Penguin Modern Classics 6–Irish & Latin American Classics

To start with Irish modern classics, there are only three represented in my collection. The first is a 1966 edition of James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, which I vaguely recall was on the curriculum of my Literature course at university.

1966 edition – photographs from the National Gallery of Ireland

The other two Irish novels are At Swim- Two- Birds by Flann O’Brien and Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime and other stories by Oscar Wilde.

1971 edition – “The Bus By The River” by Jack B Yeats	1974 edition – A Private View 1881” by W P Frith

As for South American novels I have of course Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths,  my introduction to his work, and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez  which was also the first book of his that I read.

1972 edition – “La Havane” by Portocarrero	1977 edition – “Misery of the Peasants by J C Orozco

And finally for this post, two novels by Alejo Carpentier, a Swiss born Cuban writer, who was a major influence on  magic realist writers such as Marquez , Fuentes etc. I can’t remember if I ever read the two following novels, Explosion in a Cathedral and The Lost Steps, but these Penguin Modern Classics editions have wonderful surrealist covers.

1971 edition – “Tete Raphaelesque Eclatee” by Dali	1968 edition – “The Great Forest” by Max Ernst

The next post will feature a miscellany of nationalities and the last of the Penguin Modern Classics in my personal library.

Picador Books – Part 1

In 1972 I was working in a bookshop in Melbourne when the first books in Picador were issued. Included among those first published was Heroes & Villains by Angela Carter, which was indeed my first introduction to her books. Picador was an imprint of Pan Books, now Pan Macmillan and its aim was to publish outstanding International fiction in paperback. They had wonderful cover art, which makes them ideal Eye Candy for Bibliophiles.

For many years I collected Picadors as they were released, so I have a fair collection of the early issued books.

For the purpose of this blog, I’ll present them as always in alphabetical, rather than chronological order.

So to start off Renata Adler’s Speedboat, and Fantomas by Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre

Then there’s Gazelle Boy by Jean-Claude Armen

And Julian Barnes wonderful A History of the World in 10½ Chapters and Flaubert’s Parrot.

Murphy by Samuel Beckett

Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood - a short but great novel

Jorge Luis Borges - A Personal Anthology with cover art by Hundertwasser

Next entry will cover Richard Brautigan.

More Fantasy - A Miscellany

This post will show an assortment of individual novels. Some are quite rare these days I should imagine.

The Tsaddik of the Seven Wonders by Isidore Hailblum is purported to be the first Yiddish science fantasy, and The Rainbow Annals by Grania Davis is a charming version of the Monkey legend. David Johnston is the cover artist for "Tsaddik"

Next, an unusual and very dark version of Cinderella in The Coachman Rat by David Henry Wilson and E Hoffman Price's Chinese fantasy The Devil Wives of Li Fong.

Cover art by Don Maitz and Rowena Morrill.

Two books from the Dennis Wheatley Library of the Occult published by Sphere - The Greater Trumps by Charles Williams and The Curse of the Wise Woman by Lord Dunsany.

An omnibus volume containing of Phantastes & Lilith by George MacDonald - two very strange fantasties. Also Jorge Luis Borges Book of Imaginary Beings.

Next John Bellairs Face in the Frost and William Goldman's famous Princess Bride.

And last but not least William Browning Spencer's totally wonderful fantasy Zod Wallop.

Coming next - trilogies and other interrelated fantasy novels.