Not at Night! (ed. by Herbert Asbury)

[allthingshorror]

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CONTENTS:

Not at Night! ed. Herbert Asbury (pub Nov 1928 Macy Masius)

The Purple Cincture - H. Thompson Rich
The Horror at Red Hook - H. P. Lovecraft
A Hand From the Deep - Romeo Poole
The Tortoise-shell Cat - Greye La Spina
The House of Horror - Seabury Quinn
The Coffin of Lissa - August W. Derleth
Swamp Horror - Will Smith and R.J Robbins
The Parasitic Hand - R. Anthony
The Death Crescents of Koti - Romeo Poole
The Beast - Paul Benton
His Wife - Zita Inez Ponder
Laocoon - Basset Morgan
The Life Serum - Paul S. Powers
The Girdle - Joseph McCord
Bat's Belfry - August W. Derleth
The Sea-Thing - Frank Belknap Long Jr.
The Horror on the Links - Seabury Quinn
The Exepriment of Erich Weigert - Sewell Peaslee Wright
The Hooded Death - Joel Martin Nichols Jr.
The Man Who Was Saved - B.W. Sliney
The Plant Thing - R.G Macready
Death-Waters - Frank Belknap Long Jr.
Monsters of the Pit - Paul S. Powers
Four Wooden Stakes - Victor Roman
The Devil Bed - Gerald Dean

I think this is the right place for this to go - if not Dem, can you shift it?

Seemingly Herbert Asbury got into a bit of trouble over this tome, with it being a 'pirate' copy, no permission was asked to produce it, he just went ahead and did it - Lovecraft, I think sued or tried to sue - but lets be honest - Herbert was hot on the heels off of Gangs of New York - so he could do what he bloody well pleased.

Anyway - this is a cracking collection with Derleth on superb form and even Belknap Long not letting the side down.

[dem]

Whatever the rights and wrongs, at least Asbury made a decent fist of his pirating. I've not double-checked yet, but this looks his take on a "Best of ..." the first three books, and he's restricted it to Weird Tales material which he well may have had permission to use. I doubt very much CCT would've let him borrow the Not At Night brand name though!

E. F. Bleiler, who is no fan of the series, describes Asbury's effort as "a curious example of bringing coals to Newcastle". Does it really run a note from the publishers referring to Weird Tales as a "British" magazine?

[allthingshorror]

Yep Dem you're right -

These stories were originally printed in England in"Weird Tales," and were selected and arranged for the English edition by Christine Campbell Thomson

[dem]

That's irrefutable proof enough for me!

Honestly, you American chaps! T'riffic blokes and all that, but are you ever intending to actually contribute something to horror fiction or are we staunch English fellows gonna have to do everything?

[allthingshorror]

It's recently been published as a paperback.

www.wildsidebooks.com/Not-at-Night-by-Herbert-Asbury-40trade-pb41_p_2453.html

So, if the original Not at Night! was an 'illegal' book - then shouldn't this copy be also? I know the book has been in print longer that 70 years, but my feeling would be is that most of the authors haven't been dead that long and money should be paid to their estates?

Ach, copyright shenanigans. I'm sure they wouldn't have published it if they were going to get an ass kicking for it...

[nathanieltapley]

Yes, the paperback is probably just as illegal.

Copyright terms in the UK & US are 70 years from the death of the author (it doesn't matter when they were first published), so the work of any author not dead in 1940 is still under copyright.

You're probably right about their not getting an 'ass-kicking', as that would involve an actual representative of the estate in question actually thinking it would be worthwhile to go through a court case for whatever royalties they could expect from the paperback.

[dem]

Among the stories of mine that were published in Weird Tales were “The Life Serum’ and “Monsters of the Pit,’ the latter being featured on the cover. I received about fifty dollars for the two (not for each) and some ten years elapsed. I had forgotten the yarns until one day I happened to open the current Best Short Stories of 1929 — by [Edward J.] O'Brien. This annual volume contained a list of short stories that had been published in book form during the twelve month. I was surprised to see my name there as the author of “Monsters of the Pit" and "The Life Serum,' which had just been published in a collection edited by Herbert Asbury: Not at Night. It was the first I'd heard about it, and I ordered a copy. When it came, I found the "blurb' on the dust jacket extremely interesting. It stated that the book had been published in England under a different title and that it had sold more than 100, 000 copies there. As only a few authors were represented, and I had two stories in the volume, I estimated that my share of the royalties should have been several thousand dollars, not including those from the American publication of the book. Of course, there was nothing I could do, except smile — with my teeth in close contact. Somebody must have made considerable money out of the work that I had done on a rather empty stomach ten years before — but they made it legally. If I had received some complimentary copies of the book I might not have felt so indignant.."

- Paul S. Powers - Pulp Writer: Twenty Years In The American Grub Street (Uni of Nebraska Press, 2007)