FFB: THE MYSTERY COMPANION and THE ARMCHAIR COMPANION edited by A. L. Furman (Gold Label Books, 1943 and 1944) and their sequels.

A. L. or Abraham Loew (or Louis) Furman, is apparently a man largely lost to time...William Contento's Index to SF Anthologies and Collections notes that he was "Manager of a publishing firm (Amour Press); lawyer; editor of juvenile [and adult -TM] books and anthologies"; his years are give as 1902-1972.  Ray Betzner on Facebook yesterday brought A. L. Furman back to mind for the first time in years; I remembered him for his YA anthologies mostly published around the turn of the 1960s with titles  (originally) given as Teen-Age ____ Stories or Young Readers' _____ Stories...which were notable, when I was sampling them as a reader of ten or twelve years old, for the utter mediocrity, at best, of nearly all the stories included (I think I missed Teen-Age Party Time Stories at that time, but can only imagine what camp value it currently has, for that matter instantly had). A(lice). M. Lightner was one of the better and more frequent contributors to his juvenile sf anthologies; no one as notable was included in his youngster's horror anthologies; Robert Arthur did a much better job, as did most other YA editors. But Betzner cited the first of his Mystery Companion annual series in his query for details about Furman, and this four-volume annual series looks far more promising, as one of the earlier US bugcrusher mystery/suspense/horror anthologies drawing most if not all its contents from the slick and pulp magazines. As there are (as far as I can find online) no full indices for any of the Mystery or the slightly later duo of Armchair Companions (there isn't even a complete contents of the Second Armchair Companion that I've found in searches over the last dozen hours or so), I figured I'd draw together what I could find. The earlier volumes of the series were published by Gold Seal Books, which as far as I can tell became Lantern Press in 1946, his primary publisher for the many later young readers' books as well (and their softcover line Lantern Pocket Books would reprint a number of those in paperback in the latter '60s and '70s; ISFDB currently mistakes the LPB line for Pocket Books reprints, as did I at first before a note by Steven Rowe--though that by the 1970s, YA line Archway/Pocket Books was the publisher of the Furman juvenile anthologies might have driven some confusion), as well as of the fourth Mystery and second Armchair volumes.

Index information brought together from WorldCat, The FictionMags Index and JG Mallard.

438 pages ; 21 cm New York : Gold Label Books, ©1943.

Active Duty · Richard Sale · ss  The Blue Book Magazine [v77 #1, May 1943]
The Body in the Ostrich Cage [Jimmie Lavender] · Vincent Starrett · ss  Mystery [v9 #5, May 1934]
The Sword of God  Hal Hode  
The Greek, Poropulos · Edgar Wallace · ss The Weekly Tale-Teller [#81, November 19, 1910]
Bond of Reunion  Carl Carmer  Saturday Review
Believe It or Die · Philip Ketchum · nv The Blue Book Magazine [v76 #5, March 1943]
Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper · Robert Bloch · ss Weird Tales [v36 #12, July 1943]
The Street of the Little Candles  James Francis Cooke
The Blackout Murder · Allan Vaughan Elston · ss Short Stories [v182 #4, #892, February 25th, 1943]
“You’re Killing Me!” · "Dale Clark"  (Ronal Kayser) · nv Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine [v166 #2, June 1943]
If the Dead Could Talk · Cornell Woolrich · ss Black Mask [v25 #10, February 1943] 
America’s Most Famous Murder · George L. Porter · ar (Lincoln assassination) Star Magazine [v2 #3, July 1931]
The Judge Finds the Body "Geoffrey Homes" (Daniel Manwaring) Maclean's
The Phantom Slayer · Fritz Leiber, Jr. · ss Weird Tales [v36 #3, January 1942
Tears of the Virgin Thomas Grant Springer
Me and His Majesty and Trouble  Joseph C. Stacy (hu)
Death in a Gray Mist · Frank Owen · ss  Weird Tales [v37 #1, September 1943]
A Pair of Gloves Carl Carmer
The Man in the Cask · Vincent Starrett · nv Real Detective Tales and Mystery Stories [v11 #2, June/July 1927]

The Mystery Companion: abridged paperback (missing five items from the original selection)  Popular Library (Canada) 1943; 192 pp.

