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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Avon Paperbacks of A. Merritt: Going from This Land Here to That

One of the most prolific and well-known of the original pulp masters, A. Merritt had his fiction published for decades by Avon. These are the 1970s reprints, featuring some pretty stellar paperback cover art! As his Wikipedia entry states, "Merritt's stories typically revolve around conventional pulp magazine themes: lost civilizations, hideous monsters, etc." Oh, etc.: love it! Also: "His heroes are gallant Irishmen or Scandinavians, his villains treacherous Germans or Russians, and his heroines often virginal, mysterious and scantily clad." Oh, scantily clad: love it! Honestly I don't think I've read anything by him, but these would look pretty great on my shelves...
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8 comments:

  1. Tim WhitcherSeptember 18, 2013 at 7:48 AM

    As a big fan of Lovecraft, I must thank you for posting on A. Merritt, whose prose seems to be in the same vein.

    I found it rather amusing that I could envision his book titles as the titles of heavy metal songs, as well!

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  2. LK UltraSeptember 18, 2013 at 4:58 PM

    I recommend his novel 'Burn, Witch, Burn'. 30s style mobsters vs. a Witch. Need I say more?

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  3. AdamSeptember 18, 2013 at 9:07 PM

    This is the copy of The Moon Pool I have. Have had it for over ten years but never gotten around to reading it.

    http://www.fanboy.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/04-Don-Ivan-Punchatz.jpg

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  4. UnknownSeptember 23, 2013 at 2:10 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  5. highwaykneesMay 22, 2016 at 9:27 AM

    These covers are all cool! That frog monster dude looks like his been pumping some iron too. Quite the physique!

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  6. DeuceFebruary 21, 2017 at 12:45 PM

    Have you read any Merritt yet? Wagner and Bloch both loved BURN, WITCH, BURN. Merritt was one of the few authors that HPL, CAS and Robert E. Howard all admired.

    BTW, this is a great site!

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  7. Will ErricksonFebruary 22, 2017 at 9:19 AM

    Deuce, I have not read any Merritt... perhaps a story here or there when I was a teenager first getting into those pulp writers, but that was long ago! Adding BWB to my to-read list, thanks. Glad you like the blog!

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  8. Dr. CaligariApril 23, 2019 at 3:17 PM

    Merritt can be a fun read, but a lot of his plots are very similar to each other, and his prose has dated a bit (or more than a bit). I agree with the recommendation of "Burn, Witch, Burn," but I would especially recommend "Seven Footsteps to Satan." Most of Merritt's books involve lost races on far-off continents, but "Seven Footsteps" is New York-set urban horror.

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