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Post by wordswortheditions on Oct 29, 2008 15:40:45 GMT
I hope you'll forgive a bit of advertising, but members may be interested to know that we will be bringing out a collection of Sexton Blakes stories in March 2009. With something in the region of 200 authors having written the stories, and the rights to the character being held by IPC, it's been rather complicated, but we've now got the go ahead.
David Stuart Davies and Mark Hodder of the Blakiana website are currently working on the title selection, and we may look at further collections if all goes well - Derek, Wordsworth Editions
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Post by dem bones on Oct 30, 2008 8:17:16 GMT
Hi Derek
Please feel free to keep us informed about any current or forthcoming titles you care to. With regard to Blake, are his late Victorian/ Edwardian adventures under consideration or his between the wars incarnation?
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Post by pulphack on Oct 30, 2008 11:45:17 GMT
I've heard about this via the London Old Boys Book Club. As I heard it, it's between the wars Blake, which was really his golden age. Although I do hope the selection has changed from the initial one, which was too similar to Jack Adrian's 'Sexton Blake Wins' - an excellent selection but still fairly readily available second-hand. It'd be nice if anyone whose interest is piqued by the forthcoming book could then delve further via a quick google.
However, with the redoubtable Mr DSD at the helm, it should be a good anthology.
Concerning Mark Hodder - could you please pass on a message and ask him to return the papers he has in his possession to the LOBBC Sexton Blake Library. He's had them over two years, and it's really about time they were returned for other borrowers. I've tried to mail him, but have received no reply. Thanks.
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Post by wordswortheditions on Nov 11, 2008 15:05:12 GMT
The selection that we're going for is: THE SLAVE MARKET by Cecil Hayter (1907). A FOOTBALL MYSTERY by W. J. Lomax (1907). THE MAN FROM SCOTLAND YARD by Ernest Sempill/Michael Storm (1908). THE LAW OF THE SEA by William Murray Graydon (1912). THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE YELLOW BEETLE by G. H. Teed (1913). A CASE OF ARSON by Robert Murray Graydon (1917). THE BLACK EAGLE by G. H. Teed (1923).
Although we've got permission from IPC to use the name, we're still limited to works that are out of copyright at this stage, although if the first collection is a success, then we may be able to look at a wider range. I've passed the message on to Mark Hodder as requested. Cheers, Derek@Wordsworth
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Post by dem bones on Nov 11, 2008 22:34:24 GMT
I've just been reading up on some of these titles at Blakianaand A Football Mystery in particular sounds absolutely priceless. Those of us who recall their glorious showing in the Premiership last season will not, perhaps, be too surprised to see Derby on the wrong end of some discouraging scorelines, but Blake can't do other than suspect foul play when they're walloped at home by the Crimson Ramblers, a bunch of swarthy foreign mercenaries! Forest fans are doubtless still laughing about this when, shortly afterward, its their turn! With a game against the England national side next on the Ramblers' radar, Blake intervenes to make sure these scoundrels don't humiliate us on home soil! To quote Blakiana's wonderful reviewer: "This is a marvellously written story with some truly laugh-out-loud passages of dialogue .... The climax, with Blake and Tinker playing for England, is tremendous and enough to rouse a cheer from even the most critical of readers." This thrilling adventure first appeared in The Union Jack as if we needed telling. Can't wait!
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Post by wordswortheditions on Nov 12, 2008 8:57:41 GMT
Concerning Mark Hodder - could you please pass on a message and ask him to return the papers he has in his possession to the LOBBC Sexton Blake Library. He's had them over two years, and it's really about time they were returned for other borrowers. I've tried to mail him, but have received no reply. Thanks. Mark lost your email a couple of years ago when his hard disk failed, but has the papers boxed ready to send. If you want to confirm your email address to me at derek@wordsworth-editions.com, I'll pass it on to him to arrange despatch
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Post by blakiana on Nov 12, 2008 11:09:35 GMT
Hi. I just registered with the Vault of Evil. Nice to be here! Hello Pulphack ... good to be back in contact! If you email me directly, we can organise the return of the Detective Weeklies ... my apologies for the amount of time I've had them ... it's a long story but here's a clue -- I'll be posting them to you from Spain! As this thread has revealed, there's a new Sexton Blake anthology being prepared. I've selected stories which I think cover different aspects of the Blake saga ... these include the tale that introduced the detective's longest-lived opponent - the nefarious George Marsden Plummer. Also, we have the introduction of Blake's very own Fu Manchu, in the form of the dastardly Wu Ling. Probably my favourite, though, is the first story to feature Sir Richard Losely and his Zulu sidekick, Lobangu. This is an African adventure which shows Blake at his Indiana Jones-ish best! We also have an amazing period-piece inspired by the sinking of the Titanic (and written just four months after) and, of course, the hilarious soccer story mentioned earlier in the thread. A Holmesian mystery and a classic from the Twenties complete the selection. BLAKIANA www.sextonblake.co.uk
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Post by pulphack on Nov 12, 2008 15:55:53 GMT
hello derek - thanks, and i'll mail mark direct, as he suggests.
