STANTON COBLENTZ—When Birds Fly South—Weird Fantasy Novel—HC—Mill Valley

Description: • For Your Consideration: • A 1951 Reissue in Hardcover of a 1945 “WEIRD” Novel: • From WINGS PRESS of Mill Valley, California: • And SIGNED by the AUTHOR: • “WHEN THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH” (THE WINGS PRESS, 1946) (HARDCOVER, First Edition, First Printing) • BY STANTON A. COBLENTZ (of MILL VALLEY, CALIFORNIA) • SIGNING NOTE: The author STANTON A. COBLENTZ’s signature appears in black fountain ink on the front flyleaf. (Please see photos.) • “It is not for me from three thousand miles away to say who is the greatest living poet on the continent of America; I can only say who is the greatest I know...and the greatest one I can see to the west is STANTON A. COBLENTZ.” —LORD DUNSANY • ABOUT THIS TITLE:• “Not only has this remarkable book a high fiction value but the style, rich and chromatic, is a poet’s prose (not ‘poetical prose’), and the descriptions, wild, varied, and magnificent, are unsurpassed by any I have ever read. There is no doubt in my mind that WHEN THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH will survive as a classic.” —GERTRUDE ATHERTON, “MY SAN FRANCISCO” • “A reprint of the novel which first appeared in 1945. This story, while belonging to the weird genre and rich in mystery, adventure, and romance, strikes a universal note in its love theme and in the problem it poses of man in his battle with inexorable destiny. When Dan Prescott wanders away from the other members of an American geological expedition and is lost among the mountains of Afghanistan, he is rescued by a people who dwell in a deep, world-excluding valley, and have the habit of disappearing each year ‘when the birds fly south.’ He also learns the fascination of dark-eyed, auburn-haired Yasma, a young daughter of the tribe, with whom his life becomes fatefully interwoven. Over the entire tale broods the image of Yulada, the woman-shaped stone figure on the peak, who hovers above the story like a goddess….like a sardonic destiny…presiding against a background of white summits and the tumultuous changing seasons, and guiding the story toward its dark and poetic denouement.” —THE PUBLISHER • “Never let it be said that you can’t learn anything from Facebook! It was on the Vintage Paperback and Pulp Forum there, for example, that this reader recently discovered his newest favorite author. Several of my very knowledgeable fellow members on that page happened to be discussing the merits of a writer who I had previously never even heard of before; a man with the curious name STANTON A. COBLENTZ. Very much intrigued, I later did a little nosing about, and managed to lay my hands on COBLENTZ’ highly regarded WHEN THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH. And I am so glad that I did. This novel, as the author revealed later, was his very favorite of all his many sci-fi/fantasy works…. Very much a lost-race fantasy of the type popularized some 60 years earlier by the great H. RIDER HAGGARD…. STANTON COBLENTZ, besides being a writer of pulp sci-fi, was also an accomplished poet, as any reader who ventures a few chapters deep into this, his favorite novel, will most likely begin to suspect fairly quickly…. To be succinct, his book is beautifully, almost lyrically written. It is as if one of HAGGARD’s classic lost-race novels were being done over by an author with the soul of a genuine poet…. WHEN THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH is a memorable, unique novel that I unreservedly commend to all readers’ attention. I find myself wanting to familiarize myself with more of STANTON A. COBLENTZ.”—SANDY FERBER, FANTASY LITERATURE (WEBSITE) • “I am indebted to SANDY [FERBER] for reviewing this book, for I would certainly not have heard of it without him. Lured by the promise of something rescued from oblivion I tracked down the [book]. As SANDY says, the language is beautiful, and this is a story that demands re-reading for anyone with a penchant for a lovely sentence…. WHEN THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH is a profoundly moving story that stands the test of time.” —KATIE BURTON, FANTASY LITERATURE (WEBSITE) • ABOUT THE AUTHOR:• “STANTON ARTHUR COBLENTZ is a very problematical figure in science fiction in the first half of the 20th Century. Born in 1896, he had a long life, dying in 1982. After getting a Master’s in English, he began to publish poetry, and continued to write verse and contribute literary and social criticism until advanced old age. However, he is mainly remembered for his science fiction. He placed a novel, THE SUNKEN WORLD, in AMAZING STORIES QUARTERLY (July 1928 issue), and continued to be a regular contributor to the early science fiction pulps, with 4 short stories in 1929, and typically placed one to five shorts per year from 1929 through the 1950s, while also usually publishing around one novel per year. Indeed, he comes close to matching MURRAY LEINSTER, JACK WILLIAMSON, and EDMOND HAMILTON for length of active career as a science fiction writer.”—DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS, UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN (WEBSITE)• “The early life of STANTON A. COBLENTZ (1896-1982) is more typical of the youth of a litterateur. Having won prizes with his poetry, having taken a BA and MA at Berkeley, and having enjoyed some success as a literary journalist in San Francisco, he moved to New York in 1920, where he earned a modest living by contributing poems, essays, and reviews to various periodicals…. [H]e had moderate success with two anthologies (MODERN AMERICAN LYRICS, 1924, and MODERN BRITISH LYRICS, 1925) and a caveman story (THE WONDER STICK, 1927), and might also have enjoyed some success with a critical volume, THE LITERARY REVOLUTION(1927), if its publisher had not been one of those that immediately went out of business…. COBLENTZ was not happy with the results of the literary revolution: in fiction, the ‘literal realists’ were concerned only with surface detail, the ‘psychological realists’ were obsessed with sex, and neither were concerned with beauty or the true meaning of life; in poetry it was much the same, and worse, for meter had been abandoned. ‘For him [the modern writer] there are no dim, remote skylines beyond which golden wonders brood; there are no will-o’-the-wisps, no elfin whispers or rainbow gleams; there are only stone pavements and brick apartment houses, electric lights and motor cars, railways and bank accounts.’“Although he made his living primarily with prose (books on various topics as well as well as fiction in SF magazines), poetry remained the dominant interest in COBLENTZ’s life. In 1933 he established WINGS: A QUARTERLY OF VERSE [in Mill Valley, California], dedicated to publishing traditional poetry and to editorializing against the moderns. He moved to a rural area in California in 1938, where he continued to publish WINGS and where he also published author-subsidized volumes of poetry. Although the details are not altogether clear, it appears that he quite honorably neither paid for contributions to WINGS nor required contributors to subscribe. WINGS and the WINGS PRESS was a hobby that almost but never quite paid its way. He had some moral support from such well-known traditional poets as ALFRED NOYES and LORD DUNSANY…. While one must admire COBLENTZ’s selfless devotion to the kind of poetry he loved, it is sad to find him writing as late as 1981 or ’82 that such poets as T. S. ELIOT are ‘frauds, pretenders, and charlatans.’” —R. D. MULLEN, SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES (MARCH, 1004) • • For other details about this book, please see below. • TITLE: “WHEN THE BIRDS FLY SOUTH” AUTHOR: STANON A. COBLENTZ TYPE: HARDCOVER PUBLISHER, LOCALE, & YEAR: THE WINGS PRESS (Mill Valley, Calif. & New York, N.Y.), 1951 EDITION: First Edition Thus* *RE: On the Copyright Page, the statement: “First Printing, 1945 | Reprinted, 1951”—with no later printings listed. PAGES: 223ISBN: N/A (Pre-ISBN) NOTE: THIS BOOK is not an ex-library copy nor a Book-of-the-Month-Club edition. CONDITION OF DUST JACKET: VERY GOOD MINUS. Price is clipped. Corners & spine tips are chipped (with small areas of missing paper). Extensive age-toning on the spine and along the top edge of the front & the top & fore edges of the book—other areas are bright with a few light smudges. Protected in an Old School plastic cover. CONDITION OF BOOK: VERY GOOD. Book is square & firm. Corners are bumped/bent. Red coverboards are clean though there is an area of toning/darkening along top edge of front. Text-block edges are moderately age-toned with some faint age-spots (a few of which are darker at the bottom edge). Endpapers have moderately ghosted gutters & the back has a few age-spots along the edges. The author’s signature appears on the front flyleaf. The edges of the pages are moderately toned but the pages are otherwise bright & clean—with no other writing (save for the author’s signature), no underlining, no highlighting, no tears, no stains, no foxing, no foul odor, etc. • SHIPPING NEWS: This book will be wrapped with care before being shipped in a cushioned & sturdy mailer or box. THANK YOU! ********************** /\___/\=•ᆺ•= “We believe it’s good business to be good to our customers.” *********** FLAPPINCAT’s HOUSE RULES ***********1. GENERAL TREATMENT. We enjoy treating FLAPPINCAT customers with honesty & respect & warmth because that’s how we like to be treated when we buy things on eBay.2. GENERAL ATTITUDE. We are grateful you choose to trust us with your business. We aim for that gratitude to permeate every part of how we engage with you.3. OUR DESCRIPTIONS. 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Price: 36.5 USD

Location: Chapel Hill, North Carolina

End Time: 2025-01-24T11:49:41.000Z

Shipping Cost: 6.5 USD