Weekly Reader book: "Haunted Houses"

Spooktober will be here very soon, so let's starting getting into the, ahem, spirit...

• Title: Haunted Houses 
• Author and illustrator: Larry Kettelkamp (1933-2023). He was previously featured on Papergreat in 2021 for his book Investigating UFO's. He died on October 1, 2023, and his obituary notes that he was "a quintessential renaissance man" who lived a long life filled with "unique twists and turns." He began as an illustrator but then, according to his obituary: "Realizing that he could write the informational children’s books he had been illustrating, Larry successfully proposed that idea to Prentice Hall publishing. It was the start of a long illustrious career as an author/illustrator of over 35 informational trade books for juniors and young adults. The subject matter of his books focused on subjects that piqued his interest ranging from poltergeists, to magic, to optical illusions. His books were to become ubiquitous in school libraries throughout the U.S. as well as staples of the ever-popular school book fairs." Many children of the 1970s are so glad he took that route! 
• Cover photo: The famous (to my generation, anyway) Tulip Staircase ghost photo taken by Rev. Ralph W. Hardy in 1966.
• Publisher: Weekly Reader Books
• Year: 1969 (Weekly Reader Books Edition published by arrangement with William Morrow and Company)
• Pages: 95
• Format: Staplebound paperback
• Chapter titles: The Tower of London, The Haunted Rectory, The Manor House Ghost, The California Ghost, The Ghost in the Music Building, The Ghosts That Were Photographed, Poltergeists of the Past, The Scottish Poltergeist, The Farm Poltergeist, The Bottle-Popping Poltergeist, The Store Poltergeist, Memories in Space, Separation of Consciousness, and Energy of the Mind.
• First sentence: Have you ever seen a ghost?
• Well?? I have not, as I mentioned last autumn while feeling especially cynical.
• Last two sentences: The ghosts of haunted houses and the pranks of poltergeists are fascinating subjects for study and speculation. Perhaps, also, they actually can give us clues to the nature of a larger reality than we ordinarily experience in our daily lives.
• Random passage from the middle #1: It has been suggested that our experience of time is, in part, an illusion. Time may be a dimension similar to length and width. That is, the past and future may have some shape, even though we see only the shape of the present. According to this idea, everything that existed in the past still exists. All events have shape and exist permanently. Although our consciousness must usually be concerned with the shape of the present, at times it may also notice the shape of the past.
• Whoa: Whoa, indeed. If you want to dive headlong into the ideas of Albert Einstein, Hermann Weyl and the nature of time, this Astronomy.com article is a good place to start down the rabbit hole.
• Random passage from the middle #2: Admittedly, poltergeists do not show up very often. But over the years hundreds of examples have been collected and reviewed over and over by a whole series of psychical investigators. Even modern science cannot fully explain some of these mysterious events.
• Rating on Goodreads: 3.6 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review excerpt: In 2017, Amelia Kibbie wrote: "The author was obviously well-researched and credits some paranormal researchers affiliated with institutions of learning in the foreward. A lot of his information seems to come from the famed parapsychology lab at Duke University. I'll be keeping this copy for my daughter to read someday."
• Rating on Amazon: 4.4 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review:  In 2016, Grammie of Three wrote: "This book was my first exposure to ghost stories as a child. Looking back, I'm surprised that it was offered in our little Catholic school library sometime around the late 70's or early 80's. I bought this to share with our son, and nieces. Fun campfire short stories, but....be prepared for the nightmares, or having the munchkins in bed with you. lol"
• Comments from a July Vintage Paperback Books post on Facebook: "This book had true stories about ghosts in various parts of the world with really scary photos. I was always fascinated with horror and ghosts as a kid even though I was also quite scared of all of it." ... "I took it out of my school library many, many times!" ... "OMG! This book freaked me out when I was a kid!" ... "Because of this book and Carnival of Souls, I used to race up the stairs at top panic speed. I was certain the ghouls were grabbing my back." ... "Was this the one that included the story of Elke Sommer's house? That freaked me out." [Note from me: Yes, it does include Sommer's story.] 

Monkey "assisted" me on this post,  

to the extent that I typed much of it with one hand.

Book cover: "Riches and Fame and the Pleasures of Sense"

