Nathaniel,
Re your message below:
> Hello everyone - I'm new to the list, so if I
breach
> a
> sacred tenet
> of (n?)etiquette, please hasten to let me
know.
Welcome to the list. It's a great group of knowledgeable and
interesting people, and I think you'll enjoy it.
> In doing some research on the history of
> autograph
> collecting, I found the following definition
and
> citation
> in the
> Random House Historical Dictionary of
American
> Slang:
>
-----------------------------------------------------------
> --------
> autograph hound n. a collector of autographs,
esp.
> an
> offensive person who clamor for the autographs
of
> celebrities. Now colloq.
>
> 1933 in Ruhm [ital]Detective[/ital] 72: He was
an
> autograph
> hound....He collected autographs. Autographs of
all
> the
> stars....He had five hundred of 'em.
I think it is, as you surmised, perhaps a reference to the
Herbert Ruhm anthology of hard-boiled mystery short stories
from BLACK MASK. I would imagine that 72 refers to 1972
which, IIRC, was the copyright date, though it could also
refer to the page number from which the quotation is taken.
Which story is being quoted is difficult to say without
having the book in front of me. If it's from one of the
stories, rather than the introduction, it's odd that it was
attributed to the editor, rather than to the author of the
original story.
JIM DOHERTY
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