Active Duty · Richard Sale · ss  The Blue Book Magazine [v77 #1, May 1943]
The Body in the Ostrich Cage [Jimmie Lavender] · Vincent Starrett · ss  Mystery [v9 #5, May 1934]
The Sword of God  Hal Hode  
The Greek, Poropulos · Edgar Wallace · ss The Weekly Tale-Teller [#81, November 19, 1910]
Bond of Reunion  Carl Carmer  Saturday Review
Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper · Robert Bloch · ss Weird Tales [v36 #12, July 1943]
The Street of the Little Candles  James Francis Cooke
The Blackout Murder · Allan Vaughan Elston · ss Short Stories [v182 #4, #892, February 25th, 1943]
“You’re Killing Me!” · "Dale Clark"  (Ronal Kayser) · nv Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine [v166 #2, June 1943]
If the Dead Could Talk · Cornell Woolrich · ss Black Mask [v25 #10, February 1943] 
The Judge Finds the Body "Geoffrey Homes" (Daniel Manwaring) Maclean's
The Phantom Slayer · Fritz Leiber, Jr. · ss Weird Tales [v36 #3, January 1942
Tears of the Virgin Thomas Grant Springer
Me and His Majesty and Trouble  Joseph C. Stacy (hu)
Death in a Gray Mist · Frank Owen · ss  Weird Tales [v37 #1, September 1943]

Second Mystery Companion (Gold Label Books 1944)  410pp

The bedchamber mystery / C.S. Forester --
Delayed verdict / Allan Vaughan Elston --
The question mark / Margery Allingham --
Ghosts don't make no noise / Richard Sale --
Post-mortem / Cornell Woolrich --
The chopsticks of Confucius / Vincent Starrett --
The master of the murder castle / John Bartlow Martin --
The riddle of the whirling lights / Stuart Palmer --
Death by accident / Francis Cockrell --
The man who amazed fish / Frank Owen --
There are more to die / Philip Ketchum --
Radio patrol / Leslie T. White --
Scoundrels by night / Richard Kent --
The fluted arrow / William Byron Mowery --
Steve takes a hand / Hugh B. Cave --
Connoisseur of murder / Joseph C. Stacey --
Biographies. 

Third Mystery Companion (Gold Label Books 1945) 395pp

The calling card of Mr. Engle / Louis Paul --
The unloaded gun / Allan Vaughan Elston --
The experts / Mindret Lord --
The Kiskadee bird / Elisabeth Sanxay Holding --
Face in the dark / High Pentecost --
Wet Saturday / John Collier --
One chance in a million / Will Payne --
Death had a pencil / Richard Sale --
The phantom of the Subway / Cornell Woolrich --
The mark of Maat / Sax Rohmer --
The third ladder / Philip Ketchum --
Hangin' crazy Benny / Leslie White --
The old man in the window / Margery Allingham --
The long still streets of evening / Frank Owen --
Crystal evidence / Donald Barr Chidsey --
The simple art of murder / Raymond Chandler --
The riddle of the blueblood murders / Stuart Palmer --
Ways that are dark / Thomas Grant Springer --
The case on Turkey Point / Howard Bloomfield --
The witness / William Brandon --
Murder at the opera / Vincent Starrett --
Biographies. 

Fourth Mystery Companion  (Lantern Press 1946) 396 pp

White carnations / Q. Patrick --
The painted nail / George Harmon Coxe --
Traitors trail / Hugh Pentecost --
The unbelievable baroness / Elizabeth Sanxay Holding --
A triumph in theory / Louis Paul --
The tenth clue / Dashiell Hammett --
The saint sits in / Leslie Charteris --
The white cat / Richard Kent --
The level crossing / Freeman Wills Crofts --
The case of the Calico dog / Mignon Eberhart --
Prelude to murder / Walter C. Brown --
Fog over Hong Kong / Vincent Starrett --
The adventure of the bearded lady / Ellery Queen --
Twice-trod path / William Irish --
Tomorrow we die / Frank Owen --
The important point / William MacHarg --
The secret of the ruins / Sax Rohmer --
Halloween assassin / Frederick Skerry --
Library book / Cornell Woolrich

The Armchair Companions:

The Armchair Companion (Gold Label Books, 1944)  367pp Set the wild echoes flying / by James Street -- A man's mother / by Gladys H. Carroll -- Afternoon of a faun / by Vincent Starrett -- The red sash / by Ketti Frings -- The good neighbors / by Conrad Richter -- The Empire City angel / by Eustace Cockrell -- Remember this day / by Arch Whitehouse -- Wild Bill Hiccup / by Cornell Woolrich -- The night gown / by Camilla Holland -- Sharp work at the Duck and Egg / by F.L. Smith -- Lady square / by Richard English -- The street of faces / by Frank Owen -- Flight of the wawkus bird / by Richard Sale -- Penthouse for Nellie / by Florence B. Alexander -- A big day for Mr. Vane / by Edward Stevenson -- Red wine / by T.G. Springer -- The deceiving husband / by Margaret A. Barnes -- The last charge / by Edison Marshall -- Camp follower / by Robert Carson -- A kiss for Mr. Lincoln / by Louise K. Mabie -- Biographies. Second Armchair Companion (Lantern Press 1946) 351pp Contributing authors include Beryl Markham, James Street, Richard Wright, Libbie Block, R.H. Newman Stories include: "The Splendid Outcast" by Beryl Markham, "One Day Late" by Dorothy Canfield,  "Saturday at Ten" by Vincent Starrett

Spoken Word Mythology and Folklore Recordings

I still have the open-reel tape on which I dubbed this LP, borrowed from the Enfield Public Library, ca. 1974. We didn't yet have a cassette deck in the then-current stereo system.