• Title: Riches and Fame and the Pleasures of Sense
• Author: Kathy Black. I can't find any biographical information about her online, a search that isn't helped by how common her name is.
• Cover illustration: Gail Burwen (1945-2017), Cloud Studio. Most of her cover illustrations were for science-fiction books.
• Cover design: R.D. Scudellari (1933-2022). The Library of America website notes: "One of the foremost book designers of his generation, Scudellari created the distinctive Library of America series jacket in the early 1980s, bringing in Swedish calligrapher Gun Larson for a hand-drawn, artisanal touch that would distinguish each book." Another remembrance, by Janet Odgis, can be found on Odgis.com.
• Back cover photographer: Ellen McNeilly
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf (a Borzoi book)
• Back cover price: $3.50
• Year: 1971
• Pages: 151
• Format: Hardcover with no dust jacket
• Typography: Set by Fototronic CRT in the Garamond typeface
• Dimensions: 5½ inches by 8¼ inches
• From the "Prefatory Statement": This book forced itself on me while I was trying to write something else, and it probably still bears the marks of the reluctance with which a great part of it was composed. After completing my shopping at the A&P (1947), I determined to apply the categories for shelving which I had learned there to the problem of the novel. (The statement also mentions and thanks the Lower Merion school board. Was Black from Pennsylvania?)
• Opening paragraph: We've been pretty happy, Susan and I said George settling down into his sofa and smiling. the room was dusky at six o'clock in summer. David Brinkley was talking on the tv with his mouth closed.
• Random passage from the middle #1: I interviewed Stephanie while she was putting egg cups on her wall. They were pink purple and salmon-colored plastic egg boxes she had stolen from the supermarket.
• Random passage from the middle #2: Paul says that making love is the most overwhelming activity in the world, I say, Yes. (Since if I had said no he might think I didn't like sex and you can't have anyone thinking that about you. You would rather have them think you are stupid. Sometimes I tell men I don't like sex but that's wicked, like telling your father you don't like money.)
• Random passage from the middle #3: Andrey had curly blond hair blue eyes and was Polish. It was a relief to realize that you could live in Israel even if you disapproved of the government policy to the point of being sick from it. You could help transform Israel into a socialist country and try to make it recognize the Palestinian people as humans with a right to their lands, he said, as a people wanting self-determination just as much as the Jewish people wanted self-determination [...] She had seen lots of death, bombings and fires she said and that's why the Israeli army was necessary, to prevent things like that, and yes she said reprisals did lead only to more violence but what then was the solution? she said.
• Online reviews and ratings: Almost nothing.
• Best (only?) place for insight: A fascinating 2023 article on The Neglected Books Page notes that Riches and Fame and the Pleasures of Sense was part of a short-lived early 1970s series by Alfred A. Knopf: "dust jacketless, shiny-covered hardbacks that championed the work of young American writers playing around with fictional forms and styles — a series referred to as 'Borzoi puppies' after Knopf’s legendary Borzoi Books." There were only eight books total published before the series was abandoned after 1972. All eight books are reviewed in the article and this is an excerpt of what it states about Black's effort: "[The book] is about a Barnard graduate named Betty who’s trying to get a book called Riches and Fame and the Pleasures of Sense published — that is, once she’s written it. In search of material, she interviews friends and old classmates and spends time in Paris with her boyfriend Arnold. The book is filled with snippets. Snippets of the interviews, of Betty’s notebooks, of a play she wrote in elementary school, of letters to editors, of thoughts on such topics as 'Modern Youth Searches for an Identity.' ... All this would quickly grow insufferable were it not for Kathy Black’s winning acknowledgement that since we’re following along with her wanderings, she owes the reader a chuckle or accurate insight every page or so." From my perspective, I add only, and rather lamely, that Black's writing style reminded me at times of Richard Brautigan. And that was before I even got the mention of mayonnaise.

Lake Illustrated Classics editions of Shakespeare, circa 1994

I spied but didn't buy (even though they were just $2 apiece) these Lake Illustrated Classic graphic novel versions of William Shakespeare's plays at a Bookmans in Tucson. I think these are the 1994 reprints of the Pendulum Press editions that were originally published circa 1980, right before Pendulum ended that particular series. The covers are mostly identical, in terms of artwork and design, just changing "Pendulum Illustrated Series" to "Lake Illustrated Classics."

Mostly, I thought the covers were intriguing, especially Macbeth with its colorful portrayal of the Weird Sisters. The King Lear cover is OK, but it mostly just makes me want to rewatch Kurosawa's amazing Ran (see article and photos by American Cinematographer).

Apparently these books and other classics adapted by Pendulum were largely targeted for classroom purchase and use. In a paper titled "Educational and Public Information Comics, 1940s–present," authors Christopher Murray and Golnar Nabizadeh state: "Pendulum was headed by David Oliphant and received funding from the US government in the 1970s to produce comics with a focus on education. They hired Vincent Fago, an experienced comics writer, artist and editor, to oversee the production of a series of comics adapting literary texts in a similar vein to Classics Illustrated, in what they terms [sic] the ‘Now Age’ illustrated series, which ran from 1973 to 1980." Pendulum Press also offered audiobook cassettes to go along with these condensed, illustrated versions.

In a 2021 post for My Reader's Block, Bev Hankins recalls discovering Dracula through the original Pendulum series in the classroom: "I didn't meet Dracula in the classroom, however. Unless you count receiving the Dracula, Frankenstein, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde three-pack of illustrated classics through the Weekly Reader book order form at school. ... I loved reading these adaptations then — there was just enough of the books' creepy storyline to give me the shivers without thoroughly freaking me out. Rereading Dracula now over forty years later, I'm impressed with how much of the story [Naunerle] Farr managed to pack into this condensed version."

Scholastic book: "Mystery of the Green Cat"

• Title: Mystery of the Green Cat
• Author: Phyllis A. Whitney (1903-2008). Yes, she lived to age 104! I briefly wrote about another of her books, Mystery of the Haunted Pool, way back in 2014. The official and robust website about Whitney is still up, and I urge you to go there to learn more.
• Illustrator: Leslie Goldstein. She illustrated a number of children's books in the 1950s and 1960s, but I can't find any biographical information about her. I absolutely love her cover illustration for this book! 
• Publisher: Scholastic Book Services (TX 222)
• Cover price: 60 cents
• Year: 11th printing, May 1972 (first published in 1957)
• Pages: 188
• Format: Paperback
• First sentence: Without leaving his place by the wide living room window, Andy could hear angry sounds coming from across the hall.
• Last sentence: How good this crab tasted, Jill thought, and knew it was because happiness gave everything added flavor.
• Random passage from the middle #1: Jill took the book, looking first at the title. It was called New Century in San Francisco and had been published in 1903. As she began to read the paragraphs Andy had pointed out, her eyes fell upon the name "Furness."
• Long random passage from the middle #2: "Lotus sometimes helped her father in the store and she was waiting on a customer when the girls went in. She was a pretty girl, neatly dressed in a skirt and sweater, her black hair drawn back and held by a silver barrette. She had been born in San Francisco, Hana said, and had never been to China. As soon as the customer left, Lotus came to greet the girls, her accent plainly American. Hana explained about the finding of the green cat, and Lotus seemed fascinated by the story. When Jill took the strip of paper, carefully wrapped in tissue, from her pocket and gave it to her, Lotus examined it carefully. She not only went to a regular American school, she explained, but also attended Chinese classes and had learned the language and written characters of her father's country."
• Rating on Goodreads: 3.97 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review excerpt: Jackie wrote: "My 3rd grade teacher read this to our class, and I absolutely loved it then. This book, and a picture on the back cover of a little cat, inspired me to make a little ceramic cat in college that I still have."
• Rating on Amazon: 4.7 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review: In 2017, Olivier Dunrea wrote: "Loved this book when I was 11 years old. Reread it 53 years later and still love it! Just an excellent mystery with believable characters — including the city of San Francisco."
• Comments from a recent Vintage Paperback Books post on Facebook: "Still have my copy!" ... "I can still remember a few passages verbatim! I almost always re-read books I liked multiple times. A tendency I retain to the present day!" ... "Love this book, read it in the summer of '72, home recuperating after a lengthy hospital stay. As an adult I found it online and bought it."
• Availability: As of this morning, there are about two dozen used copies on eBay, with prices, including shipping, starting around $14. There has not been a modern reprint of the book.
• Not really related but interesting Papergreat post: Mystery RPPC: Girl holding a cat

