LEONARD POTTS – BRITISH PULP FICTION AT ASH RARE BOOKS
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LEONARD POTTS (1902-1978) – BRITISH PULP FICTION | |
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“CAPELLI, Ace” : DEAD ON TIME. London : Ralph Stokes for the Gaywood Press, [ca.1952]. First edition. “I was a construction gang foreman, not a private eye or a cop. I’ll admit that my one taste of hoodlums some weeks ago had whetted my appetite for the detecting racket” – Ace Capelli was a house name used variously by Betty Williams (Dail Ambler), Geoffrey Pardoe, Stephen Frances (Hank Janson) and Norman Lazenby. Although over thirty Capelli titles are known, only fourteen or so are represented in major collections. £85 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44109 – or simply click on the button
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“CAPELLI, Ace” : DEAD ON TIME. London : Ralph Stokes for the Gaywood Press, [ca.1952]. First edition. “I was a construction gang foreman, not a private eye or a cop. I’ll admit that my one taste of hoodlums some weeks ago had whetted my appetite for the detecting racket” – Ace Capelli was a house name used variously by Betty Williams (Dail Ambler), Geoffrey Pardoe, Stephen Frances (Hank Janson) and Norman Lazenby. Although over thirty Capelli titles are known, only fourteen or so are represented in major collections. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 44503 – or simply click on the button
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“DELMAINE, Georges Louis” : AFFAIR IN PARIS. London : Edwin Self & Co., [ca.1953]. First edition. Country-bred innocent gets a job in Paris – “the fascinating world of beautiful artists’ models and dangerous demi-mondaines”. Ostensibly a translation of “Les Affaires de Paris” by “one of the most exciting and glamorous” of modern French authors – but Delmaine appears to be unknown to the Bibliothèque Nationale. SOLD |
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“DELMAINE, Georges Louis” : LES FILLES DE SOIR. London : Edwin Self & Co., [ca.1953]. First edition. “One of the most exciting and glamorous authors to depict life in modern Paris ... the fascinating world of beautiful artists’ models and dangerous demi-mondaines ... a new and glamorous world where excitement and passion rub shoulders with the treacherous apache and the shady boite de nuit”. The exciting and glamorous author would appear to be entirely unknown to the Bibliothèque Nationale. SOLD |
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“GRIFF” – [BOYCE, David, 1916-1993] : SHOOT TO LIVE. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1953]. First edition. “Master-spies, gunhawks, mobsters, hoods, all the unsavoury characters of the underworld ... A young scientist is kidnapped. He carries badly wanted secrets in his brain ... the secrets of that most despicable of all forms of death ... germ warfare!”. Mark Freeman of the FBI is on the case. The “Griff” house name here being used by David Boyce. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 32867 – or simply click on the button
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“GRIFF” – [FAWCETT, Frank Dubrez, 1891-1968] : CROOKED COFFINS. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1952]. First edition. “If a guy is a private eye, which is the other word for private detective or inquiry agent, he oughta keep his hands off his lady clients, if any. Tonio Folari didn’t do that” – and Maria Speratta is quick to teach him a lesson. “You just can’t leave off, once you start. You go hurrying, thirsty. You lose sleep. You miss your love-date. But you get forgiven when you say: ‘I’ve been reading Crooked Coffins’. Yes, folks – this book does that to you – and everybody”. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45682 – or simply click on the button
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“GRIFF” : YOU PAY THE PRICE. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1952]. First edition. Man hits an abandoned parked car on his way to Chicago – it’s riddled with bullets and a dead blonde falls out. Then a spray gun is planted in his car. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45674 – or simply click on the button
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“GRIFF” : CAGE OF CORRUPTION. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1953]. First edition. New York water rats Adenoids Jenkins and Polack Pete are intercepted on the river by a police vessel expecting to find some stolen whisky or perhaps a stolen sheep’s carcase – instead they find a beautiful young woman, barely alive. SOLD |
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“GRIFF” : CURVES CAN CAST SHADOWS. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1953]. First edition. Gentle Hoggarty, “tough private eye and boulevardier of the concrete jungle, encounters an unattainable angel ... her name was Arline Manningtree, and she topped the bill in the social register ... a fast-moving thriller that is unsurpassed for raffishness, suspense, originality, and a subtly Rabelaisian humor”. SOLD |
