Those Thick Omnibuses from the Thirties

I was looking over my anthology shelves recently, and got to wondering how all those thick anthologies from the 1930s came about in the UK, and which one was the first. Initially I thought of those three Omnibuses of Crime, edited by Dorothy L. Sayers, and then I recalled that those Omnibuses were the US titles. Gollancz had published each of them originally as Great Short Stories of Detection, Mystery and Horror (September 1928; second series, July 1931; third series, September 1934). In May 1931, Gollancz had published The Holiday Omnibus, which included novels like The Purple Cloud by M.P. Shiel and shorter works like "Mrs. Raeburn's Waxwork" by Eleanor Smith. (Of course there were other horror anthologies of the time, including the "Not at Night" series in the 1920s-1930s, and the "Creeps" series in the 1930s; but they were mostly normal-sized books, though each series did an omnibus in due course, The "Not at Night" Omnibus (April 1937), and The Creeps Omnibus (October 1935), comprising the first three volumes of the Creeps series.)  

It appears that Hutchinson was the first firm to follow up, and they produced an extensive series of omnibuses of various types. The first was A Century of Creepy Stories, which came out in June 1934. Next up was The Evening Standard Book of Strange Stories in October 1934. The December release of the regular-sized New Tales of Horror, by Eminent Authors, ghost-edited by John Gawsworth, initiated a series of four thick anonymously-edited Gawsworth anthologies from other publishers: Thrills, Crimes and Mysteries (1935); Crimes, Creeps and Thrills (1936); Thrills (1936); Masterpiece of Thrills (1936) 

Some of Hutchinson's omnibuses had named editors (Rafael Sabatini, Hugh Walpole, Dennis Wheatley, P.G. Wodehouse, Francis Brett Young); some had named introducers (G.K. Chesterton); some are uncredited. Of the latter, there is the curious example of Fifty Years of Ghost Stories (October 1935) and A Century of Ghost Stories (May 1936), which subsumed the printed text of the former book (pp. 11-702) into the 1013 pages of the latter. Fifty Years of Ghost Stories was reprinted on its own by Hutchinson in 1949; and in 1970, Hutchinson made up two anthologies from some of the contents of the earlier volumes: Let's Talk of Graves: Tales from 'A Century of Ghost Stories' (1970) and Walk in Dread: Twelve Classic Eerie Tales (1970). The US firm Taplinger would reprint the second book, and they found the original editor still working at Hutchinson. This was Dorothy M. Tomlinson (1910-2002), the daughter of the writer H.M. Tomlinson, who began her forty-plus year career at Hutchinson in 1934. Tomlinson contributed an interesting introduction to Taplinger's Walk in Dread (1972), describing how she had been asked to compile an anthology of ghost stories for Hutchinson a few years after she had joined the firm. She noted that her first inclusion was E. Nesbit's "John Charington's Wedding"--which appears only in the larger 1936 Century of Ghost Stories (where it is erroneously credited to "Evelyn" Nesbit), and not in the 1935 Fifty Years of Ghost Stories. The situation of that story, and the fact that Tomlinson joined the firm in 1934 make me think that she was probably not responsible for Fifty Years of Ghost Stories; and certainly not the editor of A Century of Horror Stories (1934), which is sometimes attributed to her. But we can certainly attribute to her A Century of Ghost Stories (1936) and Walk in Dread (1970 and 1972). 

This small boom in omnibuses ran out in 1938-39 as war began. Here follows a chronological listing of the main Hutchinson omnibuses, with some notes on some oddball titles at the very end. 

A Century of Creepy Stories  
            Hutchinson, [June 1934] 3s 6d
            [July 1934] imitation leather 5 s;  1/2 leather 7s 6d 
            [December 1934] imitation leather 5s 6d; 1/2 leather 7s 6d 
The Evening Standard Book of Strange Stories            
            Hutchinson, [October 1934] 3s 6d
            [December 1934] 1/2 leather 7s 6d; imitation leather 5s 6d 
A Century of Sea Stories [edited by Rafael Sabatini]
            Hutchinson, [November 1934]  3s 6d
            [January 1935] imitation leather 5s 6d 
 A Century of Humour [edited by P.G. Wodehouse]
            Hutchinson, [December 1934]  1/2 leather 7s 6d;  imitation 
             leather 5s 6d
A Century of Love Stories [edited Gilbert Frankau]
            Hutchinson, [January 1935]  3s 6d  
            [July 1937] ch. ed. 2s 
A Century of Detective Stories [With an Introduction by G.K. Chesterton]
            Hutchinson, [April 1935]  3s 6d
Fifty Years of Ghost Stories
            Hutchinson, [October 1935]  2s 6d
            Hutchinson, [1949]  evidently 60th Thousand, 10 s 6d 
A Century of Horror [edited by Dennis Wheatley]
            Hutchinson, [October 1935]  3s 6d  
A Century of Boys’ Stories [edited by Francis Brett Young] 
            Hutchinson, [October 1935]  3s 6d 
            [July 1937] 3s 6d
A Century of Historical Stories [edited by Rafael Sabatini] 
            Hutchinson, [January 1936]  ch ed. 3s 6d 
A Century of Western Stories [edited by George Goodchild] 
            Hutchinson, [March 1936] 3s 6d
A Century of Ghost Stories   [subsumes Fifty Years of Ghost Stories]
            Hutchinson, [May 1936] 3s 6d  
The Holiday Omnibus 
            Hutchinson, [July 1936] 3s 6d
            [July 1937]  ch ed. 2s 
The Second Century of Humour 
            Hutchinson, [September 1936]  3s 6d 
Cavalcade of History  [edited by Claud Golding] 
            Hutchinson, [March 1937]  3s 6d 
The Evening Standard Second Book of Strange Stories 
            Hutchinson, [May 1937]  3s 6d  
A Century of Nature Stories [With an Intro by J.W. Robertson Scott] 
            Hutchinson, [June 1937]  3s 6d 
A Second Century of Creepy Stories [edited by Hugh Walpole] 
            Hutchinson, [July 1937]  3s 6d
The Fireside Omnibus 
            Hutchinson, [November] 1937  3s 6d 
The Second Cavalcade of History [edited by Claud Golding] 
            Hutchinson, [January 1938] 3s 6d 
A Century of Spy Stories [edited by Dennis Wheatley] 
            Hutchinson, [May 1938] 3s 6d 
A Century of Girls’ Stories [edited by Ethel Boileau] 
            Hutchinson, [April 1939]   3s 6d 

