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Fantasy Press was an American publishing house specialising in fantasy and science fiction titles. Established in 1946 by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach in Reading, Pennsylvania, it was most notable for publishing the works of authors such as Robert A. Heinlein and E. E. Smith.〔 One of its more notable offerings was the Lensman series. Among its books was ''Of Worlds Beyond: The Science of Science Fiction Writing'' (1947), which was the first book about modern SF and contained essays by John W. Campbell, Jr., Robert A. Heinlein, A. E. van Vogt and others. ==History== Lloyd Arthur Eshbach ordered a copy of ''Skylark of Space'' from its publisher, the Buffalo Book Company, in 1945 or 1946.〔 Like many of Buffalo's customers, Eshbach was frustrated by Buffalo's delays in publishing and lack of marketing, an area that Eschbach had some expertise in, from his job as a copywriter for Glidden. He wrote to the Buffalo Book Company offering suggestions as to how they could better market their books. Thus started a correspondence between Eshbach and Tom Hadley, of Buffalo and later of the Hadley Publishing Company. Eshbach, who was working as an ad copywriter for the Glidden Company, did al of his work for Hadley in a gesture of good will with no payment. He with drew when he saw that Hadley's ventures were going nowhere and customers were growing dissatisfied with the publisher. 〔 Robert Weinberg "Specialty Science Fiction Publishers"ïn Hall W. Hall, ed, ''Science Fiction Collections: Fantasy, Supernatural and Weird Tales'', Haworth Press, 1978, p. 122 〕 While never an employee of Hadley, Eshbach helped him with his marketing efforts and as a result ended up with a copy of the mailing list of Hadley's customers. Eshbach jokingly suggested to several of his co-workers that they could probably do as well with a publishing company of their own, and to his surprise, the men agreed. 〔 Robert Weinberg "Specialty Science Fiction Publishers"ïn Hall W. Hall, ed, ''Science Fiction Collections: Fantasy, Supernatural and Weird Tales'', Haworth Press, 1978, p. 122 〕 With two of his co-workers from Glidden and one other friend of theirs, Eshbach used the mailing list to start Fantasy Press. He approached E. E. Smith to obtain the rights to ''Spacehounds of IPC''. Smith was enthusiastic〔 and ''Spacehounds of IPC'' became the first title published by the new press. Eshbach had seen the success of of Hadley's poorly produced Skylark of Space'' and knew that a well done volume of E.E. Smith would probably be a strong seller. ''Spacehounds of IPC'' was extremely successful and sold several thousand copies. Eshbach immediately went out and got contracts for other books he thought would do well. Fantasy Press swiftly became the most successful and important of the fledgling science fiction small presses. 〔 Robert Weinberg "Specialty Science Fiction Publishers"ïn Hall W. Hall, ed, ''Science Fiction Collections: Fantasy, Supernatural and Weird Tales'', Haworth Press, 1978, p. 122 〕 Eshbach eventually bought out his partners and operated the press for several years on his own.〔 Ultimately, Fantasy Press was under-capitalized and sales declined in the face of competition from the mainstream publishers. Eshbach wrote his authors and reverted the rights to their books while he took a job with a religious publishing house in Myerstown, Pennsylvania.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fantasy Press」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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