George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection

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The George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection is a collection of over 25,000 pulp magazine and fiction works that is housed in the Special Collections unit, in the University at Buffalo Libraries at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Noted as one of the best preserved collections of pulp material in modern times, it was donated to UB Libraries in 1994 by Dr. George Kelley, a professor at Erie Community College in Buffalo, New York. [1]

Contents

The collection spans genres from adventure, crime and horror to Westerns, fantasy and science fiction, including books, pulp magazines, fanzines and other literature. According to UB Libraries, there are hundreds of paperbacks from the 1940s, thousands from the 1950s and 1960s and more from the 1970s and 1980s. Many of these are paperback originals which have never appeared in hardcover editions. [2]

George Kelley

Kelley, an alumnus of SUNY at Buffalo, donated the collection to the Lockwood Memorial Library in 1994. [3] Kelley received a doctorate of philosophy from SUNY at Buffalo in 1996, and has received master's degrees from UB in business administration, library science, and English. He is currently a professor of Business Administration at Erie Community College. [4] After being an avid collector of comic books in his youth, Kelley began collecting pulp fiction in his late youth and continued to do so until the 1990s. A majority of his collection was amassed during the 1970s when he would frequent used book stores on his work-related travels across the country. [1] Kelley was keen on preserving his collection throughout the years, storing the works in Ziploc bags. [5]

Dr. Thomas and Margarete Shaw

In addition to Kelley's collection, Dr. Thomas Shaw and his wife, Margarete Shaw, have also contributed a large number of gifts and books to the collection. [6] The Shaws’ contribution to the collection is entirely composed of fantasy and science-fiction based works and magazines.

Notable authors

[note 1]

Relevance of collection

Academically, the George Kelly Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection stands as a vast resource of cultural information that is reflected in the discourse of the works and their imagery, especially sub-culture's social attitudes and behaviors, as well as evolving gender roles and identities in mid-20th century America. [1] [7] Further, some pulp fiction works in the George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection have been noted for their alternative lifestyle storylines and content, suggesting an informative understanding of the gay and lesbian world, providing literature oriented towards homosexuality around the 1950s. [8]

For many of the works in the collection, their documentation via the University at Buffalo's library system represents the first time the works have been acknowledged in a national or universal library system (WorldCat) [7]

Some have appraised the collection's value into the millions of US dollars. [1] [7]

The most valuable book in the collection, according to George Kelley, is an original copy of Junkie by William S. Burroughs, with a value estimated at around US$500. [7] Junkie is often cited as the seminal literature on heroin addiction in America.

According to Dr. George Kelley, his passion for collecting pulp fiction emerged in his adolescence after his mother had disposed of his personal collection of over 1000 comic books. [7] Dr. George Kelley admits that he decided to donate the collection to University at Buffalo, after receiving an ultimatum from his wife. The weight from the collection had reportedly begun to damage the floors of his residence. [9] Every work in the collection continues to be housed in the original Ziploc bag it was placed in when Dr. George Kelley added them to the collection.

A work from the collection, entitled 'The Guilty Are Afraid' by James Hadley Chase, had the honor of being the 37th million record to the WorldCat database, in June 1997. [10]

The collection is currently located in a closed stacks area of the Lockwood Memorial Library at the University at Buffalo, awaiting space being made available for its future permanent home at the Special Collections Unit at Capen Libraries. The collection is available for access to the general public.

A discovery seminar, instructed by Judy Adams-Volpe, the former director of communications for the UB Libraries, offered UB students the opportunity to explore the pulp fiction collection in depth. Through the functions of the seminar, many of the pulp fiction works' plots have been summarized into an online database (plot summary database), as well as cover-art scans of several of the collections' more notable covers.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Some of this information was derived from the main UB Libraries website, which lists authors and in some cases, pseudonyms. Pseudonyms are noted, and links to their respective author/publishing firm have been provided, if available.
  2. ↑ pseudonym for publishing franchise, see linked article
  3. ↑ See Classics Illustrated - Artists
  4. ↑ see Donald Bain - Hardin Western Series
  5. ↑ Stephen King can be found in the collection under Richard Bachman, a pseudonym. Reportedly the Kelley collection contains an elusive English version of one of his books
  6. ↑ See Slocum Westerns

Related Research Articles

Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges.

Richard Bachman Pen name used by horror fiction author Stephen King

Richard Bachman (1977–1985) is a pen name of American horror fiction author Stephen King. King portrays Bachman in the third season of the FX television series Sons of Anarchy.

Stephen King American writer (born 1947)

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high standing in pop culture, his books have sold more than 350 million copies, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. King has published 64 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books. He has also written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in book collections.

Dime novel Type of cheap popular fiction in the U.S.

The dime novel is a form of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S. popular fiction issued in series of inexpensive paperbound editions. The term dime novel has been used as a catchall term for several different but related forms, referring to story papers, five- and ten-cent weeklies, "thick book" reprints, and sometimes early pulp magazines. The term was used as a title as late as 1940, in the short-lived pulp magazine Western Dime Novels. In the modern age, the term dime novel has been used to refer to quickly written, lurid potboilers, usually as a pejorative to describe a sensationalized but superficial literary work.

Paperback Book with a paper or paperboard cover

A paperback, also known as a softcover or softback, is a type of book characterized by a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardcover or hardback books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, plastic, or leather. The pages on the inside of a paperback are made of paper.

Charles Ardai is an American entrepreneur, businessperson, and writer of award winning crime fiction and mysteries. He is founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, a line of pulp-style paperback crime novels. He is also an early employee of D. E. Shaw & Co. and remains a managing director of the firm. He was the former chairman of Schrödinger, Inc.

