Robert Bloch Signed First Edition 1945 The Opener Of The Way Arkham House HC DJ
Item History & Price
DJ has light shelf-wear present to the DJ extremities (tape residue present to the reverse of the boards). Bound in black cloth with gilt titles present to the spine. Boards lightly rubbed and worn with tape residue present to the reverse of the boards. No ownership mar...ks present. Text is clean and free of marks, binding tight and solid, boards clean with no wear present.
The Opener of the Way is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories by American writer Robert Bloch. It was released in 1945 and was the author's first book. It was published by Arkham House in an edition of 2, 065 copies. A British hardcover was issued by Neville Spearman in 1974, with Panther Books issuing a two-volume paperback reprint in 1976. An Italian translation, with the stories reordered, appeared in 1991. The collection was never reprinted in the United States, but its contents (aside from Bloch's introduction) were included in the 1994 omnibus The Early Fears.
Most of the stories had appeared in the magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s and 1940s.
The Opener of the Way contains the following tales:
"By Way of Introduction"
"The Cloak"
"Beetles"
"The Fiddler's Fee"
"The Mannikin"
"The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton"
"Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper"
"The Seal of the Satyr"
"The Dark Demon"
"The Faceless God"
"The House of the Hatchet"
"The Opener of the Way"
"Return to the Sabbath"
"The Mandarin's Canaries"
"Waxworks"
"The Feast in the Abbey"
"Slave of the Flames"
"The Shambler from the Stars"
"Mother of Serpents"
"The Secret of Sebek"
"The Eyes of the Mummy"
"One Way to Mars"
Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer. He was the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch (1884, Chicago-1952, Chicago), a bank cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb (1880, Attica, Indiana-1944, Milwaukee, WI), a social worker, both of German-Jewish descent.
Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, usually crime fiction, science fiction, and, perhaps most influentially, horror fiction (Psycho). He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle; Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent.
He was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He was the recipient of the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America.
Robert Bloch was also a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general. In the 1940s, he created the humorous character Lefty Feep in a story for Fantastic Adventures. He also worked for a time in local vaudeville, and tried to break into writing for nationally-known performers. He was a good friend of the science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. In the 1960's, he wrote 3 stories for Star Trek.OUR MISSION STATEMENT:
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Book formats and corresponding sizes Name Abbreviations Leaves Pages Approximate cover size (width × height) inches cm folio 2º or fo 2 4 12 × 19 30.5 × 48 quarto 4º or 4to 4 8 9½ × 12 24 × 30.5 octavo 8º or 8vo 8 16 6 × 9 15 × 23 duodecimo or twelvemo 12º or 12mo 12 24 5 × 7⅜ 12.5 × 19 sextodecimo or sixteenmo 16º or 16mo 16 32 4 × 6¾ 10 × 17 octodecimo or eighteenmo 18º or 18mo 18 36 4 × 6½ 10 × 16.5 trigesimo-secundo or thirty-twomo 32º or 32mo 32 64 3½ × 5½ 9 × 14 quadragesimo-octavo or forty-eightmo 48º or 48mo 48 96 2½ × 4 6.5 × 10 sexagesimo-quarto or sixty-fourmo 64º or 64mo 64 128 2 × 3 5 × 7.5
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