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“GRIFF” : DEMON BARBER OF BROADWAY. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1953]. First edition. The Sweeney Todd tale given a fresh New York setting, and featuring the introduction of herculean private eye Rapier Codd, a.k.a. “Swordfish”, and “the glamorous, exotic Polish girl who tangled with him in gangland”. The “Griff” house-name was used by at least half a dozen different authors. SOLD |
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“GRIFF” – [NEWTON, William (William Simpson), 1923-2009] : BULLETS FOR SNOOPERS. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1953]. First edition. Con-men, pimps, gamblers, gun-men and their women gather in a bar in San Francisco and talk of an escape from Alcatraz. The “Griff” house-name was used by at least half a dozen authors, but the present title is attributed to William Simpson Newton. £50 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45679 – or simply click on the button
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“LACROIX, Ramon” : RECKLESS LOVERS. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1952]. First edition. “Abruptly he stopped dictating. His dark eyes were suddenly amused. He said: “Will you have dinner with me tonight, Jennifer?” She nearly dropped her pencil and pad in amazement. Even her chin sagged, and then she snapped her mouth shut as she quickly recovered ...”. SOLD |
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“SARTO, Ben” – [FAWCETT, Frank Dubrez, 1891-1968] : BEECH ON THE BOULEVARD. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1952]. First edition. “Almost out-Zolas Zola” – “Girls disappear from their Paris homes; in many cases they are never traced ... enticed, on one pretext or another, by glib promises of a film, dance-hall, or cabaret career” – Ben Sarto with an “on-the-spot study” of a typical victim of the white slave trade. SOLD |
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“SARTO, Ben” – [FAWCETT, Frank Dubrez, 1891-1968] : CITY OF SIN. London : Modern Fiction (London), [1952]. First edition. Rena falls for a European, but “she hadn’t seen anything of the world further east than Minneapolis”. Sarto “tears the veil from the activities of the army of White Slavers”. SOLD |
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“SARTO, Ben” – [FAWCETT, Frank Dubrez, 1891-1968] : THE OLDEST PROFESSION. London : Modern Fiction, [1952]. First edition. “As usual with Sarto books, it is the result of personal observation, plus access to police records and secret news files ... an innocent young girl from the country finds herself caught up in the toils of a Manhattan exploiter – with tragic results. One big, breath-catching thrill from first word to last, but shot with sadness and regret”. SOLD |
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“SHANE, Mark” – [NORWOOD, Victor (Victor George Charles), 1920-1983] : THEY KILL TO LIVE. London : Alexander Moring, [ca.1956]. [Second edition]. “It’s close to sundown, and way ahead lights are winking up along the sprawling sucker-trap that is the Hellfire Strip, wide open merry-go-round of the good-time dolls and the sugar-daddies ...” – a pacy tale set in Las Vegas. Originally published under Reginald Carter’s earlier Comyns imprint in 1953. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45933 – or simply click on the button
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“VALOIS, Jean-Paul” – [WILLIS, Ernest Lister Hale (Lisle), 1919-1988] : CHERE AMIE. London : Edwin Self & Co., [ca.1952]. First edition. “A fascinating story of the modern Paris underworld with all the romantic and glamorous aspect of life with artist’s models and midinettes”. One of the earliest “Valois” titles and frankly hilarious in its Franglais – “The température inside the room seemed to leap hundreds of degrees! The air was électrique, so that even Danielle Javenne could feel it in the garde-robe ...”. SOLD |
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“VALOIS, Jean-Paul” – [WILLIS, Ernest Lister Hale (Lisle), 1919-1988] : COLETTE CHÈRIE. London : Edwin Self & Co., [ca.1952]. First edition. “A fascinating story of the modern Paris underworld with all the romantic and glamorous aspects of life with artist’s models and midinettes” from “one of the newest successes in modern French literature”. This and the rest of the authorial biography – poor boy from Montmartre, served with the Maquis, imprisoned by the Gestapo – is all a complete fiction. Valois was the pseudonym of Lisle Willis, ex-RAF English school-teacher, local councillor and prospective parliamentary candidate. Both he and his publisher, Edwin Self, were tried on bizarre obscenity charges in 1954 and, even more bizarrely, found guilty. Self went to prison, Willis heavily fined and barred for life from teaching (he went into television). For an excellent account of the whole affair see Steve Holland’s “The Big Panic : The Story of Edwin Self and Pedigree Books”. £40 To purchase, call us or e-mail us at books@ashrare.com quoting stock number 45944 – or simply click on the button
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