Machen, Le Fanu and the Juniper Press

When I bought, many years ago, The Strange World of Arthur Machen, published by the Juniper Press of New York, I didn’t know it was part of a series, at least until I saw the ten volumes advertised on the rear cover. The books themselves are undated, but some came out in 1959, and the rest in 1960. The series was initially named “The Forgotten Classics of Mystery”  for the first four titles, and renamed “The Classics of Mystery” for the remaining volumes. Some of the longer selections inside the books are abridged. Some of the volumes have brief introductions, or author notes, but not all of them do. All volumes were issued in trade paperback and hardcover formats, with the same basic boilerplate design. All volumes were made up of public domain materials.

Charles M. Collins (about whom see here) noted in “The Fantastic Paperback” in Xero no. 6 (September 1961), that the publisher of Juniper Press books was Mircho Smrikarov, and he noted that the Machen book was “by far the best selling title.”  Mircho Georgiev Smrikarov (1911-1986) had been a book publisher in his native Bulgaria until 1947. He then settled in New York and founded the Juniper Press in 1955. His first books were English translations of Balzac. The books in the “Classics of Mystery” series were initially distributed to the book trade by Thomas Crowell, but the distribution agreement ended in August 1960, which may have led to problems for the firm.

Smrikarov in 1974

Yet in 1961, Smrikarov announced that he would publish a further number of books in “The Classics of Mystery” series, naming two of them: a volume of ghostly tales by Fitz-James O’Brien, and (possibly) Peter Teuthold’s very rare Gothic novel, Necromancer, or, The Tale of the Black Forest. But none were published, and Juniper Press seems to have closed down soon afterwards. Smrikarov himself emigrated to Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1974, but later returned, settling in Secaucus, New Jersey, before his death in May 1986.

Juniper Press was pretty much a one-man operation, and Smrikarov did nearly everything. The ten volumes of the “Classics of Mystery” series list four different editors, “George Bisserov” was credited with three books; “Arno Eckberg” was also credited with three; and likewise “Michael Eenhoorn” is credited with three. It is possible that some (or all) of these names were pseudonyms for Smrikarov. The fourth name was apparently a real person, Boyan Choukanoff (1908-2002), a Bulgarian journalist who came to New York, and who was listed in the 1960 Literary Market Place as the Publishing Director of Juniper Press.

The ten volumes in the series are listed below, in series order. Most of the volumes have been superseded by better editions, but the Machen one still serves as a decent introduction to his best early writings, and the four anthologies (II, V, VIII and IX) may still have interest for their offtrail selections, not easily available elsewhere, and even the Balzac volume contains three longer novellas instead of being a collection of many familiar short stories.

Series title: “The Forgotten Classics of Mystery”

I. The Best of Wilkie Collins. Ed. by George Bisserov [1959]

II. An Omnibus of American Mysteries. Ed. by Michael Eenhoorn [1959]

III. Sheridan Le Fanu: The Diabolical Genius [the author’s name is mispelled  “La Fanu” on the title page.  Ed. by Michael  Eenhoom [1959]

IV. R.L. Stevenson: The Fabulous Raconteur. Ed. by Arno Eckberg [1959]

Series retitled:  “The Classics of Mystery”

V. An Omnibus of British Mysteries: Condensed.  Ed. by George Bisserov [1959]

VI. The Strange World of Arthur Machen. Ed. by Arno Eckberg [1960?]

VII. The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe. Ed. by Michael Eenhoorn [1960]

VIII. An Omnibus of Continental Mysteries: Part 1. Ed. by George Bisserov [1960]

IX. An Omnibus of Continental Mysteries: Part 2. Ed. by Arno Eckberg [1960]

X. The Mysteries of Honoré de Balzac. Ed. by Boyan Choukanoff [1960]