Happy October, Friends and Colleagues,

The neighborhood is decked out with pumpkins, cobwebs, and the antics of skeletons as leaves have begun to pile around them, and so we've gathered a batch of titles to match the mood. We've started with a few horror classics of the silver screen before moving on to print, the latter arranged roughly by publication or initial appearance. An unexpected pleasure from a recent collection has been paging through a trove of volumes from Ash-Tree Press, a Canadian horror and supernatural publisher who revived and collected many overlooked or under-appreciated authors from the Victorian era up through the pulps into newly edited and contextualized editions, with a special fondness for occult / psychic detective fiction. More Ash-Tree volumes can be found on our website here, as well as by browsing our larger horror category. Thanks for looking, and we hope your month has been as festively spooky as ours.

Happy Halloween,
The CHB Team

1. LEROUX, Gaston; André Castaigne [illus.]; [Alexander Teixeira de Mattos] [trans.]. The Phantom of the Opera.

New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1911. First American Edition. Octavo (7 7/16"x 5"); [viii], 357pp. Five full-color illustrations — frontis with tissue guard and four double-page plates — all present. Scarce original illustrated dust jacket with $1.25 net price to spine; book in publisher's brown cloth with blindstamped Phantom and cream lettering. "Press of Braunworth & Co. Bookbinders and Printers Brooklyn, N.Y." imprint at bottom of copyright. Jacket shows a few shallow chips and tears along edges, with internal tape repair at front fold, tail of spine, and top back panel (browned), and with one clear external tape repair (1") at top front corner over fold, along with some general light scuffs — affecting a few letters — moderate smudging / darkening to surface — mainly to white of spine and back panel — and a faint waterspot to spine below price. Boards lightly bumped at corners with a bit of rubbing along bottom edges and nudging to spine ends, with a faint vertical crease to cloth diagonally down much of the spine. Half title / frontis separating cleanly along gutter but still holding by about an inch near top. Tissue guard flat and clean. Illustrations bright. Falls open easily between gatherings, but binding is sound. Pages unmarked. 

Exceptionally scarce in the original jacket, with this being an unusually intact example despite the noted imperfections. One of now a few known variants — this copy featuring the Phantom in the bell tower, with another known design using the frontis illustration of the Phantom descending stairs and the third using the interior plate of Christine staggering and swooning. A variant of the bell tower jacket appeared at auction in 2016 — without a price printed on the spine, apparently so booksellers could assign their own — along with the suggestion that the bell tower design carried priority, but with only a half dozen or so surviving jackets among all variants combined and the rather recent appearance of the Christine Swooning design on another copy of this edition, it's difficult to establish with certainty. 

The American Edition of Phantom, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, followed the French by a year — itself appearing just a couple months after the novel's serialization in Le Gaulois from September of 1909 to January of 1910. The novel and its Phantom have been adapted, reimagined, parodied, and referenced as widely as fellow Gothic canon-mates such as Dracula or Frankenstein's monster — the best almost certainly being the 1925 silent Universal Pictures version starring Lon Chaney Sr, and the most successful appearing in 1986 with Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical, which is currently the longest-running show in Broadway History.    

$30,000

6. POE, Edgar Allan. The Murders in the Rue Morgue, and Other Tales of Horror [Photoplay Edition].

New York: Grosset & Dunlap, [1932]. Photoplay Edition. Octavo; [iv], 315pp +1 ads. Seven stills, one folding, all present. Film still endpapers. Illustrated dust jacket over publisher's red cloth with black lettering Green topstain. Jacket shows a number of chips and small tears along edges, with a larger tear down front joint a few inches along then across spine, and another at bottom front along flap fold, with darkening to spine and general toning / soiling along edges and some smudging to surface. Spotting and toning to jacket interior, with some soiling along top inside edge. Boards are square, with a small split at head of spine and nudging to head and tail, a small dent to back board at top, and some general smudging along top edge. Wear showing to endpapers along hinges. Book opens easily between a few gatherings, but binding is holding soundly. Some foxing to plates and adjacent pages. Pencil erasure at top recto corner of frontis, else pages unmarked.

