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THE RAREST OF THE RARE!
The subject here is rare books--really rare books.
If you’re a book collector than you know as well as I
do that there will always be those impossibly scarce volumes that
seem destined to remain tantalizingly out of reach. Below I’ve listed
several titles I’ve been actively searching out, seemingly forever.
Thus the following is an admittedly self-serving
survey, and not a catch-all listing of rare genre-themed books
(such a list would require far more room, and patience, than I’ve got).
Nor am I too concerned with edition or condition, as what I’m after are
strictly the books themselves, which at the moment are all-but
impossible to come by.
THE AGONIZING RESURRECTON OF VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN & OTHER GOTHIC TALES
OF TERROR by THOMAS LIGOTTI
Back in the late nineties I actually had a
chance--several, actually!--to purchase this book, a limited edition
collection of stories and nonfiction pieces by the great Thomas Ligotti…but
I unfortunately elected to wait. A BIG mistake, as it’s now an
unspeakably expensive collector’s item.
ARRABAL PLAYS Volume 4 by FERNANDO ARRABAL
I’m unabashedly fanatic about the work of Spain’s
Fernando
Arrabal (of VIVA LA MUERTE and FANDO & LIS infamy). I’ve
currently got every available English translation of his plays and
novels but this, the fourth volume of John Calder’s Arrabal drama
compilation series. It’s said to contain English translations of
Arrabal’s plays CEREMONY FOR A MURDERED BLACK and ARS AMANDI, yet I’ve
never come across a copy, for sale or otherwise. This would seem to
indicate that the book was never published, but I have seen
listings for it, and so will continue to keep an eye out--futilely I’m
sure!
BEAUTY LABYRINTH OF RAZORS by JUN HAYAMI
 This
adults-only manga is a compilation of stories by Jun Hayami, one of the
most extreme of Japan’s “ero-gro” (erotic-grotesque) artists. Creation
Books was going to publish it in 2006 but the book was apparently so
disgusting the printers refused to print it! Creation allegedly
responded by briefly putting out the book as an e-text, although I’ve
never met anyone who owns one.
More recently Creation decided to make BEAUTY LABYRINTH
OF RAZORS available once again, this time printing it themselves in a
super-limited edition of just 69 copies, priced at a whopping $80
apiece. If you’re interested there may be a few copies of this sickie
still available--be sure and tell me how it is!
COUNT DRACULA’S CANADIAN AFFAIR by OTTO FREDRICK
One for the too-stupid-to-ignore category, a
sixties-era DRACULA pastiche that finds everybody’s favorite bloodsucker
taking on Canadian Mounties. Right now a single copy of this rarity is
available on the bookfinder sights, priced around $70--and I’m not sure
I want to read it that much!
THE CURSE OF LATOMBA by EDWARD HYDE
This listing is something of a cheat in that I’ve
already got this book, a wholly unique publication that presents a
horror story in the form of a tabloid newspaper, complete with goofy
classified ads. Yet my
review of THE CURSE OF LATOMBA, posted a couple years ago,
has engendered quite a few interested queries, and I’ve been searching
for another copy on behalf of my readers ever since. Thus far I’ve had
no luck finding one.
DEEP RED ALERT #1 Edited by CHAS BALUN
The late Chas Balun edited this slim volume in 1991,
the first of two self-published DEEP RED “Alerts”--essentially uniquely
packaged issues of Balun’s DEEP RED magazine. I’ve got all of Balun’s
other books (and a good thing, as most are all-but impossible to
locate), but this one continues to elude me.
FREAK MUSEUM by R.R. RYAN
R.R. Ryan (actually Evelyn Bradley) was a British
author of ahead-of-their-time 1940s-era chillers like THE SUBJUGATED
BEAST and ECHO OF A CURSE. These days Ryan’s books are so incredibly
rare that only a single copy of each (all from the collection of
the late Karl Edward Wagner) is known to exist! The sole exception is
ECHO OF A CURSE, reprinted in 2004 by Midnight House. I wish they’d do
the same for Ryan’s FREAK MUSEUM, as based on Wagner’s description (in
THE TWILIGHT ZONE MAGAZINE’S essential “Five Foot Fantasy Bookshelf”) it
sounds like a hoot.
GRIMHAVEN by CHARLES WILLEFORD
The late Charles Willeford was one of the great hard
boiled writers of all time, and GRIMHAVEN is one of his most intriguing
yet elusive books. It’s the original draft of his 1985 novel NEW HOPE
FOR THE DEAD, and the second entry in Willeford’s Hoke Mosley saga.
Detective Hoke Mosley was introduced in the brilliant MIAMI BLUES
(1984), but Willeford apparently had no interest in writing a series,
and so in this follow-up had the character go mad and kill his two
children. Willeford’s agent convinced him not to send the novel out to
publishers, and he ended up reworking it as the more palatable NEW HOPE
FOR THE DEAD.
