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Acolyte, v. 3, issue 1, whole no. 9, Winter 1945
Page 2
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EDITORIALLY SPEAKING THE DOG IN THE MANGER. It is excessively distasteful to encounter a fellow hobbyist who is unwilling to share with his fellow fantasy lovers the results of his research into fantastic literature save at a prohibitive price in either money or self-respect. A New York fan, one A. Langley Searles, has been compiling a rather large and pretentious bibliography of fantastic book titles (certainly a project which has long been needed in our field). Instead, however, of publishing it as a complete volume, he has caused individual leaves of it to appear at irregular intervals as a supplement to a "fan news" sheet. Complete sets of the portion published to date cost 5[[cent symbol]] per sheet from the publisher (not Searles), as contrasted with the charge of 15[[cent symbol]] for 15 sheets made by The Acolyte for comparable mimeography. Believing that this extortionistic method of publication was adopted by the mimeograph-less Searles only as a last resort, your editore last fall made overtures to him, offering both to help him extensively with the vast labor of compilation and revision and to mimeograph and publish the bibliography for him as a complete bound volume. His arrogant and supercilious reception of our disinterested offer made any such collaboration utterly impossible, unless we were willing to sacrifice far more self-respect than any hobby venture can be worth. Since we were dissatisfied with the haphazard way in which the Searles biblio has been published (22 sheets in over two years), we then made plans to publish a title-list of our own. Though Searles' unwillingness to collaborate made it necessary for us to plan on redoing the vast amount of work he had already been over, (certainly an irritating waste of time and effort!), both our own honesty and the surprising number of errors in the completed fragment made it impossible to use Searles' listing as a partial basis, as we had originally intended when we assumed Searles would welcome cooperative help. but the work is badly needed by collectors and students; we felt that a definitive listing was worth whatever sacrifices it might entail. A letter received from Searles on December 8, however, puts an entirely different face on the matter. Searles informs us, nastily, that his bibliography is copyrighted, that any bibliography which we might elect to publish would subject us to an immediate lawsuit from him. We doubt strongly if such a suit could possibly hold water; witness the large number of copyrighted dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other books of reference--many of which cover the identical ground without infringing each other's rights. On the other hand, family and other obligations leave neither of us in a position to take a chance on having to defend an action; whether collectable or not, such an episode would involve us in expensive attorney fees. So, regretfully, we shall have to withdraw from the field. We would not have violated The Acolyte's long-time rule against publishing controversial matter by mentioning this mess had it not been for the fact that we felt it best to explain the whole matter fully and impartially, then drop it. Also, some of you may in the future wonder why it is that this magazine carries little or no bibliographical information. If the scope of The Acolyte may from now on seem somewhat curtailed, we suggest that our readers give a vote of thanks to A. Langley Searles, fantasy's dog in the manger. FTL ---oo0oo--- A NEW SEMI-PRO MAKES ITS BOW. The editors of The Acolyte wish to extend congratulations to a very promising new semi-professional literary magazine, Different. This periodical, the first issue of which may be expected about March 1, is the -- 2 -- (turn to page 19)
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EDITORIALLY SPEAKING THE DOG IN THE MANGER. It is excessively distasteful to encounter a fellow hobbyist who is unwilling to share with his fellow fantasy lovers the results of his research into fantastic literature save at a prohibitive price in either money or self-respect. A New York fan, one A. Langley Searles, has been compiling a rather large and pretentious bibliography of fantastic book titles (certainly a project which has long been needed in our field). Instead, however, of publishing it as a complete volume, he has caused individual leaves of it to appear at irregular intervals as a supplement to a "fan news" sheet. Complete sets of the portion published to date cost 5[[cent symbol]] per sheet from the publisher (not Searles), as contrasted with the charge of 15[[cent symbol]] for 15 sheets made by The Acolyte for comparable mimeography. Believing that this extortionistic method of publication was adopted by the mimeograph-less Searles only as a last resort, your editore last fall made overtures to him, offering both to help him extensively with the vast labor of compilation and revision and to mimeograph and publish the bibliography for him as a complete bound volume. His arrogant and supercilious reception of our disinterested offer made any such collaboration utterly impossible, unless we were willing to sacrifice far more self-respect than any hobby venture can be worth. Since we were dissatisfied with the haphazard way in which the Searles biblio has been published (22 sheets in over two years), we then made plans to publish a title-list of our own. Though Searles' unwillingness to collaborate made it necessary for us to plan on redoing the vast amount of work he had already been over, (certainly an irritating waste of time and effort!), both our own honesty and the surprising number of errors in the completed fragment made it impossible to use Searles' listing as a partial basis, as we had originally intended when we assumed Searles would welcome cooperative help. but the work is badly needed by collectors and students; we felt that a definitive listing was worth whatever sacrifices it might entail. A letter received from Searles on December 8, however, puts an entirely different face on the matter. Searles informs us, nastily, that his bibliography is copyrighted, that any bibliography which we might elect to publish would subject us to an immediate lawsuit from him. We doubt strongly if such a suit could possibly hold water; witness the large number of copyrighted dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other books of reference--many of which cover the identical ground without infringing each other's rights. On the other hand, family and other obligations leave neither of us in a position to take a chance on having to defend an action; whether collectable or not, such an episode would involve us in expensive attorney fees. So, regretfully, we shall have to withdraw from the field. We would not have violated The Acolyte's long-time rule against publishing controversial matter by mentioning this mess had it not been for the fact that we felt it best to explain the whole matter fully and impartially, then drop it. Also, some of you may in the future wonder why it is that this magazine carries little or no bibliographical information. If the scope of The Acolyte may from now on seem somewhat curtailed, we suggest that our readers give a vote of thanks to A. Langley Searles, fantasy's dog in the manger. FTL ---oo0oo--- A NEW SEMI-PRO MAKES ITS BOW. The editors of The Acolyte wish to extend congratulations to a very promising new semi-professional literary magazine, Different. This periodical, the first issue of which may be expected about March 1, is the -- 2 -- (turn to page 19)
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