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Click the group of books
beginning with number:

Bantam 1
Bantam 50
Bantam100
Bantam 400
Bantam 800
Bantam 900
Bantam 1000
Bantam 1100
Bantam 1200
Bantam 1300
Bantam 1500
Bantam 1700
Bantam 1900
Bantam 2000
Bantam 2200
Bantam 2500
Bantam 2800
Bantam 3000
Bantam 3500
Bantam 4000
Bantam 5000
Bantam 6000
Bantam 7000
Bantam 8000
Bantam 02000
Bantam 11500
Other Bantams
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Ian Ballantine, who started Bantam when he
left Penguin, created some of the best paperbacks ever published. The
books were well bound, their cover art was sharp and vivid, and many Bantam
titles endure as popular works today.
The western, while pretty much a dead genre now, was immensely popular
in the 40's and 50's. Ballantine
dedicated a fourth of his books to westerns.
Stopping short of illustrating the books
themselves, he experimented for a brief time with pen & ink drawings on the
inside covers. I've included these when possible, and labeled them "ic."
They adorned many of the first hundred titles.
I've also included some
dust jackets, extremely collectible today. Some of these were Infantry
Journal and Superior Reprint books that Ballantine brought with him when
he left Penguin, and then wrapped them in Bantam dust jackets.
There were
numerous gaps in Bantam edition numbers. For example, there are no books
between 262 and 300, none between 557 and 700. Only Bantam
NUMBERS determine the order of printing, with prefixes such as "A,"
"F," and seemingly most of the rest of the alphabet, interspersed to
identify various prices for books.
In "Other
Bantams," you will find the Bantam Pathfinder series. The FB-series books were 50¢
biographies. "A-" and "AC" were special series books.
The Most Confusing Publisher
Some publishers are easier for me to
update than others. Bantam is an absolute nightmare. For the most part,
Bantams were printed in book number sequence, like others. But Bantam put
lettered prefixes on the majority of their volumes. At first, they only
indicated pricing, just like Gold Medal and Signet. Later, they included
literary genres, designated by a second letter, such as "B" for biography
or "L" for romance.
So, imagine putting NUMBERS in
order from a computerized list when they have prefixes such as A, C, D, E,
EJ, EL, F, FB, FP, H, HC, HL, HP, HR, HT, HZ, J, JP, N, NL, NP, NY, P, PE,
PH, Q, R, S, SC, SP, SU, T, TE, W, X, Y, YE & YZ. PLUS, there was a later
5-digit no-prefix sequence of books that had to be kept separate from the
original no-prefix book numbers.
Normally, I would consider a duplicated
book number a "paperback oddity," but it happened so many times at Bantam
that it was actually common. And so, you will see different titles
and covers for Q4203 and a QY4203. Also, S2643, Q2643 and F2643; A2284 and
T2284. The list goes on and on.
The Bantam database was updated in May, 2011
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