Other:

The Book of the King’s Jubilee [edited by Sir Philip Gibbs] 
            Hutchinson, [April 1935] 3s 6d  512 pp. 
Famous Trials [by the First Earl of Birkenhead] 
            Hutchinson, [January 1935] 3s 6d  Ch. ed.  Jan 1938 3s

More Famous Trials [edited by the First Earl of Birkenhead]
            Hutchinson, [July 1938]  3s 6d 
1001 Wonderful Things [edited by Walter Hutchinson]
            Hutchinson, [July 1935]  3s 6d   Ch ed. 2s. July 1936 

A Century of Popular Romances [edited by Gilbert Frankau]
            Title announced, but probably became A Century of Love
The Holiday Omnibus for All Seasons
The Holiday Omnibus for Christmas
            Both apparently subsumed into The Holiday Omnibus 

I'd pick these as the six essential volumes of the Hutchinson series, for those especially interested in the weird genre:

A Century of Creepy Stories (1934)
The Evening Standard Book of Strange Stories (1934)       
A Century of Horror [edited by Dennis Wheatley] (1935)
A Century of Ghost Stories (1936) 
The Evening Standard Second Book of Strange Stories (1937) 
A Second Century of Creepy Stories [edited by Hugh Walpole] (1937)I 

I also find the Gawsworth-edited anthologies of considerable interest.   

Victor Gollancz's "Connoisseur's Library of Strange Fiction" and Its Successor Series

The London publisher Victor Gollancz (1893-1967) clearly had a soft spot for eclectic books, including fantasy. Twice during his lifetime he published a series of fantasies, though he carefully avoided calling them such. 

The first series he called "The Connoisseur's Library of Strange Fiction," subtitling it "A Series of Reprints."  He announced five books though in the end he published only four.  In numbered order they were:

The 1946 Gollancz edition

1. A Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay.  Published August 1946 at 8s 6d, just a little over a year after Lindsay's death.  Gollancz had bought the publishing rights to Arcturus and The Haunted Woman from Lindsay's widow. This edition includes a one-page "Publisher's Note" by Victor Gollancz, which publishes for the first time the (accurate) statement that of the small 1920 first edition of Arcturus, "596 copies were sold and 824 'remaindered.'" Most rare booksellers have latched on to the first number and ignored the second one, making the first edition of Arcturus seem all the more rare.  But those 1,430 copies were in fact sold, as the original publisher's ledgers confirm.

2. The Haunted Woman, by David Lindsay.  Published in January 1947 at 7s 6d.

3. Medusa, by E.H. Visiak. Published January 1947 at 7s 6d. Gollancz himself had published the first edition of this book in 1929.

4. The Place of the Lion, by Charles Williams.  Published in February 1947 at 7s 6d. Gollancz himself had published the first edition of this book in 1931.

5. The Confessions of a Justified Sinner, by James Hogg. In earlier volumes of this series, the James Hogg book was listed as number 4, with The Place of the Lion as number 5. But when the latter was published, the ordering was reversed. No Gollancz edition of the James Hoog book was ever published.  The Cresset Press published an edition in September 1947.  Perhaps Gollancz didn't want to publish a book which had a planned competing edition.

The second series of reprints came a few decades later, under the title "Rare Works of Imaginative Fiction: A Series of Re-Issues." This time Gollancz published, in three groups, eight of the nine titles that he announced. Three are reissues from the 1946-47 series:

1. The Purple Cloud, by M.P. Shiel. Published 13 June 1963 at 18s.

2. A Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay. Published 13 June 1963 at 18s.

3. Medusa, by E.H. Visiak. Published 13 June 1963 at 18s.

4. Wylder's Hand, by J.S. Lefanu. Published 24 October 1963, presumably at 21s.

5. The Greater Trumps,  by Charles Williams. Announced but never published. Gollancz himself had published the first edition of this book in 1932.

6. The Lord of the Sea, by M.P. Shiel. Published 24 October 1963, at 21s.

7. The Haunted Woman, by David Lindsay.  Published 16 April 1964 at 21s.

8. The Isle of Lies, by M. P. Shiel. Published 16 April 1964 at 21s.

9. The Ghost Ship & Other Stories, by Richard Middleton. Published 16 April 1964 at 21s.

In all, these titles lived up to the advertisements describing the series as "The Connoisseur's Library of Strange Fiction" and "Rare Works of Imaginative Fiction." 

 

revised 2 September 2022