Oliver Onions

[ThisCreepingEvil]

Quote Originally Posted by tartarusrussell

Quote Originally Posted by ThisCreepingEvil Quote Originally Posted by Michael Quote Originally Posted by Robert Adam Gilmour There's a very cheap and large wordsworth edition Publication: The Dead of Night: The Ghost Stories of Oliver Onions I really like this edition of Onions. Has a ton of stories and like you said, it won't break your wallet. I have it, but yeah, it's tragic what happened to Wordsworth. Had dozens of different, extremely cheap editions of many different, varied horror authors from the same time period, but then they just axed and erased all mention of all of this and just settled into endlessly reprinting Poe, the King in Yellow and Lovecraft. I have problems seeing it as "tragic", as Wordsworth shamelessly ripped-off a lot of their supernatural editions from Ash-Tree Press, and their Onions volume wastaken from the Tartarus edition. Wordsworth claimed that it was a coincidence that their choices of author and contents were "similar" and ordered the same (ie, chronologically), but they also made various subtle editing decisions that stretched coincidence too far....

Fair point but they were the only place where you could get a 500 + page complete edition of Henry S. Whitehead for a few pounds, and also made tons of these authors' available to the wide reading public. Especially as back then, Ash Tree Press did not do e-books, sold everything at 50 $ a pop and then when that sold out it got even more expensive second hand.

You could buy five of these Wordsworth editions books for the price easily, if not more.


They needed to get rid of the problematic people involved, but keep the thing going.

Instead, they just turned it into "Let's keep endlessly reprinting five books universally available everywhere, that everyone already knows about". Which just has me asking what the actual point even is.

[bendk]

For people interested in just reading weird fiction, and not necessarily collecting books, Wordsworth editions were a godsend. I had many volumes at one time. I still have a few.

[tartarusrussell]

Quote Originally Posted by bendk

For people interested in just reading weird fiction, and not necessarily collecting books, Wordsworth editions were a godsend. I had many volumes at one time. I still have a few.

Your point, Bendk, and that of ThisCreeping Evil, is valid. I have a few invaluable Wordsworth editions myself. If only they had acknowledged the original editors who did all the work unearthing the texts.

[Nemonymous]

My review of THE ROPE IN THE RAFTERS: HERE

“And what of the multitude who will believe anything if only the lie is big and noisy enough? Who cling to their leaders who prepared the evil, and saw the evil through, and made a worse evil to follow it, and are even now tired and helpless before an evil by the side of which the other would be good?”
— Oliver Onions, from THE ROPE IN THE RAFTERS (1935)

[ThisCreepingEvil]

Quote Originally Posted by bendk

For people interested in just reading weird fiction, and not necessarily collecting books, Wordsworth editions were a godsend. I had many volumes at one time. I still have a few.

I swear that I would NEVER be able to afford the Whitehead if it came out from any "normal" publisher. I could easily see them charging 45-60 $ for it at the time.

[Nemonymous]

Today’s classic ONIONS
THE HONEY IN THE WALL: dflewisreviews.wordpress.com/2022/08/25/the-honey-in-the-wall-by-oliver-onions/

[Nemonymous]

“…he stood on the ledge where they had seen the half-swallowed fish carry the bird back again into the water.”
— Oliver Onions (The Ascending Dream)

[Nemonymous]

I reviewed THE ROSEWOOD DOOR by Oliver Onions accidentally just prior to by chance reviewing O. Henry’s THE MEMENTO (that mentioned a rosewood casket)!

The Rosewood Door by Oliver Onions | The Gestalt Real-Time Reviews of Books

[Nemonymous]

“He put up his elbow as if to ward off a blow.” — Oliver Onions
Io is a remarkable Bacchic madness! See my review…

Triggering by Onions | The Gestalt Real-Time Reviews of Books

[Nemonymous]

Some of the Ghost Stories of Oliver Onions reviewed…
HERE