<i>The Bachman Books</i> Stephen Kings pseudonym Richard Bachman

The Bachman Books is a collection of short novels by Stephen King published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman between 1977 and 1982. It made The New York Times Best Seller List upon its release in 1985.

Donald E. Westlake American novelist

Donald Edwin Westlake was an American writer, with more than a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction and other genres. Westlake is perhaps best-remembered for creating two professional criminal characters who each starred in a long-running series: the relentless, hardboiled Parker, and John Dortmunder, who featured in a more humorous series.

Lesbian pulp fiction Genre of fiction

Lesbian pulp fiction is a genre of lesbian literature that refers to any mid-20th century paperback novel or pulp magazine with overtly lesbian themes and content. Lesbian pulp fiction was published in the 1950s and 60s by many of the same paperback publishing houses as other genres of fiction including westerns, romances, and detective fiction. Because very little other literature was available for and about lesbians at this time, quite often these books were the only reference the public had for modeling what lesbians were. Stephanie Foote, from the University of Illinois commented on the importance of lesbian pulp novels to the lesbian identity prior to the rise of organized feminism: "Pulps have been understood as signs of a secret history of readers, and they have been valued because they have been read. The more they are read, the more they are valued, and the more they are read, the closer the relationship between the very act of circulation and reading and the construction of a lesbian community becomes...Characters use the reading of novels as a way to understand that they are not alone."

Ukrainian literature Overview of Ukrainian-language literature

Ukrainian literature is literature written in the Ukrainian language.

Jess Nevins American author

Jess Nevins is an American author. Nevins is the author of the Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana and other works on Victoriana and pulp fiction. He is employed as a reference librarian at Lone Star College-Tomball.

Lancer Books was a publisher of paperback books founded by Irwin Stein and Walter Zacharius that operated from 1961 through 1973. While it published stories of a number of genres, it was noted most for its science fiction and fantasy, particularly its series of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian tales, the first publication of many in paperback format. It published the controversial novel Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, and Ted Mark's ribald series The Man from O.R.G.Y. Lancer paperbacks had a distinctive appearance, many bearing mauve or green page edging.

Gay pulp fiction

Gay pulp fiction, or gay pulps, refers to printed works, primarily fiction, that include references to male homosexuality, specifically male gay sex, and that are cheaply produced, typically in paperback books made of wood pulp paper; lesbian pulp fiction is similar work about women. Michael Bronski, the editor of an anthology of gay pulp writing, notes in his introduction, "Gay pulp is not an exact term, and it is used somewhat loosely to refer to a variety of books that had very different origins and markets". People often use the term to refer to the "classic" gay pulps that were produced before about 1970, but it may also be used to refer to the gay erotica or pornography in paperback book or digest magazine form produced since that date.

Eaton Collection

The Eaton Collection of Science Fiction and Fantasy, formerly known as the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Utopian Literature, is "the largest publicly accessible collection of science fiction, fantasy, horror and utopian and dystopian literature in the world". It is housed in Special Collections and Archives of the UCR Libraries at the University of California, Riverside. It consists of more than 300,000 items, including hardcover and paperback books, SF fanzines, film and visual material, and comic books, including manga and anime, as well as a variety of archival materials.

The University at Buffalo Libraries is the university library system of the University at Buffalo. The library's collections includes some 3.8 million print volumes, as well as media, and special collections. The Libraries subscribe to some 350 research databases and 10,000 electronic journals.

Kendell Foster Crossen American writer (1910–1981)

Kendell Foster Crossen was an American pulp fiction and science fiction writer. He was the creator and writer of stories about the Green Lama and the Milo March detective and spy novels.

George Kelley may refer to:

George Carroll Sims, better known by his pen names Paul Cain and Peter Ruric, was an American pulp fiction author and screenwriter. He is best known for his novel Fast One, which is considered to be a landmark of the pulp fiction genre and was called the "high point in the ultra hard-boiled manner" by Raymond Chandler.

Julie Ellis was an early lesbian pulp fiction author of the 1960s, writing pro-lesbian romance and erotica under varied pseudonyms for Midwood-Tower Publications. She changed her writing pseudonyms and legal name usage numerous times and later in life she wrote historical and romance fiction under the name Julie Ellis.

Brian Moore's early fiction refers to the seven pulp fiction thrillers, published between 1951 and 1957, that the acclaimed novelist Brian Moore wrote before he achieved success and international recognition with Judith Hearne (1955) and The Feast of Lupercal (1957).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "UBT: Pulp Fiction" . Retrieved 2008-11-11.
  2. ↑ "Overview of Collection" . Retrieved 2008-10-29.
  3. ↑ "The George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection" . Retrieved 2008-10-28.
  4. ↑ "About George Kelley" . Retrieved 2008-10-28.
  5. ↑ "Origins of Collection" . Retrieved 2008-11-01.
  6. ↑ "About this Collection" . Retrieved 2008-11-01.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Man's love of pulp fiction nets remarkable collection". CNN.com. Associated Press. 2000-06-06. Archived from the original on 2000-06-20.
  8. ↑ Brian Lampkin (March 2000). "Valuable Sleaze: A Treasure Trove of Pulp Fiction". Literature. Buffalo Spree. Archived from the original on November 21, 2008. Retrieved 2008-12-06.
  9. ↑ "It's Out of This World". Vol. 26, no. 12. UB Reporter. 1994-12-01. p. 12.
  10. ↑ Patricia Donovan (1998-02-19). "Libraries staff marks a WorldCat milestone". UB Reporter. News Services Editor. p. 5.

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