Scholastic book: "M for Mischief"

I brusquely dismissed this book as "fine" in a 2020 pandemic shelfie post, but it deserves more attention than that, especially given that it's one of the very first books that I distinctly remember having, circa second grade in Clayton, New Jersey (this cover, specifically). I've been invigorated lately by the posts and robust community discussion on the Vintage Scholastic Books and Vintage Paperback Books pages on Facebook, so here's a full look at this one...

• Title: M for Mischief
• Author: Richard Parker (1914-1990). He has an entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and I mentioned one of his other books in this 2014 post.
• Illustrator: Carol Wilde (born 1938). It appears that she was born in Virginia, studied art in Philadelphia and later in life moved to northern Italy, where she became a painter. I could not confirm whether she's still alive.
• Publisher: Scholastic Book Services (TX 1254)
• Cover price: 50 cents
• Year: Fourth printing, March 1972 (first published in 1965)
• Pages: 95
• Format: Paperback
• Provenance: A previous owner, likely long ago, wrote "Ruth" in pencil on the inside front cover.
• Random passage from the middle #1: "It was something more than ancient. None of the children had ever seen a stove quite like it. There were so many curly, twisty bits. The four legs were like eagles' feet, with the sharp talons really biting into the wooden floor. The scale and feathers were so clear they seemed almost real. Up the sides of the stove were sprays of fern made of iron, and clusters of odd flowers, also made of iron."
• Random passage from the middle #2: "Then the cookie dropped to the floor and their mother disappeared! Where she had been standing was a speckled brown hen, which looked at Peg with one eye, then began pecking up crumbs from the broken cookie."
• Rating on Goodreads: 3.89 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review excerpt: R. Lee Frankenstein recently wrote: "This is just a great kids story that is partially responsible for a lifetime of reading enjoyment so, the 5 stars may be based slightly on sentiment."
• Rating on Amazon: 4.5 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review excerpt: In 2013, R.M. Clinkscales wrote: "I still have my 1971 Scholastic Book service copy that I remember my mom reading with me on the porch of our house. My copy still has my elementary school aged handwriting on the inside cover giving my name and address. As you can tell this book had an impact on me and helped launch my love of reading. I have read the book to many children over the years and it continues to be a well loved early reader story."
• One last memory: In a 2014 post on Gransnet, Upsydaisy writes: "M for Mischief by Richard Parker was my favourite ever children's book. The story of a magic oven. That is as much as I can remember about the book, but I can remember reading it so many times. It was funny so I always read it either when I was poorly or feeling sad and it always cheered me up and made me feel better. Its funny but as an adult I always tend to go for books that are lighthearted and are a good laugh out loud kind of a book."

Yinzer blepping.

Swooning over "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet"

I posted the 1966 Scholastic cover of The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, pulled from my 2014 blog post, over on the Facebook group Vintage Paperback Books this morning. It got a tremendous response, with 120 likes as of this writing.

Here are some of the comments and memories people shared:

• "I'm amazed how many people also loved this book in school. I read and re-read it many, many times."
• "I have two in the series and loved these as a kid."
• "This is the first book I remember reading."
• "I think mushrooms were involved in the writing of this book somehow."
• "I've taken that flight."

The book is still extremely popular and in print and on Amazon for less than $8. People are still discovering it or rediscovering it and still writing reviews. Here are some excerpts just from this year on Goodreads:

• "An absolute delight of a children's science fantasy — this was the first science fantasy I read, when I was a 10 years old."
• "Thanks for my sci-fi loving Uncle Charlie who recommended this book to me. I can’t wait to pass along to my grandson. He is 9 and I know will love it too."
• "I found this book while shopping on Ebay for mushroom identification books for my mycologist-in-training twelve year old. A middle-grade fiction book where we visit a mushroom planet? Yes, please! I had hoped she would be inspired to read this herself, but alas, this book-loving mama has produced an accelerated reader that doesn't enjoy reading for pleasure! We do have a tradition of reading out loud at bedtime, which I will hold tightly to until she protests, so this went on the TBR-at-bedtime list."
• "I first read this in 1975, I think. And by then it was already an older book, gathering dust on the library bookshelf. But I was an 8 year old boy and this was a book about boys, rocket ships, and an alien planet. SO I checked it out and read it. It turns out to be a fantastic adventure story for young boys and girls to read. If you can find it, get it. Even if you're 80 not 8."

