Up and Down These Mean Streets (original) (raw)

Rediscovered: John Hancock Writes Some Science Fiction

Autograph Hound Saturday once again and Brian Leno sends in a few siggies from a recent purchase. Nothing too exciting, meat & potatoes stuff. He already had several of these banked in his files. One nice angle is that Will Jenkins also signs as his most famous penname Murray Leinster, and puts quote marks on the pseudonym.

Just recently Brian showed off an L. Sprague de Camp autograph in connection with landing a much bigger fish, a signed original snapshot of Robert E. Howard’s father. That find impressed even Brian.

DisCon was the 21st World Science Fiction Convention, Washington, D. C. — August 31-September 2 1963.

Here’s Brian:

This is a pretty cool little program book from 1963. Interesting stuff. At one o’clock on Sunday there’s a muster of the Hyborian Legion with “de Camp and his cohorts on Conan.”

But the coolest thing is the Autograph page. I already had most but I saw no reason not to have two H. Beam Piper — a suicide like REH — signatures in my library.

Asimov, de Camp and Leiber were already in my collection.

Randall Garrett is a new one for me. I think he’s a bit tough to get as his life evidently took a dive into shit as his health got bad.

And Gordon R. Dickson might be a new addition. Not sure.

The program book is in tough shape. Pages are loose as the staples have disappeared.

Still, all this fun for a couple of Franklins. Lots of cool ads. A bargain.

Posted in Lit | Tagged Autographs, Brian Leno, DisCon, Doc Howard, Fritz Leiber, Gordon R. Dickson, H. Beam Piper, Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, Randall Garrett, Will Jenkins |

Rediscovered: The Chandler Machine

Remember last year when a bunch of stuff that belonged to Raymond Chandler went on the block? Everything from drafts of fantasy stories to the typewriter he used during his Last Stand writing Playback?

Turns out that none other than Mark Coggins nabbed the machine out from under everyone else, and tells the tale in a new bit for The Rap Sheet.

Scoot on over and check it out. Behind-the-scenes derring-do, unexpected add-ons by the auction house. Fairly big money changing hands.

Rediscovered: The Conniving Curley

Hop over to Crimereads to peruse Nathan Ward’s latest research into the flimflam and frayed borders of the legends and lives that populated the Wild West.

Most recently Nathan made the Up and Down These Mean Streets scene with his superb Western biography of Charlie Siringo, range detective.

His glory days, so far, involved a biography of Dashiell Hammett, when Nathan stalked the burg, speaking and signing copies in the Mechanics’ Institute Library. If a book has “tough guy” written all over it, Nathan might have done the scribbling.

Hammett: After Chandler

Mark Coggins just dropped a bit on The Rap Sheet about how Raymond Chandler got to San Francisco before Hammett hit town. Check it out.

Got some dates, some buildings and addresses.

The elephant in the burg, though, is the idea that Chandler just might have begun writing first and made Frisco his own. Intriguing, worth a little mulling over.

Would — all else being equal — Hammett have rolled into his residences in Eddy Street and others and still begun his Black Mask career? So you’d have had — all things being equal — two major talents working these mean streets.

But the all things being equal hits the pause button when you factor in that Chandler only began his crime writing career after encountering Hammett and the Mask crew. No Hammett at the typewriter keys in San Francisco, no Chandler with the brooding meditations on Los Angeles and environs.

Rediscovered: Is It Doc’s John Hancock? Is It the Suicide Car?

After Brian Leno’s stunning eBay coup of a signed — and seemingly previously unseen — photograph of Dr. Isaac Howard, people (you know people) are getting in on the action. Some think the signature is authentic. Some feel it can’t possibly be the autograph of Robert E. Howard’s father.

Gary Romeo of the blog spraguedecampfan even sent along the image of a 1981 letter from Vera Baker to L. Sprague de Camp where she mentions just coming across the photo. De Camp’s letter in which he returns the original to her was in with the group of items Brian bought.

But he was after the photo, not a note from de Camp.

Rob Roehm commented, “Long time no see. Great find! I’m not sure about the signature, either, but it could be. Attached are a couple of samples.”

The holograph on stationery from The West Texas Clinic dates from March 8, 1943. The note in blue ink dates closer to the creation of the photo — January 22, 1940. The end letters “rd” of Howard match the signature on the photo, or match as closely as any individual signature matches another.