hello mark, i heard last week that you were in spain - better than ilford, that's for sure. i'll PM you about the papers. ta.
this is a cracking selection. for me, it's a pity there's no gwyn evans (seventy years gone but only just, i think), but seeing as how you're looking to run from the time blake gained a definite identity through to the golden age, i can see that GE can come later.
although the Union Jack era of the 20's is the 'golden age', there is much to be admired on the earlier work, and the shorter UJ form suited a lot of the writers far better than the novel-length library. this should give readers with no idea about blake a good notion of the kind of territory the character could cover, and set the stage nicely for subsequent volumes.
and it avoids repition with the jack adrian book mentioned above. nicely side-stepped. although, to be honest, including two tales by the astounding GH Teed (a man of mystery and adventure in his own right) wins me over right away!
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Post by wordswortheditions on Dec 15, 2008 10:11:11 GMT
This is the cover we've settled on for the new Sexton Blake collection, we'd love to hear your input! Emma@Wordsworth Editions
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Post by dem bones on Dec 15, 2008 10:19:02 GMT
That'll do for me and i'm particularly pleased you're keeping the books uniform! I'm very tempted by your 'Sapper' Bulldog Drummond collection, too, BTW. Maybe this weekend ...
What's the publishing schedule with the 'Mystery & the Supernatural' series? Do you set out for, say ten a year and keep to it or is it a more arbitrary figure?
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Post by wordswortheditions on Dec 15, 2008 11:34:31 GMT
That’s a pretty good estimate – previously we’ve been putting out a lot of titles to establish the series, but we have nine new titles scheduled for 2009, and I would expect something similar in 2010.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 12, 2009 22:49:38 GMT
Hit the homepage on the Wordworth Editions site and you'll be greeted with the welcome news that this is AVAILABLE NOW! Having just splashed out on the Lord Probert bumper bargain double (including the limited cloth cover edition of Catacombs Of Fear, allegedly pressed in human flesh and the remnants of a striped blazer), this will have to wait another week, but plans are afoot for a raid on that sleazy Charing Cross Road book emporium before March is out. Congratulations, Blakiana!
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pb210
New Face In Hell
Posts: 4
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Post by pb210 on Dec 5, 2009 13:48:04 GMT
I remember stumbling upon a Peter Haining anthology with a Sexton Blake reprint. I feel glad to see more reprinted.
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Post by andydecker on Apr 15, 2010 9:41:53 GMT
The rekindled discussion of Baker and co reminded me of something. Maybe this is of interest for the Sexton Blake fans. As far as I gathered SB was a kind of boys crime series which at its time was quite popular in the UK. Accidently I stumbled upon the info that there was a short-lived german edition. From 1962 to 1963 there was published a Sexton Blake series. It was shortlived and came only to 30 issues, which considering the time must have been an flop. (By today´s standard they must have had a print-run which every current publisher would kill for, so my guess is it wasn´t received very well by the consumers.) But maybe they hand´t enough material to continue it. Of course these are only translations, and maybe they couldn´t - or didn´t want to - acquire the rights to continue it. As they did with the Black Bat, which was still being written by german writers in the 80s. Well, this is all speculation of course. Interestingly the novels were credited with to the original writers. So all the usual suspects are here. Howard Baker, Jack Trevor Story, Martin Thomas, Rex Dolphin. even a couple of Peter Saxon´s . I never saw one of those weekly pulps. But as they are on Ebay and are suprisingly cheap, I will order one. With thanks to the original scanner, who has a big site with german crime pulps, I copied a few covers here. Coverart supposedly by Lonati; title is: Red hair and bullets Coverart supposedly by Lonati, the title is: black witch-red death Coverart supposedly by Lonati; the title is: Murder from beyond The original poster wasn´t certain about the artist, but it sure looks like Lonati, a painter who must have done thousands of pulp covers in all genres.
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Post by shonokin on Mar 28, 2013 15:34:43 GMT
I don't know much about SB, and am hoping someone could answer a curiosity I have about the Blakiverse. There's I think four crossovers with Raffles which are not fan-produced or Wold-Newton type stuff but bona-fide Blake stories. I'm just wondering how whoever owned/produced SB at the time was able to use Raffles. Was the Hornung estate pretty casual about lending out his character to other professional authors/companies? Just wondering since this definitely wasn't the case with LeBlanc's Lupin vs Holmes stories. I only found out about this crossover from reading about Steve Holland's Annual reprints which the 1938 album has a three-part SB vs Raffles crossover. bearalleybooks.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/sexton-blake-annual-1938.html
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