If you want to know more about author Eleanor Cameron (1912-1996), Paul V. Allen has written a well-received biography titled Eleanor Cameron: Dimensions of Amazement. It's great to see such scholarship on women authors of the 20th century, especially those whose are less well-remembered with the passing of the decades.

From the readers: Late summer edition

Time for another roundup of your feedback and insights! 

Great links: "A Wrinkle in Time" mystery is solved: Commenting on Facebook, Sarah Elizabeth writes: "Hi! I am the Sarah Elizabeth that blog post mentions! AND you may be interested in knowing that I have a new art book out, and because we finally got to the bottom of the cover artist mystery for this book, I was able to include it in the book! ... If you are interested, look up The Art of the Unknown: A Visual Treasury of the Esoteric, Uncanny and Unexplained!"

Thanks for commenting. And I always love hearing news about new books!

The Perry Pictures: Robert E. Lee: Leigh Perry shares this great story: "Funny story about Perry Pictures. My grandparents, long gone, had a print on their wall in Virginia, but we'd never looked at it closely until years after their death. (We thought it was a photograph of a family member.) It ended up in my father's house in Charlotte, NC, and we finally examined it in 2014. We were confused by the Perry Pictures caption because our last name is Perry. Further research showed it was a different branch of Perrys. Then we found out the company was in Malden, Mass., which made us all laugh. Though I'm from NC, I'd been living in Malden for years at that point. With my father's permission, I brought it back home to Malden."

Postcard mailed from Addison, Pennsylvania, in 1912: Beverly writes: "I just got postcard of Swallow Falls in Garrett County, Maryland, addressed to this same Almeda. It came from her brother, Charles. He mentioned then about the food there, too. He was a well-known lawyer."

"Steal not this book my honest lad": John Duel shares this: "From a 1938 Technical Mathematics book inside front cover: 'Steal not this book my honest friend. For fear the gallows will be your end. On that day the Devil will say, where is that book you carried away. And if you say you do not know, the Devil will say just step below.'"

I love that we can help to preserve more of these inscriptions!

Take a ride with Edwards Motor Transit Co.: Bob Taylor left a series of comments showing his amazing memory and providing some great historical detail:

"Bob Taylor here. I worked in the Dubois garage on Hoover Avenue from approximately 1970 till garage closing in mid 70s. Since I was only 19 at the time, I believe I am only one of 2 guys still standing. I will try to name each one starting in the shop: Lloyd Burkett Sr., Lloyd Burkett Jr., Joe Atkinson, Everett McFall, 'Linc' Lingenfelter, Bernard Harriger, William Carlson, Earl Kalgren, Earl Snedden, Allen Bell. ... I forgot one shop employee, Lloyd Getch, and 2 part-time, Ed Swanson and Adam Tschopps.

"As far as the terminal crew, it consisted of Bill Schindley, Floyd Brown, Irene Malaskey, Chuck Smith, Linda McNutt and Gary Patton.

"As far as the drivers as I remember them, some were still wearing the tan uniform including a hat: Albert 'Swede' Carlson, Lamont 'Monte' Marshall, George Lindberg, Dale Hynds, Bob Wilson, John McNutt, Bob Peck, Tom Fairman and Bill McMahon. These were the Buffalo and Pittsburgh drivers. The Cleveland/NewYork City drivers were based out of the Williamsport shop. I only remember a few: 'Woody' Yeich, Walt Muzzy, Bill Taylor ... I hope that I didn't forget someone. It's been 56 years."

Alan Ormsby's 1970s: Summoning zombies and a Scholastic book: John Michlig writes: "Excellent article about a pretty life-changing book! I was lucky enough to correspond with Mr. Ormsby and assure him that my 4th grade Frankenstein mask (based on his paper bag recipe) worked like a charm!"

And Wampa Girl shouts: "I MADE MY MONSTER CAFE SALTILLO FROM HAVING THIS BOOK AS A KID."

Book cover & school days memory: "Arthur's Christmas Cookies": Anonymous writes: "I remember my pediatrician had a copy of this in one of his rooms, I was thinking about it today but I couldn't remember the title."

Obscure nostalgia: 1970s plastic mugs from Whirley Industries: Jose Alb writes: "I had the My Mug version since before I could walk, growing up in the Dominican Republic. We moved around, I kept it through my teens, all the way until right before I left for the US with my wife around 2012, where my mom admitted she might have thrown it away by accident. Fast forward to July 2026. Returned to the Dominican Republic on a sad note (father passed away suddently, cancer). After they got divorced, my mom came to the U.S. and Dad stayed in the old apartment. Picking up and organizing what felt like hundreds of science books and curiosities left behind, there in a cabinet with family heirlooms was my mug! I brought it to the States and gave it to my son, with a story. Thanks for keeping The Mug alive. Forgot to add: I'm 45. Had it since early 80s."

And thank you for sharing this story, which is also helping to keep My Mug memories alive!

Memory from the Gettysburg Times: Kate Shoemaker Mayer writes: "I stumbled upon this post while visiting Gettysburg College with my son. Don was my father. This anecdote warmed my heart and accurately represents my dad. I wonder what he would think about technology today? Thank you for sharing!"

I'm so glad you found this post and journalism anecdote about your dad! He was such a terrific person and colleague, and, yes, this accurately reflects how he felt about unreliable technology. Glad I could help in a small way for the memory to live on. 

Nifty packaging in today's mail

I received a package in the mail today and it came with some nifty bonuses. First, taped to the front of the envelope was an old banner for the Arizona Odd Fellow, dated March 15, 1924 — more than 102 years ago! The monthly newsletter cost $1 annually and was "devoted to the welfare of Odd Fellowship in all its branches." The two mottos across the top, bookending the eyeball and the three interlocking links, state "We Seek to Improve and Elevate the Character of Man" and "We Can Be Odd Fellows Only While We Act Like Honest Men."