I genuinely loved the mythology and folklore (as well as fiction/poetry-reading) spoken word (and sometimes music) albums I could find when very young, from such labels mentioned in the not-great but legible OCR'd NY Times article at the link. More of these should be available still than are...from such labels as Caedmon, Spoken Arts, CMS, Folkways, Miller-Brody Productions (which did the Newbery Award Records), and others cited. And certainly read the books by Harold Courlander and others as I found them...this NYT article being from 1977 so that cheerful references to "the Mysterious East" were still "A-OK"...

ARCHIVES | 1977

Spinning Around the World On Recorded Folk Tales

By PAUL KRESHJULY 17, 1977

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Folk tales have apparently existed ever since there were people to tell them to each other—”tales or stories,” as the dictionary puts it, “handed down by word of mouth, by the common people.” All literature has its roots in these oral origins, and it is surprising in how many guises and in different cultures the same basic situations turn up. Talking tortoises and frogs abound on every continent; Cinderella surfaces in Africa as Umusha Mwaice; the heron and crab who run their race along a Melanesian shore are surely distant relatives of Aesop's hare and tortoise. The foolish folk in the South American story who believe that the moon has drowned in local lake and must be fished out have their counterparts in Ireland's Hudden and Dudden, who leap into Brown Lake to retrieve the reflections of their lost sheep and cattle. The stock of plots is limited. Bruno Bettelheim has said that such stories are best conveyed to children in live readings, or better still recounted spontaneously by parents or patient uncles in their own words. That is not always possible, so the hundreds of, recordings available on tapes and disks would seem to be the next best thing, and the performances are likely to be a good deal more absorbing. Beginning our recorded journey close to home with America's own tall tales, we meet up with Paul Bunyan and his Southern counterpart Tony Beaver spinning hyperbolic yarns of their prodigious feats. The reader is Ennis Rees, the drawl echt Southern (The Song of Paul Bunyan and Tony Beaver, Spoken Arts SA 954). The late Ed Begley is a droll delight as he speaks gruffly and straightfacedly of the weeping Squonk, the enormous Moskittos that buzzed around Bunyan's lumber camp and the square eggs laid by the Gillygaloo bird, in two volumes of tall‐tale animal stories as set down by Adrien Stoutenberg (American Tall‐Tale Animal, Vol. 1 & 2, Caedmon TC 1317/8, cassette CDL 5137/8). J. Frank Dobie's tales of the Southwest get bucolic readings from their author (Southwestern Folk Tales, Spoken Arts SA 722, cassettes SAC 6127/8). Diane Wolkstein, in her level, honest, earnest way, reads California tales, some with Spanish roots, in prose supplied by Monica Sharon (Spoken Arts SA 1107, cassettes SAC Really native American folklore, of course, belongs to American Indians. They are well represented through bird tales recounted around their hogan fires by the Navajos, in legends that transform the sun into a youth at dawn and crimson swan at dusk, in numerous anecdotes about the cleverness of the coyote. Here Caedmon favors real Indian performers‐actor Arthur Junaluska, himself a full‐blooded Cherokee, reading Clah Chee's Navajo Bird Tales (TC 1375, cassette CDL 51375); Swift Eagle, a Pueblo Indian chief, telling the legends of Kuo‐Haya and other stories of his people in The Pueblo Indians (TC 1451, cassette CDL 51327); Jay Silverheels, another Indian actor, dealing authentically with The Fire Plume and other legends of the American Indians (TC 1451, cassette CDL 51451). • On Folkways, an Indian Princess named Nowedonah, born on a Shinnecock Indian reservation in Southampton, Long Island, reads a legend about the island in the days when its name was Paumanok, but the voice is nasal and dubbed‐in piano music doesn't help (The Enchanted Spring, Folkways FC 7753). Spoken Arts fares better with Diane Wolkstein, in tales that deal with an Indian boy's efforts to get hold of a hunting dog, Now the coyote learned his crying song and how he lost out to the rooster as official sunrise‐greeter in Tales of the Hopi Indians from Harold Courlander's collection (SA 1106, cassettes SAC 6121/2).

More at this link...

Friday's "Forgotten" Books and More: the links to the reviews: 3 May 2019

This week's books and more, unfairly (or sometimes fairly) neglected, or simply those the reviewers below think you might find of some interest (or, infrequently, you should be warned away from); certainly, most weeks we have a few not at all forgotten titles...if I've missed your review or someone else's, please let me know in comments. And a happy birthday to Ben Boulden!

