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Holland, Stephen

Entry updated 13 December 2023. Tagged: Author, Comics, Critic.

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(1962-    ) UK bibliographer and critic who has also scripted some Comics, including a 1989 story for The Cursed Land and a 1990 story for Computer Killer. His main work, often under the byline Steve Holland, has been in the almost infinitely perplexing field of post-World War Two UK paperback publishers and authors, and he has done much to clarify the two decades after 1945, a period rife with pseudonymous titles, ephemeral publications, fly-by-night publishers and reticent authors. His bibliographical studies, most of them short but illuminating, include Scion and Dragon Books (1984 chap), Modern Fiction (1984 chap), Curtis Warren and Grant Hughes (1985 chap), John Spencer and Badger Books (1985 chap), Gaywood Press, Compact Books and Hank Janson Publishers (1986 chap), Piccadilly Novels (1986 chap), Digit Books (1986 chap), Brown Watson (1986 chap), R. & L.W. Locker/Harborough/Archer (1987 chap), Viking/WDL/Consul (1987 chap), Hamilton & Panther (1987 chap), The Sexton Blake Library (1988 chap), Paul Renin: A Bibliographical Checklist (1990 chap), The Gramol Group (1990 chap) and The Mike Western Story (1990 chap). The Trials of Hank Janson (1991) and The Fleetway Companion (anth 1992 2vols) were more commodious presentations of this material.

His work as a whole has been summarized in two linked volumes, Vultures of the Void: A History of British Science Fiction, 1946-1956 (dated 1992 but 1993) and British Science Fiction Paperbacks and Magazines, 1949-1956 (1994; rev 1995), both with Philip Harbottle; in the more general The Mushroom Jungle: A History of Postwar Paperback Publishing (1993); and in various studies of the John Spencer and Co Badger Books imprint, culminating with Beyond the Void: The Remarkable History of Badger Books (2023).

Holland has contributed several entries and much research to this encyclopedia. His current researches are frequently posted to his Bear Alley blog [see links below]. [JC]

see also: Sexton Blake Library.

Stephen Holland

born Broomfield, Essex: 13 April 1962

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