THE ROBERT AND PHYLLIS WEINBERG COLLECTION

THE ROBERT AND PHYLLIS WEINBERG COLLECTION

THE ROBERT AND PHYLLIS WEINBERG COLLECTION

By Boyd White

Recently, Lloyd Currey showed me a copy of the classic science fantasy collection A Gnome There Was (1950) inscribed by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore, the wonderful husband-and-wife team who often wrote under the pseudonym “Lewis Padgett.”  Lloyd was discussing the provenance of the book, how he had sold it to Robert Weinberg many years ago only to have it come into his hands again now that Bob is no longer with us.  As I was reading the inscription, Lloyd remarked, “I think this copy might be unique.  I have never seen another inscribed copy.”  We could easily apply this same sentiment to Bob himself.  He was one of a kind, a unique individual whose like we won’t see again.

As a teenager growing up in rural Tennessee in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I loved receiving catalogs from Weinberg Books in the mail.  When I would come home from middle school and one of Bob’s catalogs was waiting for me on the kitchen table, I would race to my room and read it from cover to cover.  I had already developed a love for the pulps from reading Bantam paperback reprints of Doc Savage.  Likewise, the Ballantine two-volume paperback edition of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1973) with its marvelous cover artwork by John Holmes had introduced me to H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Frank Belknap Long.  Unsurprisingly, Bob’s catalogs always increased my appetite for such fare tenfold.  Who was the Spider?  The Phantom Detective?  What were “shudder pulps”?  Would I enjoy Leigh Brackett or Cornell Woolrich? 

Being the son of factory workers, I had very little money those days, only what I could earn from running errands and mowing neighbors’ lawns.  The first collectible books I ever purchased were in-print Arkham House titles featured in Bob’s catalogs—Joseph Payne Brennan’s Stories of Darkness and Dread (1973), Gerald W. Page’s Nameless Places (1975),  and Mary Elizabeth Counselman’s Half in Shadow (1978).  These works formed the basis for my love of weird fiction, and I dreamed about books that I knew I could never hope to afford like Lovecraft’s The Outsider and Others (1939) or a first edition of Ray Bradbury’s The October Country (1955).   After I earned my driver’s license and began operating a forklift part time at a local K-Mart, I soon found myself placing a telephone order for Manly Wade Wellman’s Worse Things Waiting (1973) for the outrageous price of $75 from a somewhat intimidating—or so it seemed to me at the time—New York bookseller named L. W. Currey, who had also started sending me catalogs in the mail.

Bob Weinberg’s 40+ year career as a collector, editor, author, bookseller, and publisher is widely known.  A complete list of his accomplishments could easily fill a substantial volume.  Anyone who visits his official website can’t help but be astounded by the breadth and depth of his interests as a collector—Robert E. Howard, H. Rider Haggard, Nero Wolfe, Frank R. Paul, Virgil Finlay, Kelly Freas, EC comics, Uncle Scrooge, and anything related to the pulps.  As a publisher, Bob reprinted numerous pulp classics, often rare or obscure titles like The Octopus, The Scorpion, or Dr. Death, in addition to issuing key reference works such as Mike Ashley’s The Complete Index to Astounding/Analog (1981).  As a bibliographer, Bob made significant scholarly contributions, most notably The Weird Tales Story (1977), The Louis L’Amour Companion (1993), and his masterwork, A Biographical Dictionary of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists (1988), which remains an essential resource for the field and which, like The Weird Tales Story, won the World Fantasy Award.

In Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Granger, the leader of a group of exiles who have literally become living books by memorizing entire works to preserve their contents from the firemen, tells Montag, “’Grandfather’s been dead for all these years, but if you lifted my skull, by God, in the convolutions of my brain you’d find the big ridges of his thumbprint.”  I never met or spoke with Bob Weinberg, but he did start a lifelong conversation with me about books through his catalogs during my formative years.  I am certain he holds a similar place in the lives of many other collectors and readers.  The closest we come to eternity is through what leave behind, our families and our children, the stories and anecdotes that loved ones recite about us.  Bob’s life and work reminds us that books last forever.  I still haven’t bought a copy of The Outsider and Others or a first edition of The October Country, but I have all the books I purchased from Bob’s catalogs.  I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

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14.
THE. Winter 1948 - Autumn 1949 . ARKHAM SAMPLER, August Derleth, number 1 - volume 2 volume 1,...

Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, Winter 1948 - Autumn 1949 (volume 1, number 1 - volume 2, number 4). Octavo, eight numbers, printed wrappers. (#162606)
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Price: $750.00

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33.
TALES BEFORE MIDNIGHT. Stephen Vincent Benet

TALES BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

New York, Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., [1939]. Octavo, pp. [1-10] [1-2] 3-274 [275-278: blank] [note: last two leaves are blanks], original navy blue cloth, front and spine panels stamped in silver, top edge stained light blue, fore-edge untrimmed, bottom edge rough-trimmed. First edition. First printing with "F&R" monogram on copyright page. (#161259)
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Price: $150.00

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34.
TALES BEFORE MIDNIGHT. Stephen Vincent Benet

TALES BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

New York, Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., [1939]. Octavo, pp. [1-10] [1-2] 3-274 [275-278: blank] [note: last two leaves are blanks], original navy blue cloth, front and spine panels stamped in silver, top edge stained light blue, fore-edge untrimmed, bottom edge rough-trimmed. First edition. First printing with "F&R" monogram on copyright page. (#162335)
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35.
THIRTEEN O'CLOCK: STORIES OF SEVERAL WORLDS. Stephen Vincent Benet

THIRTEEN O'CLOCK: STORIES OF SEVERAL WORLDS.

New York, Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., [1937]. Octavo, pp. [i-vi] vii-viii [1-2] 3-305 [306-312: blank] [note: last three leaves are blanks], original light blue cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black, top edge stained black, fore-edge rough trimmed. First edition. First printing with publisher's "FR" monogram on copyright page. (#161258)
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38.
THE MYSTERY OF THE LOUVRE ... Illustrated with Scenes from the Photo-Play, a Universal...

THE MYSTERY OF THE LOUVRE ... Illustrated with Scenes from the Photo-Play, a Universal Production.

London: The Readers Library Publishing Company Ltd., n.d. [1929]. Small octavo, pp. [1-9] 10-251 [252] [253: ad] [254-256: blank] [note: first and last leaves used as front and rear paste-downs], four inserted plates with eight film stills, original decorated maroon boards, front and spine panels stamped in gold. First edition in English. (#163748)
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