Photoplay edition published to accompany the 1932 Universal Pictures film starring Bela Lugosi. 

[Davis p. 155; Miller p. 102] 

$750

7. LOVELACE, Delos W[heeler] [novelization]; Edgar Wallace & Merian C. Cooper [story]. King Kong [Photoplay Edition; Signed by Fay Wray].

New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1932. First Edition; Photoplay Edition. Signed by Fay Wray with brief dedication on front free endpaper. Octavo; [vi], 249pp +1 ads. Publisher's green cloth with black lettering. Black topstain. Photo montage endpapers. Missing dust jacket. Boards lightly shelfworn with a small puncture to middle of spine near front joint, nudging to spine ends, and some general scuffs and smudges to cloth. Opens easily between a few gatherings with a crack just starting between pages 10-11, but binding is holding soundly. Pages unmarked.

Photoplay edition published in promotion of the classic 1933 RKO Pictures film starring Fay Wray. Based on an idea by Merian C. Cooper and filtered through screenwriter Edgar Wallace, Lovelace's novelization appeared a couple months ahead of the film's release as one of the few official promotional materials issued for the film. This copy signed by the original scream queen Fay Wray, who played the film's protagonist and imperiled Kong-captive Ann Darrow.

[Davis p. 116; Miller p. 79; Bleiler '78 p. 127; Reginald 09268]

$1,500

8. HERSHENSON, Bruce & Richard Allen [eds.] Horror Sci-Fi & Fantasy Movie Posters: Volume Eleven of the Illustrated History of Movies Through Posters. Images From the Hershenson-Allen Archive [Signed Limited Edition].

West Plains, MO: Bruce Hershenson, 1999. Limited Edition of 300 copies signed by Hershenson on title page, this being number #142. Quarto. Unpaginated. Illustrated boards. No dust jacket as issued. Boards show light edgewear. Binding is sound and pages clean and unmarked. 

A visual compendium of full-color movie posters, mostly from 1950 through the mid-nineties, but beginning with some earlier classics.

$75

9. GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von; Harry Clarke [illus.]; John Anster [trans.]. Faust.

New York: Dingwall Rock Limited, [1925.] Limited Edition #729 of 1000 copies, American issue, signed by Clarke on limitation page. Quarto. 254 pp. 21 black and white and color plates with numerous additional black and white illustrations throughout. Original vellum-back paper covered boards with gilt lettering to spine. Illustrated endpapers. No dust jacket.

Light soiling to vellum, bit of edgewear to boards with very brief exposure and one small chip to front. Binding is sound. Ownership inscription to second free endpaper, but overall pages clean and unmarked. 

$575

10. JEWETT, Sarah Orne; Jessica Amanda Salmonson [ed.]. Lady Ferry and Other Uncanny People [Limited Edition, Signed by Salmonson].

Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 1998. First Thus, Limited to 500 copies. Octavo; publisher's cloth in pictorial dust jacket; xxiv,146pp.; illus. throughout. Very light toning to jacket extremities, else Near Fine. Signed by the editor on title page.

Collection of Jewett's supernatural stories, with an introductory essay by Salmonson on Jewett's "Imaginative Realism."

$75

11. LEE, Vernon [pseud. of Violet Paget]. Hauntings: The Supernatural Stories.

Ashcroft, BC: Ash-Tree Press, 2002. Limited Edition of 600 copies. Octavo; xix, 370pp. Illustrated dust jacket over black cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Jacket is clean and crisp with a light spot of rubbing along top back and a couple superficial scratches to surface. Boards are sturdy and square. Binding is sound and pages unmarked. 

Collection of Lee's supernatural tales, compiling stories from Hauntings: Fantastic Stories (1890), Pope Jacynth and Other Fantastic Tales (1904), and For Maurice: Five Unlikely Tales (1927), along with two stories from the 2005 Wildside Press volume Vanitas: Polite Stories and the previously uncollected tale "The Hidden Door."