Yet GRIMHAVEN still exists in manuscript form at
Florida’s Broward County Library. This is per the wishes of Willeford’s
widow, who’s been quite zealous about keeping the manuscript away from
publishers (and in confiscating the Xeroxed copies that have inevitably
appeared on the internet). I don’t understand her determination to keep
GRIMHAVEN out of the public eye, as those lucky few who’ve read it claim
it’s quite good--bleak and disturbing, maybe, but good.
THE LATE BREAKFASTERS by ROBERT AICKMAN
Of this witty and eccentric haunted house novel from
1964, the late Robert Aickman, one of the 20th Century's true genre
maestros, claimed that to know what he was “about” one need only read
it. Easier said than done!
THE LATE BREAKFASTERS was never published in the US,
and nor is it too common in its author’s native England. It may be the
rarest of all Aickman’s publications, having been reprinted just once in
the late 1970s before unaccountably vanishing from sight.
LORD HORROR by DAVID BRITTON
A “holy grail” of quite a few literary horror buffs,
this one included!
This wild alternate Holocaust novel is legendary,
primarily because it landed its author-publisher David Britton in jail
and had much of its print run confiscated by British authorities. Those
few copies that weren’t destroyed are all that remain, as LORD HORROR
was never reprinted (outside a heavily abridged audio reading by PJ
Proby). I’d love to own one, but don’t see that happening any time
soon--or ever.
 MINDBLOWER
by CHARLES McNAUGHTON JR.
Back in the 1960s the late Essex House put out many
XXX-rated paperbacks that are now quite scarce. In most cases that’s
probably not such a bad thing, but there exist some Essex titles that
sound worthy. Charles McNaughton Jr.’s MINDBLOWER is one, a
hallucinatory science fiction/sex saga with an admiring introduction by
Philip Jose Farmer.
That cover illustration, I must say, is quite a grabber!
NIGHTTOWN by T.E.D. KLEIN
Will this book ever surface? It’s the long
awaited second novel by T.E.D. Klein, who wowed me and a whole lot of
other readers with his first, 1984’s THE CERMONIES. NIGHTTOWN, described
by Klein as a paranoid horror novel set entirely in New York City, was
first announced back in the eighties--when it was reported that Klein
had completed and “turned in” the manuscript--and scheduled for
publication in 1996. That publication, alas, seems to have been delayed
indefinitely. By this point it’s doubtful we’ll ever see this novel, but
I can hope can’t I?
THE NUN by COUNT D’IRANCY
This novel, a depraved naughty nun relic from early
20th Century France, was supposed to be published in English
by Creation Books in 2006, but appears to have suffered a fate similar
to that of BEAUTY LABYRINTH OF RAZORS, another of Creation’s scheduled
‘06 releases. That is to say it doesn’t seem to have ever been printed,
although whether that was due to a printers’ revolt (as happened with
the other book) I don’t know. I’m also unsure if THE NUN was ever made
available as an eBook--if so then (also like the former book) I don’t
know of anyone who has one.
 PICCOLA
PULCINELLOPEDIA by P. CETRULO & LUIGI SERAFINI
The impossible-to-find second book by Luigi Serafini,
whose CODEX
SERAPHINIANUS is widely hailed as the strangest book ever
printed. Like that mind-twisting classic, this one, co-written by P.
Cetrulo, is a large format picture book told entirely through a
succession of surreal images. The subject, as I understand it, is the 17th
Century French puppet character Pulcinella, known for his beak-like nose
and extremely crafty disposition. Sounds like perfect material for the
inimitable Serafini, and a book I’d really like to peruse!
QUEEN OF HEAT by MICHAEL PERKINS
Another of those damned elusive Essex House
publications, a late-sixties novel by Michael Perkins that’s said to
cover ground similar to that of his sicko classic EVIL COMPANIONS.
A SHINY, NARROW GRIN by JANE GASKALL
An early novel by the popular fantasy writer Jane
Gaskall about a teenage vampire romance in mod London. The TWILIGHT of
its time? I wouldn’t know, as I’ve never been able to find a reasonably
(or even semi-reasonably) priced copy.
THE TIGRESS: A STRANGE LOVE STORY by WALTER SERNER
Another book that was likely never published. The
late Blast Books was set to put out the first-ever English translation
of this novel of perverse eroticism and murder, a classic in its native
German (and recently made into a crappy movie), back in 1991. For all I
know that publication may have gone ahead as scheduled, but I have yet
to find any trace of it.
 A
WRITER’S TALE by RICHARD LAYMON
Another limited edition publication that I
once had a chance to purchase at its original, affordable price--back in
1999 I even held a copy in my hands--but stupidly passed up. I’m still
kicking myself for doing so, as this autobiographical collection by the
late Richard
Laymon is now a highly sought-after rarity with little-to-no
chance of being reprinted.
That’s too bad.
--5/5/10 |