Richard Moore wrote: Miker, you let the cursor go two lines
too long when you cut and pasted the contents of the Shaw
anthology. The Derleth reference is to a fantasy/horror
anthology that he edited. The Howard Wandrei story is in that
anthology.
I have both editions and the missing stories are by Des
Ormeaux (Rosaire), Coxe and Booth. My experience is that the
hardback is not that uncommon and
I've seen decent prices on copies missing the dust jacket.
Maybe I've just been lucky.
You will notice there is no story by Erle Stanley Gardner. I
don't have his
bio handy but my memory is that he was irritated with Shaw
who he felt was claiming too much credit and would not give
permission. Gardner pointed out
that many of the better known writers in Black Mask (Hammett
was another one
besides Gardner himself) had stories in the magazine prior to
Shaw's editorship.
Chandler was angry at the story Shaw reprinted. It was one of
those that had been borrowed from for one of his novels, or
as he put it "cannibalized" and
his agent had strict instructions not to alloow any reprints
of those. Chandler (who claimed to have suggested the
anthology idea to Shaw) said he signed the permission form
while he was busy and distracted at Paramount. We know all
this detail because when Pocket Books came out with their
reprint, Chandler received a letter from E. Howard Hunt (then
with the American Embassy in Mexico City undercover for the
CIA) who complained of the
"self-plagiarism." He answered it in great detail ending with
the remark that Hunt was the only person to ever complain
other than Chandler himself.
*************** Thanks for the comments, Richard. I'm
starting to pick up bits and pieces about Black Mask, and I
do recall some of the authors getting fed up with Shaw
pushing the Hammett style. The authors did a reader poll and
Daly and Gardner came out more popular than Hammett, if I
recall correctly.
Hammett himself left the magazine a couple times, didn't he?
I think Hammett bailed on Black Mask right before Shaw came
onboard because they wouldn't pay him more money. I think
Gardner even offered to pay the difference from his own
pieces. Hammett came back when Shaw became editor and asked
Hammett to do a serial which, I'm guessing, became RED
HARVEST. The second time Hammett left the magazine he did a
short stint with the slicks and then quit publishing.
miker
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