George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection

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The George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection is a collection of over 30,000 pulp magazine and paperback 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 and paperbacks 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 paperback books and fiction magazines 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 works published first in paperback form 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 $2500. [7] Junkie is often cited as the seminal literature on heroin addiction in America.

According to Dr. George Kelley, his passion for collecting paperbacks and fiction magazines emerged in his adolescence after his mother had disposed of his personal collection of over 1000 comic books while he was away at camp. [7] Dr. George Kelley admits that he decided to donate the collection to University at Buffalo, after receiving an ultimatum from his wife who told him: "I can't get to the washer and dryer because of all the shelving. Do you want clean clothes...or books?" Dr. Kelley chose clean clothes. [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,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 collection in depth. Through the functions of the seminar, many of the 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 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their cheap nature. 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. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Bachman</span> Pen name used by horror fiction author Stephen King

Richard Bachman is a pen name of American horror fiction author Stephen King, adopted in 1977 for the novel Rage. King hid the link between himself and Bachman, until allowing for his identification in 1985. He collected the first four Bachman novels into The Bachman Books. Rage became controversial for being about a school shooting and was allowed to go out of print after the 1997 Heath High School shooting. Three more novels were published under the Bachman name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dime novel</span> 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paperback</span> Book with a paper or paperboard cover

A paperback book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardback (hardcover) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ron Goulart</span> American historian (1933–2022)

Ronald Joseph Goulart (; was an American popular culture historian and mystery, fantasy and science fiction author.

<i>Avenger</i> (pulp-magazine character) Fictional pulp-magazine character

The Avenger is a fictional character whose original adventures appeared between September 1939 and September 1942 in the pulp magazine The Avenger, published by Street & Smith, which ran 24 issues. Five additional short stories were published in Clues Detective magazine (1942–1943), and a sixth novelette in The Shadow magazine in 1943. Decades later, newly written pastiches were commissioned and published by Warner Brothers' Paperback Library from 1973 to 1974.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Carter (character)</span> Fictional detective

Nick Carter is a fictional character who began as a dime novel private detective in 1886 and has appeared in a variety of formats over more than a century. The character was first conceived by Ormond G. Smith and created by John R. Coryell. Carter headlined his own magazine for years, and was then part of a long-running series of novels from 1964 to 1990. Films were created based on Carter in France, Czechoslovakia and Hollywood. Nick Carter has also appeared in many comic books and in radio programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lesbian pulp fiction</span> 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 1960s 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. English professor Stephanie Foote 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." Joan Nestle refers to lesbian pulp fiction as “survival literature.” Lesbian pulp fiction provided representation for lesbian identities, brought a surge of awareness to lesbians, and created space for lesbian organizing leading up to Stonewall.

The New American Library is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948. Its initial focus was affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction, but it now publishes trade and hardcover titles. It is currently an imprint of Penguin Random House; it was announced in 2015 that the imprint would publish only nonfiction titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Earle K. Bergey</span> American illustrator

Earle K. Bergey was an American artist and illustrator who painted cover art for thousands of pulp fiction magazines and paperback books. One of the most prolific pulp fiction artists of the 20th century, Bergey is recognized for creating, at the height of his career in 1948, the iconic cover of Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) for Popular Library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jess Nevins</span> American author

Jess Nevins is an American author and research librarian best known for annotated guides and encyclopedias covering Victoriana, comic books, genre fiction and pulp fiction. Among Nevin's books are Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana,Horror Fiction in the 20th Century and Encyclopedia of Golden Age Superheroes. He has been a recipient and finalist for a number of honors, including the World Fantasy, Sidewise, and Locus Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Street & Smith</span> New York City publisher (1855–1959)

Street & Smith or Street & Smith Publications, Inc., was a New York City publisher specializing in inexpensive paperbacks and magazines referred to as dime novels and pulp fiction. They also published comic books and sporting yearbooks. Among their many titles was the science fiction pulp magazine Astounding Stories, acquired from Clayton Magazines in 1933, and retained until 1961. Street & Smith was founded in 1855, and was bought out in 1959. The Street & Smith headquarters were at 79 Seventh Avenue in Manhattan; they were designed by Henry F. Kilburn.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gay pulp fiction</span> Genre of pulp fiction literature

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.

With the growth of science fiction studies as an academic discipline as well as a popular media genre, a number of libraries, museums, archives, and special collections have been established to collect and organize works of scholarly and historical value in the field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eaton Collection</span>

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kendell Foster Crossen</span> 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 Caryl 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. Lee Server, author of the Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers, called Fast One "a cold-hearted, machine-gun-paced masterwork" and his other writings "gemlike, stoic and merciless vignettes that seemed to come direct from the bootlegging front lines."

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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