One of my particular enthusiasms in the paperback field has been the novels of Harry Whittington. I have a lot of them. There are 152 images in this slide show, for example. I know I don't have all of them. As Donald Rumsfeld would say, there are "known knowns" and there are "known unknowns." The ones I know I don't have include a couple of the Black Lizard reprints (just never picked them up, for some reason), the novel Golden Stud (published as by "Lance Horner," another one I just never picked up; it's easily available), several slave/plantation novels published in hardback only in England, the novel published as by "Howard Winslow" (never seen a copy), and the two novels as by Henry (or Henri) Whitter (never seen copies, but have seen a photo of one). The known unknowns would include various soft porn novels from the period when Whittington was supposedly writing one a month. I have two books by Shep Sheppard, but I have no real evidence that Whittington used that name other than the fact that on the title page of one, he's credited as the author. I also have one book (Love Cult) that was published under Whittington's name but which is known to have been written not by Whittington but by William Vaneer. That cover is included in the show because it's such a good one. I also threw in some Australian Phantom Books, some pirated editions, one Scandinavian paperback, and one British paperback. Some hardcovers are included as well.This is probably the last slide show I'll be doing. It was a lot of fun, but it takes too much time. I wanted to do this one, though, because I think it's great. I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
18 comments:
Great show, Bill. Better than some movies I have seen recently. did not realize that he had done that many adult westerns. Something new to look for. How about one last slide slow, the covers of Bill Crider (including all the pseudonym stuff)
Never say never, Bill. These slide shows are fantastic.
Maybe someday I'll get around to the "Bill Crider Slideshow." I can't include all the covers, though, because some of the pseudonym stuff is never to be revealed.
As with JDM, I didn't try to collect all the variant covers. Thank goodness.
Fantastic stuff, Bill. Thanks.
1. I only have 46 Whittingtons. I'm deeply impressed and really quite jealous.
2. I think you missed the two books by "Harriet Kathryn Myers," PRODIGAL NURSE and SMALL TOWN NURSE. Let me know if you want a copy of my own Whittington checklist, though I'm sure I'd be carrying coals to Newcastle.
3. Can you recommend a personal best for the Ashley Carter books? Life is short, and I might not wade through all 4000 or so pages of plantation novels before I kick that old bucket.
4. Is there some accepted checklist as to which of the LONGARMs are Harry's and which are by SOG (Some Other Guy)?
5. My favorite Whittington: SATURDAY NIGHT TOWN
Thanks for reminding me of the nurse books. I'll add them to the slideshow.
The six Longarms I've got photos of are the only ones Harry wrote. There's a very good bibliography in the new Stark House edition of A Night for Screaming and Any Woman he Wanted.
I've read only one of the plantation novels, so I can't really give you a recommendation.
Thorougly enjoy the slideshows! Great, great stuff in there Bill! Lots of books whose covers exite my nostalgic blood!
Regarding Richard's comment on Saturday Night Town -- this was also Kathyrn Whittington's favorite among her husband's many books. I haven't read it yet -- I'm saving it for a rainy or bedridden day.
I haven't read it in probably 35 years or more. I should give it a look.
RE Saturday Night Town: Whittington uses a similar structure in his western SADDLE THE STORM, i.e., watching closely a small town in which all hell breaks loose during a 24 hour period. SATURDAY NIGHT TOWN has a nice steamy Florida noir quality, a sort of highly-compressed "Peyton Place" in which every secret spills out during a day rather than the year it takes Metalious to boil her pot.
Did I miss AGAINST ALL GODS in the slideshow? I've never seen a copy of it and would love to know what it looks like.
That's one of those UK only publications that I don't have. Darn it.
And in fact, I'm sorry you mentioned it, as I've ordered a copy.
Great, just great! Thanks, Bill! Nice to see that CHARRO (an excellent novel from a bad film) has the original cover in Finnish. Some of the other covers were used with different books in here. Whittington is unfortunately a very untranslated author in Finland.
There were some Westerns published by Priory. Wasn't that an Israeli outfit and the books were pirated?
What about the Serie Noire edition? What year is it? (Did we have this discussion before..?) Maybe someone like Stark House or even Hard Case could publish it in English, if it's not a stinker. (And why would've they published in France, if it was something bad?)
I think we did have that discussion about the Serie Noir edition, Juri. I have no idea what the contents are or why it wasn't published in the U.S.
The Priory books do give Israel as the place of publication.
Richard here are the long arms ones Whittingtons wrote. You can really thankStark House Press for this info in the middle of Stark Houses Reissue of two of Whittingtons books.
28. Longarm on the humboldt
32. Longarm and the Golden Lady
35. Longarm and the Blue Northern
40. Longarm in Silver City
44. Longarm in boulder City
48. Longarm in the Big Thicket
Fantastic slideshow, Bill. You've stoked my Whittington addiction again.
Bruce, thanks very much for cherry-picking the six Whittingtons out of the 300-plus Longarms for me!
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