Patricia Abbott: Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

Les Blatt: The Case of the Haven Hotel by Christopher Bush

Joachim Boaz: The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin

John Boston: Amazing: Fact and Science Fiction Stories, March 1962, edited by Cele Goldsmith Lalli

Ben Boulden: The Dragon Man by Gary Disher; Teklords by Ron Goulart and William Shatner

Brian Busby: Gambling with Fire by "David Montrose" (Charles Ross Graham)

Larry Clow: Forfeit by Dick Francis

Martin Edwards: Shock! aka The Black Door by Virgil Markham

Peter Enfantino: Atlas (proto-Marvel) Horror Comics, April 1952

Barry Ergang: Drowned Hopes by Donald Westlake

Will Errickson: Post Mortem edited by Paul F. Olsen and David B. Silva 

José Ignacio Escribano: The Cambridge Companion to Crime

Fiction edited by Martin Priestman 

Curtis Evans: The Running of Beasts by Bill Pronzini and Barry N.Malzberg

James T. Farrell: The Set-Up and The Wild Party by Joseph Moncure March

Olman Feelyus: The Babysitter by Andrew Coburn

Paul Fraser: Astounding Science-Fiction, October 1943, edited by John W. Campbell, Jr.

Charles Gramlisch: Spirit Vessels by Dennis Formento

John Grant: These Are the Names by Tommy Weiringa (translation by Sam Garrett); The Blind Man of Seville by Robert Wilson

Aubrey Hamilton: Through the Wall by Patricia Wentworth

Ryan Harvey: The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard

Rich Horton: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith; "A Meeting with Medusa" by Arthur C. Clarke (Playboy, December 1971, edited by Hugh Hefner); Endless Honeymoon by Don Webb; stories by Larry Niven; stories by Alexander Jablokov; Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett; Reality Forbidden by Philip E. High; Contraband from Otherspace by A. Bertram Chandler

Jerry House: The Green Odyssey by Philip José 
Farmer; the inane and troubling 1921 New York  Evening Post comic strip "Our Own Ku Klux Klan" by "Al Zere" (Albert Alblitzer)

Kate Jackson: The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith; The April Robin Murders by "Craig Rice" (Georgiana Craig) and "Ed McBain" (Evan Hunter, ne Salvatore Lombino) 

Tracy K: The Tin Flute (originally Bonheur d'occasion) by Gabrielle

Roy (translation by Alan Brown); Follow Her Home by Steph Cha

Colman Keane: Hard Bite by "Anonymous-9" (Elaine Ash)

George Kelley: The Mysterious Press Anniversary Anthology edited by the Editors of Mysterious Press (Sarah Ann Freed, William Malloy and Otto Penzler, perhaps)

Joe Kenney: Killer at Large by "Don Bannon" (Manning Lee Stokes?)

Rob Kitchin: Design for Dying by Renee Patrick

B.V. Lawson: Through a Glass, Darkly by Helen McCloy

Evan Lewis: Zorro and the Jaguar Warriors by Jerome Preisler

Steve Lewis: "The Land of Lost Content" by Chad Oliver (Super Science Stories, November 1950, edited by Ejler Jakobsson); "The Parker Shotgun" by Sue Grafton (Mean Streets, edited by Robert Randisi, Mysterious Press 1986); "Waiting for the Olympians" by Frederik Pohl (Asimov's Science Fiction, August 1988, edited by Gardner Dozois); "One, Two, Three" by "Paul Cain" (Peter Ruric),Black Mask, May 1933, edited by Joseph T. Shaw; Amazing Fantasy, November 2004, edited by Joe Quesada, written by Fiona Avery; "You'll Always Remember Me" by Steve Fisher (Black Mask, March 1938, edited by Fanny Ellsworth)

Francis M. Nevins: the novels of David Goodis

John F. Norris: Nine Days' Panic by Reginald Davis

John O'Neill: On Wings of Song by Thomas M. Disch

   (Mason on On Wings of Song)

Matt Paust: Death in the Old Country by Eric Wright

Mildred Perkins: The Jedi Handbook by Stephen Massicotte

James Reasoner: Madball by Fredric Brown

Richard Robinson: Look to the Lady by Margery Allingham

Gerard Saylor: The Secret History of Twin Peaks by Mark Frost

Jack Seabrook and Peter Enfantino: DC War Comics November 1974

Stephen H Silver: A. E. Van Vogt; Locus magazine, edited by Charles Brown et al.

Victoria Silverwolf: Worlds of Tomorrow, May 1964, edited by Frederik Pohl

Kerrie Smith: The Marriage Club by Kate Legge

Dan Stumpf: Two Gentlemen of Lebowski by Adam Bertocci

"TomCat": The Case of the Magic Mirror by Christopher Bush

David Vineyard: "The King Makers" by H. Bedford Jones (Short Stories, 25 April 1932, edited by Roy de S. Horn)