$60

12. CHAMBERS, Robert W[illiam]. The Maker of Moons.

New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1896. First Edition. Octavo; x, 401pp +2 ads. Frontis with tissue guard. Publisher's blue cloth with gilt, white, and orange illustration and lettering. Green topstain, with deckled fore-edge. Boards show some general surface smudging and soiling, with fading and darkening to spine, nudging at spine ends, and a few scratches to gilt of illustration on front. Two-inch crack to rear hinge, with pages opening a bit easily between gatherings, but binding is holding soundly. 1896 Christmas inscription in pencil on title page, else pages unmarked.

Collection of short fiction published just after Chambers' better-known The King in Yellow, which is often seen as an influential bridge from the Victorian ghosts and gothic tradition to the cosmic, mythos-driven horror of Lovecraft and the Arkham crowd that followed.

[Bleiler Supernatural 365] 

$150

13. PRICHARD, Kate & Hesketh. Jack Adrian [ed.]. The Experiences of Flaxman Low.

Ashcroft, BC: Ash-Tree Press, 2003. Limited Edition of 500 copies. Octavo; xxi, 147pp. Illustrated dust jacket over black cloth boards with gilt lettering to spine. Jacket shows very faint edgewear and hints of smudging to back, but no chips, tears, or marks. Boards are sturdy and square. Binding is sound and pages unmarked. 

Collection of the mother-and-son duo's Flaxman Low stories, a character credited as being the first Psychic Detective in fiction. The stories first appeared under the pseudonym E. and H. Heron in Pearson's Magazine from 1898-1899, then issued in book form as Ghosts: Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low under their actual names in 1899. 

$50

14. HODGSON, William Hope. Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder.

Sauk City: Mycroft & Moran, 1947. First Edition. 3050 copies printed. Small octavo; [viii], 241pp. Illustrated dust jacket with $3.00 price intact; book in black cloth with gilt lettering and decoration to spine. Jacket show a few shallow chips and tears at corners and folds, with a couple small closed tears along edges and some toning to white of back panel. Boards are square with nudging to spine ends and some scuffing to cloth along bottom edge. Small superficial dampstain to bottom of textblock about a half inch out from spine, not seeping up into pages themselves. Binding is sound and pages unmarked. 

Collection of tales involving Hodgson's psychic detective. Six of the stories appeared in the 1913 British edition, but the final three were acquired from Hodgson's estate and had their book debut in this volume. The second offering of Arkham's Mycroft and Moran imprint.

[Joshi M2]

$70

15. POE, Edgar Allan; Harry Clarke [illus.] Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

New York: Brentano's, [ca. 1923]. Early edition with no additional printings on copyright. Quarto. 412 pages. 32 plates including frontis, 8 of which are full-color and tipped in. Illustrated dust jacket. Publisher's black cloth-covered boards with illustrated title card and gilt lettering to spine. Black topstain. Housed in publisher's box with color illustration mounted to front.

Dust jacket lightly rubbed along edges with two very short, closed tears. Boards show just a hint of wear to extremities. Binding is sound. Frontis plate lightly worn and creased at one corner, but overall interior is clean and unmarked. Publisher's box cracked and exposed at corners, with top portion loose but holding at two corners. Still a near fine copy in a very good or better jacket of one of the iconic works of the golden age of book illustration. 

$1,000

16. QUINN, Seabury. The Phantom Fighter: Ten Memoirs of Jules de Grandin, Sometime Member of La Sûreté Général, La Faculté de Medicine Légal de Paris, Etc., Etc.

Sauk City: Mycroft & Moran, 1966. First Edition. 2022 copies printed. Small octavo; viii, [viv-v], 263pp. Frank Utpatel-illustrated dust jacket with original $5.00 price intact; book in black cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Jacket shows Arkham House imprint at tail, but with Mycroft and Moran on book itself. Jacket lightly shelfworn, with a bit of smudging and toning to back panel. Boards are sturdy and square. Binding is sound and pages unmarked.

