In the 1970s there was a small press called FAX Collector’s Editions. I’ve not seen a complete listing of what they produced, but know they did several collections of Robert E. Howard tales and reprints of several obscure stories from the pulps.
An interesting, but short-lived, set of digest-sized “magazines” from them are Famous Fantastic Classics and Famous Pulp Classics. FFC had two issues, and FPC had one. Both reprint various tales from the pulps and were planned as companion series. FFC would reprint “scientific romances”: lost race stories, and science fiction and fantastic adventures while FPC would reprint pulp high adventure.
Famous Fantastic Classic reprinted Ray Cummings‘ “The Snow Girl” (Argosy, 1929) in No. 1. Cummings is probably best known for his earlier “The Girl in the Golden Atom.” Also in this issue is “Tomorrow” by Arthur Leo Zagat, which is the first in a series showing America after being conquered, and Americans reduced to stone-age savagery. Altus Press has recently reprinted the whole series in two volumes. James L. Aton‘s “Creatures of the Ray” and Homer Eon Flint‘s “The Man in the Moon,” which are from the 1920s in Munsey magazines, round out the issue.
The second issue highlighted Ralph Milne Farley‘s “The Radio Flyers.” Farley is probably best known for his series set on Venus with Myles Cabot, the Radio Man, which ran to five novels. This story has no connection to that series, but clearly used “Radio” in the title to cash in on its popularity, and is set in an interior world. It appeared in Argosy in 1929. A follow-on story is “The Radio Gun-Runners,” which to my knowledge has never been reprinted. In addition we get an H. Bedford-Jones story, “Trumpets from Oblivion.”
Further volumes were planned. The next one would have had the second “Tomorrow” story with three others. No idea why it didn’t happen, unless they just didn’t sell well.
Famous Pulp Classics had six stories in its first and only issue. “Black Flag” by Talbot Mundy is a tale set on the Spanish Main. Mundy is probably better known for his tales of Grimjim. “Lances of Tartary” by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson is the first in his series about Crusader Alan de Beaufort who rode with Genghis Khan. Wheeler-Nicholson has been largely overlooked, but thanks to the effort of his granddaughter, he has been rescued from obscurity. No idea if this series of his has been reprinted. “Cave of the Blue Scorpion” is a Peter the Brazen story from George F. Worts (Loring Brent). From H. Bedford-Jones is “Berber Loot” from Magic Carpet. “Uneasy Lies the Head” is an adventure story from Theodore Roscoe. Johnston McCulley, the well-known author of Zorro, has “Four Lashes an Hour.”
Further volumes were planned. The second and third Peter the Brazen stories, more Jimgrim tales, as well as other stories similar to the first were promised.
You can find these volumes around. I’ve seen them on Amazon for reasonable amounts. With more reprints of classic stories, easy to find some of these stories out there. You can get the complete Peter the Brazen and Jimgrim from publishers like Black Dog Books. Talbot Mundy is easy to find as well. The other stories in these three digests may not have been reprinted and who knows when some of them will be.
Your comments