Then, when I opened the package, it immediately appeared that I had been sent the wrong book. I was not seeking 1973's Pablo, Boy of Mexico / Eskimo Family / Yasin of Arabia (part of the My-Fun-to-Read Books series by The Southwestern Company). Though I'm sure that would be an interesting book to research.

Turns out that gutted pink book's covers were just being used to protect the actual book I was hoping for: Meet the Werewolf by Georgess McHargue. That book is part of a post for another day. So stay tuned. In the meantime, I'll make good use of of those pink covers to protect something I send out in the mails. I wonder how long we might be able to keep it circulating that way?

1978 book on "misappreciated" American films

(Please pardon Snugs' disinterested yawn.)

I found this book a couple of years ago in Bookman's. It's a 1978 hardcover put out by the Royal Film Archive of Belgium with the unwieldy title The Most Important and Misappreciated American Films Since the Beginning of Cinema.

Basically, it's a book of lists of important films, but also of lesser-discussed movies. Right up my alley.

The preface by Jacques Ledoux of the Royal Film Archive of Belgium lays out the book's mission:

"Most written histories of cinema are full of cliches and the attentive reader is easily able to single out those films which the historian has not recently seen or of which he writes second hand. And how could it be otherwise, since so many films remain inaccessible to researchers, often for geographical reasons?

"On the other hand, it could be imagined that the results of an enquiry such as that offered in this volume, with more than two hundred specialists participating from twenty-two countries, would lead to a statistical judgment of greater reliability than an individual historical appreciation. ...

"Still ... we were wary of ending up with a banal list of obvious classics. In order to avoid this, we decided to ask each participant to compile two lists: one, limited quite arbitrarily to thirty titles, and films considered the most important; the other, not limited in number, of films considered misappreciated. It was also specified that the films were to be cited without any order of preference and that no account need be taken of date of production, genre, or length."

The final list of Most Important Films is indeed fairly banal, with the best inclusion, in my opinion, being F.W. Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and the most unsurprising and frustrating inclusion being D.W. Griffith's racist Lost Cause of the Confederacy epic The Birth of a Nation (1915).

The Top 10 vote-getters looked like this: 

1. Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)
2. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927, F.W. Murnau)
3. Greed (1924, Erich von Stroheim)
4. Intolerance (1916, D.W. Griffith)
5. The Birth of a Nation (1915, D.W. Griffith)
6. Singin' in the Rain (1952, Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly)
7. Nanook of the North (1922, Robert J. Flaherty)
8. The General (1926, Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman)
9. The Gold Rush (1925, Charlie Chaplin)
10. The Crowd (1928, King Vidor)

This is a good place to add that I scanned the list of the book's 203 respondents and only 15 stood out to me as obviously being women. The actual number is probably a bit higher, because there are a lot of non-American names, but I doubt it's more than about 20 — so, 10%. Bah, humbug!

The true value and fascination of this book is in the respondents' lists of "misappreciated" films along with, in some instances, their commentaries on those lists. It's a wealth of movie titles to scan for little-known gems — little-known even in this day and age of physical media and online streaming, when more movies from throughout history than ever before are available to the casual viewer.

I don't know what "Misappreciated" means (more on that from Jonathan Rosenbaum in a moment), but here are some films I was happy to see listed:

• The Night of the Hunter (1955, perhaps the most frequently cited film)
• Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)
• Titicut Follies (1967)
• Easy Street (1917)
• The Pawnbroker (1965)
• Trash (1970)
• The Son of Frankenstein (1939)
• Johnny Guitar (1954)
• Night Nurse (1931)
• The Seventh Victim (1943)
• The Haunting (1963)
• Nashville (1975)
• Ace in the Hole (1951)
• Salt of the Earth (1953)
• Lonesome (1928)

A surprising number of horror films make these lists, only some of which are listed above. It's better, I guess, to be respected as "misappreciated" than to not be mentioned at all. Film noirs also tended to do very well on the "misappreciated" lists, including Kiss Me Deadly and Gun Crazy.

More importantly, the "misappreciated" lists include many films that are new to me and browsing this book takes me down many happy rabbit holes.

American critic Jonathan Rosenbaum was one of those who submitted a list for the book. Reflecting on the process in a 2024 post on his blog, he wrote:

"By 'misappreciated,' I’m sure that what was meant was 'underrated'. I find that I still agree to a surprising degree with many of my judgments in the mid-70s – including even my belief that Hollywood at the time was going through one of its more meager periods (even though Pauline Kael and many of her disciples seemed to think, and some of them apparently still think, that this was the richest period Hollywood has ever had in its entire history)."

I disagree with Rosenbaum's thought on 1970s American film, especially given the mostly tepid decades that preceded it, but that's the fun of discussing movies and movie history! (I also have a great love for watching 1970s movies, documentaries and TV, so I'm biased.) 

You can read Rosenbaum's list of most important films on his blog post, but I'm sharing his "misappreciated" list here:

• Me and My Gal (1932)
• Her Man (1930)
• Judge Priest (1934)
• Rope (1948)
• The Trouble with Harry (1955)
• Park Row (1952)
• The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. (1952)
• The Old Dark House (1932)
• The Woman on the Beach (1947)
• The Seventh Victim (1943)
• Sylvia Scarlett (1936)
• Black and Tan (1929)
• Such Good Friends (1972)
• Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
• The Young One (1960)
• Family Plot (1976)
• Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son (1969)

Several of these I haven't seen. I strongly agree with The Old Dark House and The Seventh Victim. And with Make Way for Tomorrow, the film that inspired Tokyo Story. The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is a one-of-a-kind fantasy that is way too hokey for me at times but deserves credit for translating the imagination of Dr. Seuss into a live-action picture. Rosenbaum writes more about his love for it, much of which is nostalgia-based, in a separate post.

