#pulp swindle

Le  Moulin Noir -Espionnage

Caution ! There is André Guerber at the wheel of this series...That means 60 issues between 1959 & 1963 on 3 different labels and two differently entitled serie. 

#01 to  #36 -  series “Le Moulin Noir Espionnage”, started [July 1959] at Editions de l’Etoile, ended [February 1962]at Editions du Champ de Mars.

#37 to #60 - series “SS Service Secret” at Editions Baudelaire [March 1962- April 1963].

Guerber politics mean also stolen borrowed covers, stolen borrowed pen-names, stolen borrowed label signs and probably stolen borrowed novels. Common denominator: to pay the less author rights as possible, ideally not to pay any author rights at all.

The series “Le Moulin Noir Espionnage”’s label sign, as well as the covers, come from spanish publisher Editorial Molino.  The series “SS Service Secret”s covers come from the spanish series “Servicio Secreto” from Editorial Bruguera.

The pen-names are also, for a part of them, from those spanish series and, for the rest, french signatures. The cover indications never correspond to the novels they overlay. The novels are often double-signed: false signature on cover, and other signature on the first page (quite as false). What else? The novels themselves? French spionage or crime novels reissues.

Thanks André Guerber. It is really fun to try to get through all those manipulations....

cover art: R. Cortiella, Pablo Ramirez, Antonio Garcia...

publishing director:André Guerber

Western Pocket

17 titles published in 1965/1966.  This collection is a typical exemple of André Guerber’s editorial methods: paperbacks about  which you can’t be certain if what they contain corresponds to their covers; materiel taken from different horizons, signatures that can’t be authenticate....

Probably many titles written by Guy de Wargny taking pen-names from other writers. 

But :  Jim Ferguson is italian; GF Unger, Chuck Adams & Glenn Stirling are german; Will C. Brown, William Mac Leod Raine are american, as well as  Lewis Cashyan a known pen-name of Lewis B. Patten....

Will C. Brown’s L’homme à abattre hides an abridged version of Trail Town (which is a novel of Ernest Haycox - issued 1941)

Norton Wisher’s Les canons de l’Arizona is an abridged version of Charles N. Heckelman’s Guns of Arizona (1947)

Jim Ferguson’s title exists in Italia with the same cover. 

Here is the listing of the collection...

1- Bas les pattes, Charlie par Jim Ferguson 2- Le vengeur, par Ricky Jones 3- L'homme à abattre, par Will C. Brown 4- Les canons de l'Arizona, par Norton Wisher 5- Une balle pour Billy Reo, par Lewis Cashyan 6- Le rebelle, par Will C. Brown 7- Texas Boy, par Lewis Cashyan 8- La piste de la vengeance, par William MacLeod Raine 9- L'homme au colt rouge, par Chuck Adams 10- Les indomptables, par Lewis Cashyan 11- Le doigt sur la gâchette, par David O'Hary 12- L'or du sang, par Barry Donald 13- Bill Alamo ranger du Texas, par Lewis Cashyan 14- Justice sera faite, par G.F. Unger 15- La chevauchée sans retour, par Bob Merlin 16- Malheur au shérif, par Glenn Stirling 17- La vengeance de Miguel Blanco, par David O'Conny

publisher: Editions Bel-Air, Paris

publishing director: André Guerber

The Seven Oaks plagiarisms...

In 1930, belgian detective novels writer SA Steeman published “Le doigt volé” in the collection “Le Masque” at Librairie des Champs-Elysées....

Circa 1936, an uncertain T.W.Ogg signed a novel entitled “Double Meurtre à Seven Oaks” in the collection “Les Grands Romans Policiers” at Les Belles Editions. Nobody noticed that it was a copy of Steeman’s“Le doigt volé” (though Steeman’s book had been successful)...

In 1939, “Double meurtre à Seven Oaks” has been reprinted and was signed G. Larru. If you read it with attention, you’ll discover some little changes in the text - but not important. It seems that nobody, back then, had noticed that it still was a copy of Steeman’s novel.

When you take a look at other novels in “Les Grands Romans Policiers”, you’ll notice that the waltz of signatures is a common thing in the collection.  Some novels are doubly signed, or/and given to be translated from English. In the latter case, the name of the supposed translator appears: E.L.Michel.

No doubt: E.L. Michel was T.W.Ogg, G. Larru, as well as others (whose cases will be examinated in further posts)

1947, Les Sept Chênes (Seven Oaks Manor), signed Eleanor Fulk,  was published in “La Cagoule” (Editions La Bruyère) and this time it was noticed for being a plagiarism of “Le doigt volé”. “Les Sept Chênes” was the most literary elaborated and accomplished copy of those I know. Steeman and his editor complained, the affair went in Justice and the author - a certain E.L. Michel (Ah Ha!) - was heavily fined.

Stanislas-André Steeman’s original work;

Walter UNTERMEYER Jr. “Mauvaises passions”

Franco-belgian édition in french language of Evil Roots.(1954) - with its original cover.

Publisher: Universal Publications, Paris - Lille - Bruxelles

And then, in 1963, an abridged reissue signed William Ard

William Ard on the cover but marked William Untermeyer Jr. on the inside front page. Donne -moi cette femme was abridged of chapter 1 to 4 of Mauvaises passions

A common kind of handling for the publisher: collection Detective Pocket was edited by non other than André Guerber who’s become  legendary due to his numerous pulp/paperbacks swindles.

Publisher: Editions Baudelaire, 49 avenue Bosquet, Paris

Publishing director: André Guerber