An selection of stories starring Quinn's Jules de Graudin, occult detective, who, according to Bleiler "was long the most popular series character in [Weird Tales]." Bleiler continues, "His Adventures against ghosts, vampires, sadistic German scientists, werewolves, elementals and similar supersensory riffraff eventually amounted to more than 90 stories."

[Joshi M8; Bleiler Supernatural 1362]

$70

17. LOVECRAFT, H[oward] P[hillips]. 3 Tales of Horror.

Sauk City: Arkham House, 1967. First Edition. 1522 copies printed. Small quarto (9.25" x 7"); 134pp. Illustrations throughout. Illustrated dust jacket with original $7.50 price intact; book in black cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Jacket shows a couple tiny closed tears along edges, with some creasing along top back, rubbing at spine ends, and some general light smudging to white of back panel and flaps. Boards are square with some rubbing along top edge. Faint crease at top corner of a number of pages throughout, not involving text. Binding is sound and pages unmarked. 

Illustrated edition collecting Lovecraft's stories "The Colour Out of Space," "The Dunwich Horror," and "The Thing on the Doorstep."

[Joshi 93]

$300

18. LOVECRAFT, H[oward] P[hillips]; Marc A. Michaud [ed.]; Frank Belknap Long [fwd.]. The Conservative: Complete 1915-1923.

West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press, 1977. First Edition, Limited Second Issue. Signed by Michaud without inscription and numbered 38 of a stated 2500 copies, though by all accounts the actual run was closer to 400. Preceded in October 1976 by a first limited edition of 50 copies. Saddle-stapled red paper wraps (8.5" x 11"); [ii], 123 foliated pages. Covers very faintly shelfworn along edges. Some foxing to fore-edge and bottom of text block, but interior is clean, bright, and unmarked. Binding is sound.

Complete text from the Lovecraft-edited and sporadically self-published journal of politics, commentary, and literature, with regular contributions by Lovecraft himself. 

$75

19. BOWEN, Marjorie [pseud. of Margaret Gabrielle Vere Long, née Campbell]; Jessica Amanda Salmonson [ed.]. Twilight and Other Supernatural Romances.

Ashcroft, BC: Ash-Tree Press, 1998. Limited Edition of 500 copies. Octavo; xl, 261pp. Illustrated dust jacket over maroon cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Jacket is clean and crisp with no significant signs of shelfwear. Boards are sturdy and square. Binding is sound and pages unmarked. 

Collection of supernatural tales by Bowen, who in her time was better known as a historical novelist. Her first novel, The Viper of Milan, was a favorite of Graham Greene's, who wrote a foreword for its 1960 reissue.

$75

20. MERRITT, A[braham Grace]. Burn Witch Burn!

New York: Liveright, 1933. First Edition. Octavo; xii, [xiii-xiv], 15-301pp. Illustrated dust jacket with $2.00 price intact; book in black cloth with gilt lettering. Red topstain. Jacket shows a few couple large angled tears along top with smaller tears and chips along edges; top 1.25" of spine is missing (including the first "Burn" of the title); extensive amateur tape repair / reinforcement with a sort of masking tape on verso, which our plucky conservationist has colored in black where it fills the space of the missing spine section. Jacket also shows scuffing and rubbing down folds and some general expected smudging and toning. Boards rubbed along edges, with bumping at corners and spine ends and a few scuffs and smudges to surface. Spine a bit cocked. Rear hinge cracking, with book falling open easily between a few gatherings, but binding is holding soundly. Pages a bit toned but unmarked. 

A modern black magic tale with evil reanimated dolls, and the most fun of Merritt's titles to say out loud. Basis for the 1936 Tod Browning film starring Lionel Barrymore and Maureen O'Sullivan, but *not* the basis for the 1962 British film Night of the Eagle (retitled Burn, Witch, Burn! in its US release), which itself was based on Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife.

[Currey p. 364; Bleiler Supernatural 1160] 

$600