Happy 140th birthday, Ruth Manning-Sanders!

Time flies! On this date 140 years ago — August 21, 1886 — Ruth Vernon Manning was born to John Edmondson Manning and Emma Manning (nee Brock) in Swansea, Wales. She later married and became author Ruth Manning-Sanders, of the beloved fairy tale compilations.

I also did posts for her 130th and 125th birthdays. (That's how long this blog has been around!) Overall, there are nearly 90 Ruth Manning-Sanders posts on Papergreat, if you want to dive in and learn more about her life and books. The birthday posts are good places to start, as is this 2011 post about Peter and the Piskies.

If you're seeking affordable and quality reprints of Manning-Sanders' books, Mab's Media is the place to go.

And if you want to hear some Manning-Sanders tales read aloud by some awesome humans, check out the Fairy Tale Fix podcast.

Here are some photos of a 1910s [?] edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales that I acquired a while ago in a sale of items from the Manning-Sanders family estate. The Ward, Lock & Co. publication is well worn and stained, and one can just imagine Ruth thumbing through it over and over. There are even some margin notes. Were those notes in the final photo written by Ruth Manning-Sanders herself? I also like that there's a mention of crab-apples on the page.

Giving schoolchildren a proper monster education in 1976

Fifty years ago, in our bicentennial year of 1976, Scholastic published an amazeballs guide to monsters. School was just cooler then, wasn't it? Movie monsters, mythical creatures and cryptids could be mixed into the lesson plans alongside multiplication tables, the metric system and spelling quizzes. I'm guessing Pennywise, Slender Man and the backrooms don't get that same treatment today, but what do I know? 

Well, what I do know is that this 32-page staplebound booklet rocks. I mean, it has Blacula (William Marshall) right there in the center of the cover, alongside such icons as Lon Chaney Jr., Medusa, Frankenstein's monster and King Kong. Fredric March's Hyde gets a very prominent spot, as does one of the Village of the Damned kiddos. 

What a cover! According to the credits, it was designed by Bonnie Bishop, who also served as the booklet's overall designer and art director. Some of Bishop's papers ended up at the University of New England Library, which notes that she had loved drawing, writing and making books ever since childhood and later became a full-time book artist. That love shows on this cover.

Let's hear it for the rest of the booklet's production crew, too. Lewis Gardner (1943-2020) was the editor and contributed a poem and a short story. Katherine Robinson was the supervising editor and Eve Sennett was the production editor. Ira Peck and Margaret Ronan handled some of the writing, which included retellings of classic horror stories. As a teenager, Ronan corresponded with H.P. Lovecraft (!!) according to the website Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein, and those letters informed some of her work at Scholastic.

In addition to those already mentioned, this book pictures and/or mentions the big-headed alien from 1957's Invasion of the Saucermen, Paul Wegener's 1920 performance as the Golem, the Loch Ness Monster, The Thing from Another World, Cat People, Bigfoot, zombies (but only the kind who obey masters — Romero's flesh-munching zombies might have been a bit much), The Incredible Shrinking Man and Michael Landon's teenage werewolf. 

There are photos of both Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee as Dracula. The book doesn't sugarcoat Lugosi's life for the young audience. Ronan notes: "When Lugosi was 70, he admitted to being a drug addict. He kicked the habit in a hospital. A year later, he died. He had no money left from his days as a monster star. About all he had left was his Dracula cape. So he was buried in it."

The last page of the book is titled "People and Monsters" and has this introductory paragraph: "Why do some people believe in monsters? And why are monster stories popular? Here are some possible answers. Which ones do you think are true?" There are then 11 short paragraphs, all of which seem plausible but some of which are very bizarre for a school activity book:

• Some people fear others who are strange looking or deformed. They may have trouble seeing such people as fully human. They may believe such people have special powers and are evil.
• Drugs have been used in magic and religious ceremonies. After taking drugs, people have seen monsters. They have also imagined themselves as having supernatural powers.
• Monsters usually do horrible things. Deep within us, we may wish to do horrible things. Normal people keep these wishes under control. They may not even be aware of having such wishes. But they may enjoy hearing about monsters that break human laws.

If you're hankering to get your hands on one of these absolute-gem booklets, there's an eBay seller who apparently has a whole stash and is selling them for $12.99. It's well worth the trip down monster memory lane.

 

Radio Shack's "Getting Started with Color Basic"

When I was an eighth-grader at Madeira Beach Middle School during the 1984-85 school year, I took an introduction to computers class taught by Joseph Ventimiglia. I think this was the textbook we used to learn about and program the TRS-80s that were stationed around the sides and back of the classroom with Color BASIC. We had to supply our own cassette tape to save and load our programs. I remember that someone in the class made a biorhythms program, a concept that made no sense to me then or now. Between this and the Commodore Plus/4 we had at home, it was definitely the jumping-off point for me in terms of home computers and programming. At one point I was even considering majoring in computer science in college, before shifting gears to journalism. Anyway, this book brings back a lot of memories and is instructive of a time when computer users had to put in some effort to make their computers actually accomplish anything.

