POLICE SKETCHES

To make a long story short.

During our Paris trip a while back we found this trio of roman-policiers from Editions Ferenczi, 1952, and Editions J. Ferenczi & Fils, 1947, and after some hard bargaining snatched them up for six euros. J. Ferenczi was Hungarian-born Joseph Ferenczi, one of the main guys in Parisian pulp publishing during the first half of the twentieth century. These three booklets were written by Jean Voussag (Le diamant de Valparaiso), Paul Tossel (Trafic en orient), and Jean Dryer (Le mystérieux T… i…), and they run thirty-two pages, just about the right amount of time for a commute via train or metro. Too bad this concept has died—we’d certainly buy a cheap mini-book for a bus ride or short plane flight. Considering how traditional publishing has fallen on hard times, you think they’d explore the possibility that this market still exists. Anyway, you’ll be seeing more French pulp from us soon. Our plan is to empty our French shelf in the next couple of months and tote all this stuff back to the original booksellers to trade. Will they actually take it back? Who knows? But any excuse to go to Paris in the spring is a good one.

Hungary, France, Paris, Editions Ferenczi, Editions J. Ferenczi & Fils, Joseph Ferenczi, Le diamant de Valparaiso, Trafic en orient, Le mystérieux T… i…, Paul Tossel, Jean Dryer, Jean Voussag, cover art, literature

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 17

1933—Blaine Act Passes

The Blaine Act, a congressional bill sponsored by Wisconsin senator John J. Blaine, is passed by the U.S. Senate and officially repeals the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aka the Volstead Act, aka Prohibition. The repeal is formally adopted as the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933.

February 17

1947—Voice of America Begins Broadcasting into U.S.S.R.

The state radio channel known as Voice of America and controlled by the U.S. State Department, begins broadcasting into the Soviet Union in Russian with the intent of countering Soviet radio programming directed against American leaders and policies. The Soviet Union responds by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts.

February 16

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanideâ€”not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juiceâ€”resulting in his death in late 1937.

February 15

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

February 14

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.