Stopped in at a local used bookstore yesterday that I've been going to for 20 years now and unexpectedly found a treasure trove of horror fiction in near-mint condition! Obviously someone had just traded in their entire collection of 1980s horror paperbacks. I couldn't afford to buy everything I wanted, and there was plenty I already own - nearly complete Ramsey Campbell, full
Shadows and
Whispers series, and the Michael Whelan editions of Lovecraft. I deemed these pictured above - Etchison, Blackwood, Wagner, Grant, etc - the essential purchases. Such a rush finding 'em. Only problem: I don't know what to read next!
I AM NOT JEALOUS, NOT AT ALL.
ReplyDeleteMay I ask which bookstore it was?
Hi Will
ReplyDeleteWhat a treasure trove. I work at a library, so I don't buy books, well hardly, at all anymore, but we do have a "Friends of the Library" section, where we put donations for sale. They are dirt cheap, and the proceeds go to the Friends who buy us stuff for the library. My point is, if you haven't already checked out your local library, I'll bet they have books for sale too. It's definitely a hit and miss, but sometimes people do donate their whole collections. Also, we have one person in charge of the collection, and they can't display all of them, they're are just too many, so they have a ton in the back, so if you do check it out, you might want to hit up the person in charge of their collection, and ask them to hit you up when they get horror books. Anywho, love the Lovecraft find. What a peach. Until next time...Keep those fires stoked.
Eternally Yours
Warden Stokely
Warden Stokely Horrorzine
Wow!
ReplyDeleteI found 'em at Reader's Corner in Raleigh.
ReplyDelete*drool*
ReplyDeleteNice haul, good sir. If only some horror hound would shrug off his horror collection so I might pick its bones.
An absolute treasure trove you've unearthed there! Blackwood, Lovecraft AND Campbell? Happy reading.
ReplyDeletenice haul...be especially careful to hang on to the DAW Book with the striking Michael Whelan cover: 'The Year's Best Horror Stories Series V'.
ReplyDeleteOne of the better entries in the series, hard to find nowadays,and worth quite a bit of money, depending on its condition (a copy currently for sale at amazon.com is priced at $15)
tarbandu
That YEAR'S BEST V I bought solely for the cover; there were lots more in the series on the shelf but I seriously needed to be just a *bit* aware of my bank account! So it was the only one I bought. As it stands I have 10 of that series, which I think topped out at 23 or 24. One day soon...
ReplyDeleteMan, I gotta say. Your local used bookshop beats the hell outta mine. I've been staring at the same V.C. Andrews and Dean Koontz dregs since I started high school.
ReplyDeleteI am also cxurious as to the titles you would have picked up if you had more money (what did you leave behind)?
ReplyDeleteAlejandro - usually they *never* have this kind of selection, and I buy one or two titles at a time.
ReplyDeleteBlofeld's Cat - more Charles Grant's Oxrun Station novels in great condition; a couple Ramsey Campbell's I don't own; some HOT BLOOD volumes; most of YEAR'S BEST HORROR series; random other '80s horror anthos... I may have to swing by again after another couple weeks!
Ooohhh...Best of the lot is that pair in the center: Karl Edward Wagner's In A Lonely Place and Richard Christian Matheson's Scars and Other Distinguishing Marks. Nice score.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteI have the entire run of Year's Best Horror, back when completed my collection off of ABE only the last few were really expensive. I have most of the Fontana Books of Horror and Ghost series and the Pan Books of Horror also, but some of these are ridiculously priced, to the point when I won't ever get them.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I mainly collect HBs, I was amazed at how much shelf space my PB collection took up when I finally unboxed everything after a move and inheritance of a deceased sibling's collection. We had surprisingly few duplicates considering our similar tastes (twins).
I don't know what will become of it all after I die, whichever of my cousins are involved in settling my affairs will probably donate it or sell it to a book dealer for a pittance.
I once emailed a college with a military history program about donating that part of my collection, but didn't get a reply. Hmmmph!
I counted the other day and I have 39 bookscases (although some hold VHS tapes or CDs/DVDs).
I will always kick myself for not buying what I assume was the original painting of Years Best Horror VI (the skeletal hobo) when I saw it in Barry's Magic Shop, Wheaton MD for $200, c. 1980. That is probably my favorite of the covers, that or YBH X (another Whelan, the King of Terrors). I once put a beat-up duplicate copy on the Please Take table at work and no one wanted it.
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