Rob adds, “The car in the background looks like it has ‘suicide doors’ on the back doors, which REH’s last car, a 1935 4-door Chevy Standard, had. Not to be confused with the 1935 Chevy Master, that had ‘suicide doors’ on all four doors. So, another could be. Still, super cool find. Congratulations!”

How Rob doped out the suicide door angle amazed me for a minute, but then he first burst on the scene in the magazine The Cimmerian by tracking down the specific site in the extensive ruins of Fort McKavett where Robert E. Howard once had a snap taken. I mean, you can barely see the car in the background.

I checked it more carefully and spotted the clew: the door handles. The handle in front is like any you’d find today, but there’s a small visual break and then the next handle, placed at the front of the door frame — meaning it swung open with the inside of the door facing oncoming traffic.

Even Brian could not quite make the boast of grabbing off eBay a shot of Doc and the car in which REH killed himself with a bullet to the brain. He may have wanted to believe it, sure. “After Rob’s letter I can see the suicide doors, so who knows? Picture raises a lot of questions.”

The Vera Baker letter from Gary Romeo did bring Brian to a stop for a moment. Flat-out, she says the autograph IDing Dr. Howard on the front of the photo was done by either her mother or by Hester Howard.

“Well, I guess that takes care of that,” Brian stated.

“Yeah, but Brian,” I chimed in, “the only problem is that the signature is by Doc Howard.”

Obviously Vera Baker doesn’t know who signed the snap. Her mother or Hester Howard? Confidence returning, Brian noted, “If Vera is not so sure who wrote it, how can we be sure it was anybody but Doc? Apparently she doesn’t know for sure, she wasn’t there when the photo was signed. So why could it not have been the Doc himself?”

And chances of Hester Howard signing it are more than remote, at best. REH committed suicide because she was at death’s door. She died the next day. Doc had the car cleaned up and the hole in the roof patched and drove it around for awhile. If he took REH’s car over to Coleman, Texas to visit the Baker family on their farm, odds are strongest that the date followed the deaths of his son and wife.

So don’t worry much about Brian, he’s hanging tough. “I have a photo that so far no one has ever said they’ve seen before, which was my main worry. Rob Roehm does so much with the genealogy stuff that if he hasn’t seen it, it ain’t been seen.”

Rediscovered: A Little Birthday Treat

For birthday 119 for Robert E. Howard — should he have lived so long — Brian Leno roars into Autograph Hound action once more, pulling an original photo of REH’s father, actually signed by Doc Howard, from the time-lost ruins and scattered yard sales of eBay.

Brian has out two eBooks on the creator of Conan, his classic Lovecraft’s Southern Vacation as well as Ringside with Robert E. Howard. He has been a fan and collector from his early teenage years. And today he is a very happy camper.

Brian’s a bit hesitant to say with complete assurance that the autograph is by Doc, but I have no such reservations. Check out my own small eBook on REH Famous Someday for many examples of Doc’s hand, both holograph material and his fascinating doodles. Do a bit of detective work (and it’s not that hard to recognize the distinctive touches). Famous Someday features interviews with two of the Baker Kids, younger siblings of Vera Baker Nichols, with lots of talk about Doc Howard visiting their family in Coleman, Texas. Plus other material for the arch-Howard enthusiast of the Brian Leno ilk.

(If a small eBook isn’t enough for bona fides, I also have a huge eBook on REH, The Dark Barbarian That Towers Over All—- and just recently I collected even more writings about the Texan in Death Lit. After fifty years of Howardian research and litcrit, I’m confident I can spot a scribble from Doc.)

And now here’s Brian with his saga of the hunt:

As usual I was checking eBay for something I couldn’t live without and I came across a copy for sale of the Howard biography Dark Valley Destiny by L. Sprague de Camp.

Normally that book would not warrant a second look. But I happened to notice it came with two letters, one signed by de Camp and another signed by his wife.

Still no real interest from me. On the seller’s photo, though, I was just able to see what looked like an old, small picture. Just beat to a pulp.

I thought, there’s something different here.

A little nervous, thinking I could be on to an interesting find, I clicked in and saw that this copy of DVD had belonged to Vera Baker Nichols, once a childhood acquaintance of Robert E. Howard.

