BLEILER, Everett F. The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago, Shasta Publishers, 1948.
8vo. Original dark red cloth, titled in green to spine, with original illustrated dust wrapper depicting a monster and an inexplicably naked woman reading gigantic books on the beach; pp. xx, 455; internally clean and a very good copy overall, dust wrapper with toning to the spine, an abrasion to upper cover and some chipping to the spine - copies of this book in the dust wrapper are rare, and most copies (unlike this one) have significant browning to the front and rear panels.
First edition. A foundational work of science fiction reference, this book was one of the first and most significant attempts to catalogue the emergent "fantasy" genre. The introduction includes a fascinating essay on what constitutes 'fantasy' as opposed to more general fiction. Covering over 5000 titles prior to 1949, the reference is surprisingly comlplete and with a print run of 1,933 copies, it was the first book from Shasta Publisher. Bleiler received a special professional World Fantasy Award in 1978, and was given a World Fantasy Life Achievement Award ten years later.
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