(#176650) FROM ARKHAM TO ASH-TREE: THE RICHARD FAWCETT SMALL-PRESS MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENCE ARCHIVE, 1970s - 1990s, LARGELY UNPUBLISHED, A VIRTUAL TREASURE TROVE OF INFORMATION REGARDING AN AREA OF LATE 20TH CENTURY SPECIALTY PUBLISHING ABOUT WHICH VERY LITTLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN. Richard Fawcett.
FROM ARKHAM TO ASH-TREE: THE RICHARD FAWCETT SMALL-PRESS MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENCE ARCHIVE, 1970s - 1990s, LARGELY UNPUBLISHED, A VIRTUAL TREASURE TROVE OF INFORMATION REGARDING AN AREA OF LATE 20TH CENTURY SPECIALTY PUBLISHING ABOUT WHICH VERY LITTLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN.
FROM ARKHAM TO ASH-TREE: THE RICHARD FAWCETT SMALL-PRESS MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENCE ARCHIVE, 1970s - 1990s, LARGELY UNPUBLISHED, A VIRTUAL TREASURE TROVE OF INFORMATION REGARDING AN AREA OF LATE 20TH CENTURY SPECIALTY PUBLISHING ABOUT WHICH VERY LITTLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN.
FROM ARKHAM TO ASH-TREE: THE RICHARD FAWCETT SMALL-PRESS MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENCE ARCHIVE, 1970s - 1990s, LARGELY UNPUBLISHED, A VIRTUAL TREASURE TROVE OF INFORMATION REGARDING AN AREA OF LATE 20TH CENTURY SPECIALTY PUBLISHING ABOUT WHICH VERY LITTLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN.
FROM ARKHAM TO ASH-TREE: THE RICHARD FAWCETT SMALL-PRESS MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENCE ARCHIVE, 1970s - 1990s, LARGELY UNPUBLISHED, A VIRTUAL TREASURE TROVE OF INFORMATION REGARDING AN AREA OF LATE 20TH CENTURY SPECIALTY PUBLISHING ABOUT WHICH VERY LITTLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN.
FROM ARKHAM TO ASH-TREE: THE RICHARD FAWCETT SMALL-PRESS MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENCE ARCHIVE, 1970s - 1990s, LARGELY UNPUBLISHED, A VIRTUAL TREASURE TROVE OF INFORMATION REGARDING AN AREA OF LATE 20TH CENTURY SPECIALTY PUBLISHING ABOUT WHICH VERY LITTLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN.

