Forgotten Books: The Best from Manhunt -- Scott & Sidney Meredith, Editors
Manhunt was the premier hardboiled digest of the '50s and'60s, and whether the stories included in this collection are really the best would be up to you to determine. Maybe they are. Maybe the stories here are "13 of the toughest crime short stories ever written." And maybe Scott and Sidney Meredith really did edit the collection. I don't know. Their names are attached to the introduction, so it's possible. At any rate, the material reproduced here should give you a good idea of the book and its contents. You can't go wrong with it; even if it's not "the best," it's plenty good.
Manhunt was the premier hardboiled digest of the '50s and'60s, and whether the stories included in this collection are really the best would be up to you to determine. Maybe they are. Maybe the stories here are "13 of the toughest crime short stories ever written." And maybe Scott and Sidney Meredith really did edit the collection. I don't know. Their names are attached to the introduction, so it's possible. At any rate, the material reproduced here should give you a good idea of the book and its contents. You can't go wrong with it; even if it's not "the best," it's plenty good.
5 comments:
We tend to forgive too much in a book with a cover and contents like that...we certainly know that the credited editor of MANHUNT magazine had less to do with the assembled contents than did the Meredith agency...
I won't surprise you to learn that I bought this book when I was a teenager because of the cover. But after I read the stories, I started searching for MANHUNTs.
I think I've read about a third of them, elsewhere. I agree with George, it's a great cover but I'm not sold on the "best" part. I admit to never having heard of Fletcher Flora...
The cover art is spendid! Those were the good old says when book browsing could be a guilty pleasure. The marketing people certainly knew what they were doing then. Anything between the covers (er, of the book, that is) was a bonus.
At last a book I've actually read! It was a good one, too. As a matter of fact I picked up a near pristine copy of this while bookhunting in England years ago.
Jeff
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