The Sunday Post, Issue #276: Unraveling the Mystery of Vintage Hardback Editions

Happy Sunday! 

I apologize for the delay in today’s post! I managed to publish my Gunsmoke & Grit post on time, but I’ve been feeling under the weather again, this time battling two cold sores. As a result, I spent much of my Sunday resting up. 

Last week, I posted an interview with author Stephen Kozeniewski. I've decided to push my review of Mark Greaney's Sentinel to this coming week, and I’m hoping to have it ready by Tuesday. I also reviewed the Western book Longarm and the Molly Maguires over on Gunsmoke & Grit. 

Tomorrow morning, I’ll start reading Cameron Judd's Renegade Lawman and will post a review on Wednesday or Thursday on Gunsmoke & Grit. I’ve also placed a bookmark in Kat Martin's The Ghost Illusion, so that might be next on my list. 

I bought The Personal Assistant by Kimberly Belle at Dollar Tree—something about the cover caught my eye!

I also picked up five vintage hardbacks at a thrift store: Drink to Yesterday by Manning Coles, Warrant for X by Philip MacDonald, The Thirtieth Step by John Buchan, A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler, and The A.B.C. Murders by Agatha Christie—similar to the Ellery Queen novel, Calamity Town, that I found the week prior, and appear to be special or book club editions from the 1930s and 1940s, with varying copyright dates. Two share the same publisher, while the others are from different ones. There are no jackets—likely they never had any to start with—and feature red-brown faux leather covers. Each spine showcases a red vertical rectangle with a gold design above and below the printed gold title, author, and publisher in the center. Printed on the copyright page of each book is "Made in the United States of America." I’ve noticed several of these editions listed online for prices ranging from under $8 to hundreds of dollars, yet there’s little clarity on who published them or when. Some sellers have erroneously mistaken them for Heron books, but I’ve seen images of the Heron editions, and they don’t match mine. These books are older, printed on wartime paper.

I also visited a couple of antique flea markets and snagged a few more books, mainly Westerns, which I’ve already discussed on my other blog. I also got Phoenix-Rising: Day of Judgement by William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone, The Virgin of Small Plains by Nancy Pickard, Tom Clancy: Code of Honor by Marc Cameron, and Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden. Interestingly, the latter had a Vintage Memories: Masterpiece Collection Bookmark tucked inside. 

Happy reading, everyone!

⁓B.J. Burgess