• Title: Getting Started with Color Basic
• Author: None credited. It was produced in-house by Radio Shack's technical writing department. Though I have not done any original research or intensive internet-sleuthing, I would say there's a reasonable chance that David A. Lien was a primary author. But that's solely speculation.
• Cover illustrator: None credited.
• Publisher: Radio Shack, a division of Tandy Corporation (1919-2000).
• Copyright date: 1980 (most sites list 1981 as the official first year of publication)
• Pages: 151 (with several blank pages at the back for notes)
• Format: Paperback
• Dimensions: 11 inches by 8¾ inches
• Cover price: Not listed. Contemporary accounts indicate it cost $5.95.
• Excerpt from the Introduction: "This book is for those of you who don't know anything about Computers, and would like to be spared the long, technical explanations! Using this as your guide, you'll be able to interact and enjoy your Computer right away! Later, you'll probably want to read some of our thorough and detailed books. ... There's an infinite number of things it can do for you."
• Excerpt from To Get Started: "Connect your Computer by referring to the Chapters on 'Installation' and 'Operation', and to Figure 1 in your TRS-80 Color Computer Operation Manual. Then power up your Computer:

— Turn ON your television set

— Select channel 3 or 4

— Set the antennae switch to "COMPUTER"

— Turn ON the Computer. The POWER button is on the left rear of your keyboard (when you're facing the front)."

• Excerpt #1: "One of the things that makes your Computer so powerful is its ability to remember anything you ask it to."
• Excerpt #2: "Your Computer has all the attributes of a natural born teacher. After all, it's patient, tireless, and detail conscious ( ...perhaps a bit nit-picky...)."
• Excerpt #3: "One of your Computer's greatest skills is its gift with words. It can tirelessly twist, combine, or separate words to anything you want. Because of this gift, you can teach it to read, write, and even carry on a halfway decent conversation."
• Excerpt #4: "You'll find the Computer much more adept by getting it to constantly watch and react to everything you do. By 'watching you,' we mean watching the keyboard to see if you ware pressing something. The word INKEY$ makes this possible."
• Online memories #1: In a 2024 post on his blog, Jake Levirne writes: "This still stands out as one of the best written computer manuals I’ve ever seen. It gave clear, helpful explanations that even a kid could understand. And it let you know that it was ok to get things wrong, experiment, and try again. This is a lesson that’s served me well for decades in my career."
• Online memories #2: In 2014 blog post that's all about this book, Glen C. Ford raves about how it changed his life: "This hefty tutorial involved no heavy lifting. It was incredibly gentle yet thorough, and never scary. So many times as an adult I've found it daunting to return to a how-to book every day, yet when I was a kid all I wanted to do was plow through this amazing paperback. Anyone responsible for technical documentation (and product managers should be) would benefit from studying Getting Started With Color BASIC to discover and try to reproduce its pedagogical magic."

Book cover: "The Ghost Hunter's Road Book"

• Title: The Ghost Hunter's Road Book
• Author: John Harries. According to the blurb on the back cover: "John Harries has been a full-time writer since the war, in which he served with the R.A.F. A specialist in travel, he has visited every corner of the British Isles in search of the unusual and tourist-appeal material and currently lives in the Chiltern Hills, within audible distance of one of the most bizarre of the animal hauntings described in his new book." Interestingly, the book is copyrighted by Rupert Crew Ltd.
• Cover illustrator: None credited, which is a bummer.
• Publisher: Charles Letts & Co.
• Publication date: This is the revised edition, published in 1974. The book was first published in 1968.
• Pages: 176
• Format: Paperback
• Back cover price: 75p (accounting for inflation and converting from British to U.S. currently, that's about $13 today)
• Excerpt #1: Mystifying balls of light or flickering shapes apparently on fire are seen in many parts of Britain, and the majority of them have been excluded from this book. Those which are mentioned — as in the case of the West Witton light — have been reported in clear, cold weather or from areas free from peat, bog, or decaying material. The reason is that in my opinion lights seen during rain or on days or nights or great humidity , on in marshy districts, are of natural origin.
• Excerpt #2: Black Shuck has been haunting Norfolk for more than a thousand years. His very name proves his ancient origin because it is a dialect version of the Saxon word for Devil. He can alter his appearance, but all of them are terrifying. 
• Excerpt #3: The best-known and most ubiquitous of the Cornish supernatural beings are the pixies, a source of profit for many a souvenir shop in the tourist resorts where pixies are sold by the thousands as good luck tokens. Few native-born Cornish people would  wear the replica of the little man as a talisman. 
• Excerpt #4: Any subsequent attempt to dispose of the skull resulted in screams reverberating around the house, and heard far and wide by villages and farm workers of Bettiscombe. Something very evil indeed was presumably involved in the screaming skull affair, one of a number of such cases in different parts of the country. The usual inference is some connection with vampirism.
• Excerpt #5: Essex, moving willy-nilly into the brave new world of airports, marinas, new towns, nuclear power stations and industrial complexes, is still part of timeless East Anglia. A county slandered as flat, damp and dreary, can still retain a lot of its old-world charm — and its ancient traditions. Phantoms may retreat from the modernism of arterial roads and concrete runways — but ghosts still walk in Essex, and many of their haunts are surprisingly and appropriately unchanged by progress.
• Notes from the web: While the front cover has been a popular post on Tumblr, on message boards and in other locations, there's very little online about the book itself. Amazon reviewer Jackie Garcia wrote this in 2017: "It was a very enjoyable reading. My favorite part was the information given about T.E. Lawrence and the ghost at Clouds Hill." ... A passage from Harries' book is cited on a 2024 blog post about the Flixton Werewolf. ... And the book serves as a reference for the Wikipedia entry about the Shug Monkey.  

