Many of the Doctor Palfrey books fall into the category of global disaster novels and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was the first SF novel I ever read. I don't recall reading the early novels. Maybe it's just my memory playing tricks, but all the Palfrey novels I read had two words in the title (The Flood, The Inferno, etc.), so I'm in for a bit of a treat at some point because at the recent ABC show I picked up a small stack of the earlier Palfrey novels. Whether they're any good or not, I don't know. The only Creasey novel I've read in years was an Inspector West and I did rather enjoy it as a straightforward police procedural that, for a change (especially these days), didn't involve a serial killer. I'll have to revisit Creasey again as I have a stack of his Toff and Baron books. In the meantime, here are the 11 Dr. Palfrey novels I picked up. Hopefully I'll be able to fill in some gaps over time. [I should note that I have been filling gaps occasionally, which is why there are now more than 11 covers.]
Traitors' Doom (London, John Long, Nov 1942)
The Valley of Fear (London, John Long, May 1943)
revised as The Perilous Country, Arrow, 1962.
Dangerous Quest (London, John Long, Jun 1944)
The Legion of the Lost (London, John Long, Nov 1943)
revised, Arrow Books 938, 1967, 192pp, 3/6. Cover by unknown
Arrow Books 696, 1963, 192pp, 2/6. Cover by Roger Hall
revised, Arrow Books, 1970.
Arrow Books 734, 1964, 192pp, 2/6. Cover by Roger Hall
revised, Arrow Books, 1970.
revised, Arrow Books 676, 1962, 192pp, 2/6. Cover by unknown
revised, Arrow Books 677, 1962, 192pp, 2/6. Cover by unknown
Arrow Books 699, 1963, 190pp, 2/6. Cover by Roger Hall
revised, Arrow Books, 1970.
revised, Arrow Books 733, 1964, 192pp, 2/6. Cover by Roger Hall
The Dawn of Darkness (London, John Long, Jun 1949)
revised, Arrow Books 717, 1963, 192pp, 2/6. Cover by Roger Hall
revised, Jay Books 32, 1958, 2/-. Cover by G. Benvenuti?
revised, Arrow Book 718, 1963, 192pp, 2/6. Cover by Roger Hall
The Prophet of Fire (London, Evans, Jun 1951)
The Children of Hate (London, Evans, May 1952)
as The Children of Despair, Jay Books, 1958.
The Touch of Death (London, Hodder & Stoughton, Feb 1954)
The Mists of Fear (London, Hodder & Stoughton, Mar 1955)
Four Square 868, 1963, 223pp.
Four Square 1874, 5/-.
Hodder, 1958, 2/6.
The Plague of Silence (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1958)
Hodder Paperbacks
Four Square 918, 1963, 157pp, 2/6. Cover by unknown
revised as Dry Spell, Four Square 1920, (Jul) 1967, 3/6.
Arrow
The Terror (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1962)
Hodder Paperbacks
The Depths (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1963)
The Sleep! (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1964)
Arrow Books 0099-08650-6, 1974, 190pp, 35p. Cover photo
Hodder Paperbacks 340-10668-9, 1969, 188pp, 4/-. Cover: photo
The Blight (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1968)
The Oasis (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1969)
The Smog (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1970)
The Unbegotten (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1971)
The Insulators (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1972)
The Voiceless Ones (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1973)
The Thunder-Maker (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1976)
The Whirlwind (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1979)
My favourite John Creasey books were his Gideon of Scotland Yard stories.He wrote them under the pseudonym of J J Marric. The last one appeared in 1976 & then the Gideon mantle was picked up by William Vivian Butler (1927-87)who wrote 6 more Gideon stories which continued the life of George Gideon & his wife & 6 children. The stories appeared from 1978 to 1990 and the last one was published posthumously. I used to enjoy borrowing them from libraries but like Dennis Wheatley yarns they appear to have lost popularity and are presumably out-of-print as well.
ReplyDeletein the UK at least a company called "House of Stratus" has been republishing Creasey's novels (also available on Kindle). They're publishing a nice selection of his different series.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.houseofstratus.com/john-creasey-58-c.asp
As an example, here's one of the Palfrey books you mentioned.."The House of the Bears"
http://www.houseofstratus.com/house-of-the-bears-the-2394-p.asp
Rather irritatingly, they've renamed some of the Gideon books...All his Gideon novels were titled "Gideon's...." such as Day, Night etc, but they've renamed soem of them as "A Conference for Assasins" (which was Gideon's March), "Seven Days to Death" (Gideon's Week) and "Murder at the Cathedral", "Criminal Imports" neither of which i can find the original title of
whoops...a bit of digging on the Stratus website shows the books listed by series...here's Gideon
ReplyDeletehttp://www.houseofstratus.com/gideon-153-c.asp
and Dr Palfrey
http://www.houseofstratus.com/dr-palfrey-160-c.asp
the books they've published are at the bottom of each page.
House of Stratus - The company that reprinted James Hadley Chase - without gun-toting, bikini-clad models on the front cover! What were they thinking??
ReplyDelete