A serious fan of 'fugitive literature' Pulp fiction
collection finds respectable home Carolyn Thompson -
Associated Press Friday, June 2, 2000
Buffalo, N.Y. --- For 30 years, it was love. George Kelley
and the little numbers who kept him company in all those
hotel rooms.
They'd always own a little piece of his heart. And a great
big part of his home. Or so he thought.
But Kelley had another love, the one he married, and she said
he'd have to choose.
He knew she was right. The affair was over, and for the sake
of clean socks.
So Kelley sent packing his collection of 25,000 volumes of
pulp fiction that had turned his basement into a library ---
and an obstacle course.
''My wife gave me an ultimatum,'' he recalls. ''She said, 'I
can't get to the washer and dryer. You have to make a
decision between the books and clean clothes.' ''
The books are now at the State University of New York at
Buffalo's Lockwood Library. Five years after Kelley donated
them to his alma mater, librarians have catalogued each
volume. It's the first time many of the cheesy sci-fi,
romance and detective novels from decades past have found a
place in the National Bibliographic Database, let alone a
permanent spot on a shelf.
''Libraries were kind of snobby,'' says Lockwood's director,
Judith Adams-Volpe.
In their heyday, pulps were meant to be quick reads that, at
10 cents to 25 cents a pop, could be tossed out at story's
end. The low-grade paper gave pulps their name, and hardly
encouraged their saving.
Kelley, 50, began collecting them as an adolescent. One
summer, after returning from camp, he found that his mother
had disposed of 1,000 comic books, leaving his bedroom and
closet disturbingly clean.
He started with science fiction paperbacks published by ACE
Books, double books bound back to back with two covers. With
ACE's western and mystery doubles, the habit grew as Kelley
did.
When he worked for Opinion Research Associates of Madison,
Wis., in the 1970s, Kelley logged 100,000 air miles a year
and visited bookstores wherever he went. He'd read three or
four paperbacks a day, in cabs, airports, hotel rooms.
''My worst nightmare is to be in a doctor's office with
nothing to read,'' says Kelley, who chronicles his reading
habit like an addict.
''I got into the Hardy Boys early on. I just never got rid of
anything.''
Following tips from readers and collectors, Kelley chased
down titles through used book stores and flea markets,
amassing a collection of books and magazines that runs from
detective stories to science fiction, through action
adventures, westerns and erotica. Published from World War II
through the 1980s, they include lesser-known authors as well
as masters of the genre such as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond
Chandler and Ed McBain.
The collection, banished to the basement when the weight
began to damage the floors upstairs in his home, is
tantalizing.
It includes complete sets of Galaxy Magazine, first to
publish Ray Bradbury's classic story ''Fahrenheit 451,'' and
Locus, a semiprofessional ''fanzine'' begun by devotees of
sci-fi in the 1970s. There also is an original copy, worth
about $500, of ''Junkie'' by William Burroughs.
''These books just don't exist anymore,'' says Kelley, who
teaches business administration at Erie Community College.
''It's kind of a fugitive literature.''
Kelley put the books in zippered plastic bags early on,
hoping to keep pages from discoloring. It worked, and the
books remain bagged at Lockwood.
Thanks to Kelley, works like Carter Brown's ''The Hellcat''
won't be lost. The cover, featuring a bikini-clad siren and a
cheetah, beckons:
''Al Wheeler tangles with a fiery redhead who has a flaming
temper --- a sex kitten who can claw as she caresses, kiss .
. . as she kills.''
Or Hank Janson's ''It's Bedtime Baby,'' with this cover
tease: ''Eleven suspects with two things in common. A tattoo
on their bottom and a canceled membership card in a college
Virgin's Club.''
Some estimate the collection is worth a fortune. But there is
value beyond dollars.
Experts say pulp fiction provides a trove of popular tropes,
political trends and culture traits. ''These books document
our changing tastes and social mores,'' says David Schmid,
who teaches popular literature and culture courses at the
University at Buffalo.
The collection has already proved to be a handy resource.
When Oxford American Magazine was serializing an Elliot Chase
novel, ''Dark Wings Has My Angel,'' even the author's family
didn't have a copy. The university did.
''This is what people did when there was no TV,'' says
Kelley, who has a doctorate in English from the university,
as well as master's degrees in English, library science and
business administration. He has written numerous articles on
the topic.
''It's what people spent their beer money on. To understand
what was going on in that time, you have to have a collection
like this.''
Adams-Volpe hopes to create a database of detective fiction
for academics, cross-referencing psychological traits and
such preferences of villains and victims as favorite foods
and locales.
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