Antiquarian Supernatural, Fantasy & Mysterious Literatures

December 15, 2003 11:50 AM

Violet Books catalogs Antiquarian Supernatural Literature, including literary ghost stories, Victorian science fiction, Yellow Nineties Decadence, H. Rider Haggard & haggardesque "Lost Race" novels, Marie Corelli & other occult romancers, Rafael Sabatini & Jeffery Farnol & all vintage swashbuckling historical romances, Yukon adventures, jungle tales, Sax Rohmer & all weird thrillers, classic detectives, vintage children's & young adult fantasies & series books, vintage westerns, and all things old, fictional, adventurous, and weird. Make sure to check for the titles that have dustjacket scans.
posted by Pinwheel (3 comments total)

What! No Somerset? A frightful oversight, I do say. The Magician (about enemy and occultist Aleister Crowley) and Ashenden (where Ian Fleming found the roots for 007) are just two fine examples of Wierd stuff that's been overlooked.

And they've got plenty of H.G. Wells, but are missing the wonderful When the Sleeper Wakes.

While a good resource, any purported purveyor of fine pulp must at least have a copy of William Hope Hodgson's The House on the Borderland (a book that scared the shit out of me when I was 12) in their library -- sadly, Violet Books does not.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:57 PM on December 15, 2003

Where is Abraham Merritt? He was, after all, only the greatest writer of lost world adventures ever: The Moon Pool, The Metal Monster, The Fox Woman, The Face in the Abyss, and many others.
posted by SPrintF at 7:13 PM on December 15, 2003 [1 favorite]

The thing is, Violet Books isn't some big corporation, it's an independent business owned by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, who is a writer and anthologist herself, which is what makes it so cool. It's a personal effort by someone who is passionate about the subject. I was turned on to the Violet Books gallery by Iconomy's blog some time ago, and you can find wonderful things in there (like the "Ghost Nouveau" page, for example!).
posted by taz at 11:37 PM on December 15, 2003