FROM ARKHAM TO ASH-TREE: THE RICHARD FAWCETT SMALL-PRESS MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENCE ARCHIVE, 1970s - 1990s, LARGELY UNPUBLISHED, A VIRTUAL TREASURE TROVE OF INFORMATION REGARDING AN AREA OF LATE 20TH CENTURY SPECIALTY PUBLISHING ABOUT WHICH VERY LITTLE HAS BEEN WRITTEN. As the publisher of magazines such as FANTASY MACABRE (1982–1996) and FANTASY & TERROR (1984–1996), as well as collections of forgotten and contemporary ghost story writers including Olivia Howard Dunbar's THE SHELL OF SENSE (1997) and Mary Ann Allen's THE ANGRY DEAD (2000), Richard Fawcett remained an active presence in the small-press publishing world for over 20 years. His deep conviction that August Derleth deserved recognition as a major contributor to American literature for the Sac Prairie Saga led Fawcett to found the August Derleth Society in 1978 and begin publishing its newsletter. Because of his interest in Derleth, Fawcett corresponded closely with a number of authors who began their careers in the 1920s and 1930s in WEIRD TALES and whose first collections of short fiction were published by Arkham House, the specialty press Derleth and Donald Wandrei founded in 1939 to preserve H. P. Lovecraft's legacy. As a small-press publisher during the horror fiction boom of the 1980s and 1990s, Fawcett's publications and his correspondence serve as an important bridge between Arkham House and a latter generation of specialty presses, such as Dark Harvest, Carcosa, Ash-Tree Press, and Tartarus Press, none of whom would have ever existed without Arkham House forging the way. Fawcett's magazines featured the work of unknown authors alongside some of the last published writings of significant WEIRD TALES contributors, such as Joseph Payne Brennan, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, and Frank Belknap Long, Jr. Thanks to the editorial acumen of Jessica Amanda Salmonson, FANTASY MACABRE and FANTASY & TERROR also featured some of the earliest fiction published by a number of highly regarded authors at the start of their careers, most notably Thomas Ligotti, W. H. Pugmire, and Steve Resnic Tem. Members of Rosemary Pardoe's The James Gang, known for their admiration and reverence of M. R. James, also contributed work to Fawcett's magazines, including David G. Rowlands, J. S. Leatherbarrow, and Pardoe herself under her pseudonym of "Mary Ann Allen." In addition, early fiction by Mark Valentine, whose career rise would mirror that of Tartarus Press, the publishing house that issued in his first collection IN VIOLET VEILS in 1999, also appeared in Fawcett's magazines. Likewise, years before Ash-Tree Press would begin publishing its extensive series of collections of vintage supernatural fiction from the Victorian era forward, FANTASY MACABRE and FANTASY & TERROR rescued the work of numerous all but forgotten authors from both the United States and Europe, including Marjorie Bowen, Alice Brown, Stefan Grabinski, and Gustav Meyrink. Fawcett's correspondence with WEIRD TALES authors at the twilight of their careers is poignant and moving. Virtually abandoned by everyone except for a small, devoted fandom, Frank Belknap Long, Jr., Mary Elizabeth Counselman, and Carl Jacobi suffered from mountains of debt and cascading health problems. Long's letters, which emphasize his admiration for highly successful horror writers from the 1980s, particularly T.E.D. Klein and Stephen King, illustrate how the decline of the pulp generation stood in contrast to those authors who careers were bolstered by significant publicity and large mainstream publishing contracts. In addition, letters from important horror writers like Robert Bloch, mainstream literary authors such as T. V. Olsen, and influential genre editors like Sam Moskowitz, provide keen insights into August Derleth's life and working habits, including the precarious financial history of Arkham House, reasons for the suppression of Derleth's volume of erotic poetry, LOVE LETTERS TO CAITLIN (1971), and speculations about Derleth's sexuality and its influence on his writing. Other important authors, editors and researchers whose correspondence with Fawcett is contained in the archive include Mike Ashley, Ray Bradbury, Basil Copper, Stephen King, Karl Edward Wagner, J. N. Williamson, and Manly Wade Wellman. A number of Fawcett's correspondents also discuss their assessments of seminal figures in supernatural fiction, especially M. R. James and Algernon Blackwood. The cornerstone of the Richard Fawcett archive, however, is his extensive correspondence with Jessica Amanda Salmonson. During the period when she served as Fawcett's editor, Salmonson had been an openly transgendered woman since the 1970s. A dedicated researcher of obscure, forgotten authors of weird fiction, particularly women, Salmonson's letters to Fawcett discuss her devotion to preserving the work of virtually unknown female ghost story writers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most notably Alice Brown, Georgia Wood Pangborn, Harriet Prescott Spofford, and Mary Heaton Vorse, all of whom would have collections edited by Salmonson published by Ash-Tree Press in the late 1990s. Salmonson's letters also provide a wealth of information about the finances involved in marketing and distributing of small-press publications, which often depended upon a notice in a fanzine or distribution at a science fiction or horror convention. Most importantly, Salmonson shares her insights about the significance of science fiction, fantasy, and horror in the nascent field of LGBTQ+ studies at the university level in a remarkable letter from 1983, a document that emphasizes just how far-thinking Salmonson was with her scholarly pursuits and her understanding of the direction in which the academy was beginning to move. With the exception of an occasional draft of an essay or poem included with the correspondence, the vast majority of The Richard Fawcett Small-Press Magazine Correspondence Archive is unpublished, a virtual treasure trove of information regarding an area of late 20th century specialty publishing about which very little has been written. The archive is in fine condition overall. A detailed, fully annotated calendar is available on request. (#176650).

Price: $25,000.00

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