Suddenly the letters became a little bit more . . . momentous. The one signed by de Camp thanked Vera for the original photo of Dr. Howard “and the copy negative and print made from it.”

He added that he was returning the original.

I looked at the image and realized this was the original photo of Dr. Howard de Camp was writing about.

With shark-like speed I made my way to the checkout line.

The picture is 2 inches wide, 2-1/2 inches high. It’s a tiny bugger.

A stamp on the back states that the photo was taken by Martin’s Studio, Coleman, Texas. As noted, in far from perfect shape.

It’s a photo I’ve never seen before. Regardless of whether or not it is known, it is an original of Howard’s father, apparently signed by the good doctor, as the signature does closely match other signatures of his I have seen.

It’s tough to make out, but Dr. Howard is standing proudly in front of his (I would guess) vehicle. It would be great if it was the automobile that belonged to his son, at the time of REH’s suicide, but it’s probably just the car Doc used when making his rounds.

The photo shows a stoop-shouldered old man with a rather disheveled appearance, and a wistful smile as he looks straight at the photographer. Those shoulders had seen much heartache.

Through all this literary archaeology I have been able to add something to my Howard collection that I’ve pursued ever since I realized how few photos exist of Howard and his family.

A true original.

The photo is in a top loader now for safety. I wonder how many times people’s greasy thumbs rubbed against the poor doc’s face.

Like the no-holds-barred Howard fanatic I am, I’m afraid one photo in the collection just makes me want more.

Hammett: Jeopardy! Slips Another Clew from the Dash Deck

January 13. S41 E91. Champions Wildcard Game 1.

Double Jeopardy Round.

Category: People of the Book.

$800 clew:

Private dicks Sam & Miles; Sexy, deceitful client Miss Wonderley; Acquisitive Caspar Gutman

Contestant buzzes in:

“What is The Maltese Falcon?”

Posted in Dash | Tagged Jeopardy! |

Tour: 45 Years — 1977-2022

Man, it would have been swell to get to the 50 Year mark leading the Dashiell Hammett Tour, but I guess I started in just a little too late.

The gumshoes are willing but years weigh heavy. And I can’t see any scenario where they don’t just keep getting heavier. Hell, I was lucky I could bounce back for a few more years after triple bypass surgery in 2018.

In the 45 year period I was pounding the mean streets, the only year I did nothing at all was 2020, thanks to the COVID lockdowns. I’ll give myself that one — I remember circa 1982 when I did fifteen walks in one month, so maybe it all balances out.

But I also sat out 2023 and 2024 — perhaps COVID finally got me, or something else. Who knows?

Time to call it.

I suppose I could still do talks, and now have that many more hours to work on books. Got three done last year, released between Halloween and December 31st. I have three more lined up for the first half of 2025. And an as yet somewhat vague plan to get some of the history of The San Francisco Suicide Club into print or ePrint.

Posted in News, SFSC, Tour | Tagged Burritt alley |

Rediscovered: 10th Anniversary for the Robert E. Howard LitCrit MegaPack

On December 26, 2014 the first of my eBook LitCrit MegaPacks dropped into the marketplace. Collecting in one place for the first time the critical anthologies The Dark Barbarian (1984) and the follow-up from twenty years later, The Barbaric Triumph (2004).

The Dark Barbarian That Towers Over All, then, was the thirtieth anniversary publication in that symbolic run of Robert E. Howard criticism, adding enough material to fill up a third actual book.

For the tenth anniversary of Towers Over All — or would it be more importantly the fortieth anniversary of The Dark Barbarian? — we return with a distinct second edition.

Behind the jazzed-up cover the text has been scoured, resulting in some changes and corrections. Updated formatting optimizes the experience for the newest eBook readers. And I close it out with an all-new afterword — “Barbaric Decad” — bringing the saga up-to-date, for the moment.

Hammett: Who Is?

Jeopardy! October 22, 2024. S41 E32.

In the Final Jeopardy round the category Detective Authors.

“For much of the 1920s, he lived on Eddy in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.”

“Who is I had fun,” responded one contender.

“Who is Mosley?” replied another.

“Who is Hammett?” wrote the third. That guy won $18,799.