Book cover: "The Haunted Mountain" by Mollie Hunter

Sorry it's been so long between posts.¹

• Title: The Haunted Mountain
• Author: Mollie Hunter (1922-2012). Her full name was Maureen Mollie Hunter McIlwraith and she was known for her fantasy-tinged tales that are inspired by Scottish history or folklore. Her 2012 obituary in The Scotsman notes: "She produced most of her books from her home in Milton, a small village near Drumnadrochit in the Highlands, becoming totally immersed in her characters. ... Mollie spent a great deal of her time touring schools and libraries and was made particularly welcome in the United States."
• Illustrator and dust jacket designer: Trevor Ridley, who also illustrated at least one Ruth Manning-Sanders book (Stories from the English and Scottish Ballads).
• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
• Publication date: 1972 (my copy is the 1974 reprint edition)
• Pages: 127
• Format: Hardcover
• Dust jacket price: £2 net
• Provenance: This book once belonged to Mary Lou White and it has an inscription from the author: "For Mary Lou, Best wishes from Mollie Hunter. 11/7/78"
• Dust jacket excerpt: "There is no doubt that the mountain called Ben MacDui in the Highlands of Scotland is haunted, as this story of MacAllister tells. MacAllister lived long ago in those parts, and he was a very stubborn man. He ignored the Skeelie Woman's² warning not to defy the strange creatures that went by name of 'the Good People' — fairy people they would have been called in English, though they were not at all as fairies are sometimes imagined to be."
• Excerpt #1: MacAllister had a good distance to travel to Peigi-Ann's home — five or six hours riding altogether, in fact — for the track to it was by way of a lairig, as they call a mountain pass, and this lairig was a long one that cut right through the Cairngorm Mountains . The Lairig Ghru — the Gloomy Pass — it is called, for it is a wild and desolate lace and even in high summer that are stretches of it that never see the sun.
• Excerpt #2: "I want more of these!" the Skeelie Woman exclaimed, holding up her fist with the little store of cairngorms clenched in it. "Bring me more of them Fergus — bring me a great double handful of them! If I cannot be part of the world of the sidhe, I want some of the treasure that belongs to it."
• Excerpt #3: The heap of grey stone that was once An Ferla Mor is easy to see among the red granite rock of Ben MacDui, and the lost jewels still lie where they fell around it. The gleaming gold of them among the rocks is easy to see, too, and anyone who chooses may climb the mountain to gather them. However, it would have to be a very brave person indeed who did this ...
• Rating on Goodreads: 4.18 stars (out of 5)
• Goodreads review: In 2018, Bridgett Leslie wrote: "I read this as a child, and it struck me enough that I have remembered it over the years. It was fun to re-read it as an adult. It did not frighten me the way it did when I read it as a nine-year-old, but it was still enjoyable."
• Rating on Amazon: a sterling 4.9 stars (out of 5)
• Amazon review excerpt #1: In 2009, Jo J wrote: "Was disappointed with the quality of books available for my kids ages 7 and 9 and looked for books I read as a child that were fun and clean. Was pleased to find Haunted Mountain for them. It has a great mix of adventure, fantasy, mystery, and fright that is perfect for kids."
• Amazon review excerpt #2: In 2004, Laura Day wrote: "Only true bibliophiles will understand when I ask: Do you remember those books that touched you when you were young? Those that simply spurred you to read further and become a genuine book lover? The Haunted Mountain was mine. It was a book that I read and promptly lost, and couldn't for the life of me remember the author's name or the title! It was a labor of love trying to discover this book for the second time! After countless internet searches I have finally found it! Mollie Hunter is amazing! ... There are elements of magic, love, lore, and sacrifice woven expertly throughout Hunter's novel. This book is an absolute jewel!"
• Another good review: Check out Nick Campbell, who calls it "a cosy novel for the autumn months."

Footnotes

1. In a nutshell, on top of work, I've spent the past month taking care of two dozen indoor cats (four of whom had/have health issues and multiple veterinarian visits), the outdoor feral cats who are trying to weather the 110-degree heat (Mamacita, Creamsicle, Splash, Yinzer, Meowmix and Marmalade), a fledgling raven named Poe who was blown here during a dust storm and now comes for daily snacks alongside the wary cats, a gaggle of baby skunks (one of whom jumped into the pool three times, requiring three rescues) and a raccoon the size of Godzilla. In good news, former outdoor-cat Gumball has made an excellent adjustment to living inside among the other cats. 

2. "Skeelie wife" is an old Scottish term for a woman credited with great or supernatural ability to cure ailments. Their duties often involved assisting in the delivery of babies. And the skeelie wives themselves were often thought to be half-human/half-fairy.

Another George Manning-Sanders novel surfaces

I suspect I may be the only one keeping track of such things, but another novel by George Manning-Sanders (1880 or 1881 to 1953, when he died at age 72) for which there's no online record has popped up. (I had both his birth year and death wrong in previous Papergreat posts, by the way.)

I discovered Little Comfort via a listing on eBay. According to the photos and item description, it was published in 1932 by Grayson & Grayson of London. It must be exceedingly rare.

It joins 1930's The Third Day (also published as The Burnt Man) and 1929's Drum and Monkey as confirmed novels by George Manning-Sanders. These may very well be his only three published books, as he was more known as an artist.

The gorgeous dust jacket illustration of Little Comfort seems to promise a tale of life in a rural English town, but who knows? It's a little hard to tell given the level of resolution, but there is what appear to be the initials GM toward the lower right of the cover illustration. So perhaps it's by George himself?

Here's an excerpt from my copy of Drum and Monkey that I randomly turned to:

"Bickford Honey, aged seventeen years, the product of care and the source of contention, strolled in the evening of a summer day toward the home of Mr. Mason. In his trousers pocket there were a few pence, his hat set jauntily on the back of his head, he felt that life was good."

Related posts

• The jaw-dropping dust jackets of George Manning-Sanders' novels
• Jaw-dropping dust jackets of George Manning-Sanders' novels, Part 2
• George Manning-Sanders' short obituary from 1953
• Happy 130th birthday, Ruth Manning-Sanders