face in the Abyss," giving a glimpse at Merritt at work, editing his own material. Amazing pieces there, Doug! Gads, I'd love to have something like that framed, hanging in my office. And thanks for the comments on the articles I wrote for Dave's site; they were fun projects and I learned a lot doing the research. As you mentioned, Merritt had multiple endings for many (if not all) of his stories as he worked through converting them from magazine to hardback, etc. Precisely what you mentioned about the multiple endings and unpublished versions (ie 7 Footprints) is what I would love to see with new releases. There are so many expurgated editions, it's high time that corrected versions, or "Merritt's preferred ending" versions\editions were released, as with the editions I mentioned earlier by Hippocampus, et al. It was great to read the lengthier text of The Metal Monster. I feel like I enjoyed the novel more than the first go-round years ago, and that I got more out of it. BTW, on the topic of The Metal Monster, there's not been an official book release of The Metal Emperor. I bought a facsimile of it from James van Hise who has produced the only edition that I know of available other than the original magazine version. That's a ripe opportunity there, Doug--to release the first book format of Emperor. By Norhala, I'd buy it.
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Aug 26, 2019 7:57:04 GMT -5
Still digging through the Merritt stuff. I thought folks might enjoy seeing this, page 26 of the manuscript for "The Face in the Abyss," giving a glimpse at Merritt at work, editing his own material. Another marketing stratagem that just occurred to me, Doug, is that of reproducing Merritt's typed, hand-corrected MSs such as you attached. My, that would be a fascinating thing to behold --- an edition of Face in the Abyss or Seven Footprints, in Merritt's typewriter font, with his scribbles and hand corrections. It's something to ponder....
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Post by dougellis on Aug 26, 2019 16:28:19 GMT -5
I agree with you, Chris, that books reproducing the typed, handcorrected manuscripts would be cool, but I'm not sure there'd be enough of a market.
And strange you mention "The Metal Emperor." I have the manuscript of that, but entitled "The Metal Horde," and it has slight differences from the Gernsback published version. That book is definitely on the radar!
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Post by dougellis on Aug 26, 2019 19:58:48 GMT -5
Among the Merritt material I recently acquired was copy #1 of the New Collectors Group printing of Merritt's "The Fox Woman" along with Hannes Bok's "The Blue Pagoda," which finished Merritt's tale. This was the presentation copy sent to Merritt's widow, Eleanor. Glued to the front free endpaper was a review of the book cut out from the February 2, 1947 issue of the New York Herald Tribune. But what really makes this copy unique is the original Bok drawing on page 27, shown here. Attachments:
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Post by ChrisLAdams on Aug 27, 2019 7:22:42 GMT -5
I agree with you, Chris, that books reproducing the typed, handcorrected manuscripts would be cool, but I'm not sure there'd be enough of a market. And strange you mention "The Metal Emperor." I have the manuscript of that, but entitled "The Metal Horde," and it has slight differences from the Gernsback published version. That book is definitely on the radar! For sure, this one might be a good Kickstarter project, make sure the funds are there before taking the leap. I think sprinkling with good quality reproductions of the original art plus the manuscript might be a lure; for sure, the market would need to be tested out. You've got material most Merritt fans will never see, let alone be able to own. A work such as this is as close as 'the rest of us' would ever get. Looking forward to see what you guys do in the future, Doug. I'll support your endeavors however I can.
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