Lost Race Romances: Where to find them

As alluded to in previous posts, the titles by H. Rider Haggard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Abraham Merritt can be easily found in most bookstores and libraries.  They are an excellent introduction to the genre.  However, if you wish to delve a little deeper, some more effort is required.  First of all, one should bookmark Jessica Amanda Salmonsen's Lost Race Checklist on her Violet Books website: as stated in a previous post, this is the comprehensive listing of Lost Race titles (http://www.violetbooks.com/lostrace-check-guide.html).  Kessinger Publications has reprinted many Lost Race titles in sturdy and easily recognizable (if unattractive) paperbook form (http://www.kessinger.net/); Arno Press likewise had a Lost Race and Adult Fantasy series of reprints in the 1970s (no website is available for Arno - I'm not sure if it's still in operation).  Otherwise, in order to obtain a desired title, it's going to be necessary to buy a used copy on-line.  There are a few places where one can do that.

The obvious places to start are amazon.com and ebay.  However, if you can't find what you're looking for there, you can also use biblio.com (www.biblio.com/) - my personal favorite which I highly recommend.  There is also the excellent L.W. Currey, Inc. (http://www.lwcurrey.com/ - look under "Themes and Subgenres"), www.tomfolio.com/, http://www.thompsonrarebooks.com/, http://www.ilab.org/ - to name just a few options.  If you're willing to print entire novels from your computer, you can use www.books.google.com/, http://www.archive.org/index.php, www.gutenberg.net/.  This list of sources is by no means exhaustive, and if you simply Google the title you're looking for, you can usually find all the options for buying or downloading that are out there.

Also, do not forget about using interlibrary loan.  If you are daunted at the prospect of shelling out 50+ dollars for a book whose quality you don't know, you may want to ask your local library to order it for you (many titles are available only on microfilm - if, like me, you are a true zealot, you can print them out two pages at a time and then have them bound at a local copy shop).  Additionally, some of the descriptions in Violet Books' Lost Race Checklist can be misleading or poorly informed, so you might also want to research (if possible) a title before purchasing it.  A good example of this is the blurb for Louise Gerard's The Golden Centipede: "African romance with hidden city & prehistoric survival with Ayesha-like White Queen".  That sounds pretty cool, so naturally I bought the book when I found a twenty dollar copy on amazon - but in reality, it was only a tedious jungle-crime adventure which climaxed in the ruins of a Zimbabwe-like ancient city with a dragon/dinosaur statue. 

So - happy shopping!  If anyone reads this and has a particular Lost Race romance that they read and would like to recommend, please do so.