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Post by ropardoe on Dec 2, 2017 12:21:35 GMT
Does anyone know why Gerald Heard's novel The Black Fox has never had a proper reprint (well, not that I can find, anyway)? These days, with almost all the best stuff on the James List being reprinted in various formats, I'd have thought The Black Fox deserved more than the print-on-demand facsimile which is all I've found. (Nothing at all wrong with print-on-demand, I hasten to add, but p-o-d facsimiles tend to have very inferior reproduction). Heard's short supernatural fiction has been reprinted nicely, but never The Black Fox, which I rather liked: kind of a combination of "The Stalls of Barchester" and the Barchester Chronicles!
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Post by Michael Connolly on Dec 2, 2017 13:51:49 GMT
Does anyone know why Gerald Heard's novel The Black Fox has never had a proper reprint (well, not that I can find, anyway)? These days, with almost all the best stuff on the James List being reprinted in various formats, I'd have thought The Black Fox deserved more than the print-on-demand facsimile which is all I've found. (Nothing at all wrong with print-on-demand, I hasten to add, but p-o-d facsimiles tend to have very inferior reproduction). Heard's short supernatural fiction has been reprinted nicely, but never The Black Fox, which I rather liked: kind of a combination of "The Stalls of Barchester" and the Barchester Chronicles! There seems to have been only one British (Cassell) and American (Harper & Row) edition. I actually had my hands on a very good copy of the British edition a few years ago. It was in a sale of ex-library books at the cost of 20p and I decided against buying it! Damn me.
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Post by helrunar on Dec 2, 2017 14:38:32 GMT
Fascinating, and love that cover. I have known of Heard most of my life, first encountering him, from what I can recall, in the book Christopher and his Kind (a memoir of his own life in the 1930s by Christopher Isherwood), which I read when I was around 19. I never knew of his genre fiction. Interesting website here: www.geraldheard.com/cheers, H.
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Post by ropardoe on Dec 2, 2017 14:42:45 GMT
Looks like there's also a Kindle edition, published by a "Mysterious Press" last year. But I really want to see a proper, good quality, print edition. I agree about that dust-jacket. Any reprint ought to include that.
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Post by Michael Connolly on Dec 2, 2017 14:54:05 GMT
Fascinating, and love that cover. I have known of Heard most of my life, first encountering him, from what I can recall, in the book Christopher and his Kind (a memoir of his own life in the 1930s by Christopher Isherwood), which I read when I was around 19. I never knew of his genre fiction. Interesting website here: www.geraldheard.com/cheers, H. He's a crank!
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Post by ropardoe on Dec 2, 2017 18:19:47 GMT
Fascinating, and love that cover. I have known of Heard most of my life, first encountering him, from what I can recall, in the book Christopher and his Kind (a memoir of his own life in the 1930s by Christopher Isherwood), which I read when I was around 19. I never knew of his genre fiction. Interesting website here: www.geraldheard.com/cheers, H. He's a crank! That's a bit harsh, isn't it? Better that way than just ordinary.
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gloomy sundae
Crab On The Rampage
dem in disguise; looking for something to suck
Posts: 25
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Post by gloomy sundae on Dec 2, 2017 19:22:46 GMT
Looks like there's also a Kindle edition, published by a "Mysterious Press" last year. But I really want to see a proper, good quality, print edition. I agree about that dust-jacket. Any reprint ought to include that. Might be worth suggesting as much to Valancourt Books? They have done us proud to date. Never seen a copy of The Black Fox but once read A Taste For Honey. Stupidly disposed of my copy in an ill-advised clear-out pre-Vault on account of it's unimaginative cover artwork. dem
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Post by ropardoe on Dec 3, 2017 14:23:05 GMT
Looks like there's also a Kindle edition, published by a "Mysterious Press" last year. But I really want to see a proper, good quality, print edition. I agree about that dust-jacket. Any reprint ought to include that. Might be worth suggesting as much to Valancourt Books? They have done us proud to date. Never seen a copy of The Black Fox but once read A Taste For Honey. Stupidly disposed of my copy in an ill-advised clear-out pre-Vault on account of it's unimaginative cover artwork. dem That does seem like a good match, I agree. Is there anyone here, I wonder, who has a contact at Valancourt? I wouldn't want to do it as the next thing that would happen would likely be that they'd ask me to do an introduction, and I just don't have the knowledge (or indeed any of Heard's books - I borrowed The Black Fox from David Rowlands).
