Bantam

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