Home Before Dark: New and Collectable

            Home Before Dark (2000) … James P. Blaylock

This touching short story (20 pages, including 3 interior illustrations by Gail Cross and Tim Holt and a cover by the same), is printed in chapbook form by Subterranean Press, and is number 147 of only 350 numbered copies. There is an even fancier, lettered edition. The story concerns the last hours of an old man’s life, of what he must let go and what he finds again. It is signed by James P. Blaylock himself, and so joins my other signed editions. Remember that, will you, when it comes time to dispose of my library?

A peculiarity of the packing was that the chapbook (which has a tough but flexible cover) was protected through shipping by being sandwiched within the cut-off covers of a hardback book. It reminded me a bit of Helene Hanf’s outrage at finding her books packed with pages from another book, and Frank Doel having to assure her it was simply finding a use for older, unsellable tomes neither rare nor complete.