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Post by Michael Connolly on Dec 4, 2017 13:44:38 GMT
Might be worth suggesting as much to Valancourt Books? They have done us proud to date. Never seen a copy of The Black Fox but once read A Taste For Honey. Stupidly disposed of my copy in an ill-advised clear-out pre-Vault on account of it's unimaginative cover artwork. dem That does seem like a good match, I agree. Is there anyone here, I wonder, who has a contact at Valancourt? I wouldn't want to do it as the next thing that would happen would likely be that they'd ask me to do an introduction, and I just don't have the knowledge (or indeed any of Heard's books - I borrowed The Black Fox from David Rowlands). I have read one of Heard's other novels, A Taste for Honey (1941), the first of his three novels about Mr. Mycroft (who is actually the retired Sherlock Holmes). All I can remember is that it was exceedingly dull. However, I still regret not buying that copy of The Black Fox.
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Post by helrunar on Dec 4, 2017 21:36:43 GMT
By one of those odd interweb occurrences, I just saw posted on another group that A Taste for Honey was adapted for a US television anthology series in the mid 1950s, under the title "The Sting of Death." The cast included Boris Karloff, Robert Flemyng, and Hermione Gingold. The surviving kinescope is on Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChOFJHdQps&index=5&t=181s&list=WLcheers, H.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 5, 2017 10:04:06 GMT
By one of those odd interweb occurrences, I just saw posted on another group that A Taste for Honey was adapted for a US television anthology series in the mid 1950s, under the title "The Sting of Death." The cast included Boris Karloff, Robert Flemyng, and Hermione Gingold. The surviving kinescope is on Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QChOFJHdQps&index=5&t=181s&list=WLcheers, H. It was also the basis for the Amicus pop star in peril classic, The Deadly Bees, though by the time Robert Bloch's screenplay had been tampered with, little of HFH's story remained. The-man-who-wrote- Psycho was, quite understandably, upset. "I'll always regret the film wasn't made as I conceived it. Heard certainly deserved better treatment, and perhaps I did too. But as with The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari and The Couch, I shudder every time this item is mentioned or shown." (Graeme Flanagan, Robert Bloch: A Bio-Bibliography , 1979). Personally, I find The Deadly Bees delightful for what it is, just regret the lack of a tie-in novelization.
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Post by helrunar on Dec 5, 2017 15:39:35 GMT
Interesting about The Deadly Bees--it's often rated as a bomb, but I enjoyed the first bit when I saw it at some point years ago. Will have to find a copy now that I've seen Karloff's version of the story.
"Karloff Holmes" is much more Karloff than he is Holmes, but I enjoyed every minute. And it was fun to see Robert Flemyng shredding scenery as a prissy, fussbudget English professor who evidently ate a huge amount of honey--six jars and six combs in a fortnight. Lucky thing he gave up the habit at the end as otherwise, with all the health benefits of honey he might have been facing a diagnosis of diabetes in his future...
cheers, H.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Dec 5, 2017 19:30:06 GMT
Hated TDB first time around, but loved it on a recent catch up. Watch out for Ronnie Wood and The Birds, pop-pickers.
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Post by The Lurker In The Shadows on Dec 16, 2017 16:26:53 GMT
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Post by daveinva on May 6, 2018 17:13:26 GMT
I recently picked up a Cassel first (BLACK FOX) in jacket and was very excited to have the chance to read it. I got about 75 pages in and re-shelved it. It was pretty slow going.
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