By Doug Ellis: The 20th annual Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention is now just over a month away. The convention will take place on September 10-12, 2021 at the Westin Lombard Yorktown Center in Lombard, Illinois.  As usual, we will have auctions on both Friday (September 10) and Saturday (September 11) nights, and this year’s auctions will truly be fantastic. 

The Friday night auction features 200 lots of material from the estate of famed collector Robert Weinberg, while the Saturday night auction begins with 96 lots from the estate of Glenn Lord, literary executor for the Robert E. Howard estate, followed by 5 lots from the estate of author and Arkham House co-founder August Derleth, finishing up with several lots from other consignors.  And additional lots will be added to the Saturday night auction at the convention, to include material consigned there by convention attendees. 

Among the highlights in this year’s auctions are: 

• A fine copy of the October 1933 issue of Weird Tales, featuring the Margaret Brundage’s famous Batgirl cover 

• A beautiful copy of the August 1929 issue of Weird Tales, featuring Robert E. Howard’s “The Shadow Kingdom” – the first sword and sorcery story! 

• A lovely copy of the February 1928 issue of Weird Tales, featuring “The Call of Cthulhu” by H.P. Lovecraft 

• Numerous other issues of Weird Tales, including several Conan issues, many in gorgeous condition (likely publisher file copies) 

• Robert E. Howard’s incredibly scarce first book, “A Gent from Bear Creek”; fewer than 20 copies are known to exist 

• Several letters to Robert E. Howard 

• August Derleth’s rarest book, “Love Letters to Caitlin”, of which fewer than 20 copies exist 

• Clark Ashton Smith’s “Ebony and Crystal” – inscribed and signed by this legendary fantasist to his friend, Robert E. Howard 

• A rare signed letter from Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright to one of Weird Tales’ few female authors, Greye La Spina, from 1925 

• The manuscript for “Divide and Rule” by L. Sprague de Camp, which ran in Unknown 
• A signed copy of “The Horror on the Asteroid” by Edmond Hamilton, the author’s first book 
• Other signed items by H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, Otis Adelbert Kline, Dean Koontz, Max Brand, Fritz Leiber, Zorro author Johnston McCulley, Spider author Norvell Page and many others 
• The first year of the pulp Astounding Stories of Super-Science 

• The only issue of the Amazing Stories Annual from 1927, featuring “The Master Mind of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs 

• Complete runs of the pulps Unknown, Strange Stories and Tales of Magic and Mystery 
• Many rare U.K. and Australian science fiction pulps and books 
• Numerous Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft items 
• Rare items by Clark Ashton Smith, including “The Star Treader and Other Poems,” “Nero and Other Poems” and the manuscript for “The Dragon-Fly” 

• Many early Arkham House books, including Robert E. Howard’s “Skull-Face and Others”, H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Outsider and Others” and “August Derleth: Twenty-Five Years of Writing, 1926-1951” 

• Frank Belknap Long’s rare “A Man from Genoa and Other Poems”, published in 1926 in an edition of less than 300 copies 
• A complete bound set of the legendary fanzine, “The Acolyte” 

And much more! 

The complete auction catalog, along with images, is now available on our website. 

More details will be posted on our Facebook page.  

The website will also soon have details on absentee bidding, for those who can’t make it to the convention. 

But the auctions aren’t our only highlight!  Friday through Sunday, our massive dealer room will be buzzing, bursting with 180 six foot long tables, with roughly 100 dealers from the U.S., Canada and the U.K. displaying pulps, vintage paperbacks, science fiction, fantasy & mystery hardcovers, golden and silver age comics, original illustration art, movie memorabilia and more. There will be loads of SF books, pulps and art available from many dealers familiar to attendees of SF/fantasy cons, such as Greg Ketter/Dream Haven, John Knott, David Aronovitz, Jane Frank/Worlds of Wonder and many others.  

Our art show will feature a great display of art from the pulps Astounding and Black Mask.  As usual, our film programming, curated by Ed Hulse, will run Friday and Saturday, showing movies and serials based on pulp stories.  Our evening programming will include presentations on Edgar Rice Burroughs and Black Mask.  And Sunday morning will see New Pulp Sunday, programming devoted to the vibrant and colorful world of New Pulp organized by Ron Fortier of Airship 27 Productions.  And all attendees will get a copy of our fabulous convention book, put out by Tom Roberts of Black Dog Books. 

We hope you’ll join us for the fun and excitement at this year’s Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention!  For more info, contact Doug Ellis at [email protected].