Late in the summer of 1968 the publishing team of Betty and Ian Ballantine recognized that the success of their edition of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit might just be the tip of the proverbial untapped adult fantasy iceberg. The Ballantines were extremely happy over the sales if The Lord of the Rings but were dismayed to learn that many of the younger, less-read enthusiasts believed that this remarkable novel was without precedent and in all likelihood would never be surpassed! This, despite the strong tradition of the earlier pulps, who milked the river of classic fantasy for all it was worth during the 1920’s-1950s.
In an effort to capitalize on the growing demand for this “new” type of fiction, the Ballantines teamed up with Lin Carter, as consultant, to produce a series of books of adult fantasy for adult readers. Through the efforts of the Ballantines many of the more celebrated works of fantasy saw their first mass market publication. Works by Lord Dunsany, H. P. Lovecraft, H. Rider Haggard and William Hope Hodgson all saw print, work that while hardly unknown was not to be found cluttering up the racks at the local drugstore.
I was lucky enough to enjoy the riches of the 1960’s, though not its terrors.I was once one of those young enthusiasts searching for material in the same vein as Professor Tolkien. I was fortunate enough to come across a copy of Fletcher Pratt’s novel The Blue Star. Boldly strung across the top was the catch phrase “in the tradition of J. R. R. Tolkien”. I was hooked! Here was a novel that held many wonders. Set on the high seas and carrying the trappings of the mystical Orient, a tale of thieves and maidens and magical gems. I think I devoured it in one sitting.
Looking farther I discovered that though this edition was a second printing it contained a fly-leaf where one could conceivably order many other similar works. With this tool in hand, I managed to find Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword and William Morris’ The Well at the World’s End, Hyne’s The Lost Continent, and a book edited by Lin Carter, Discoveries in Fantasy.
My vision of what Fantasy was all about was permanently skewed. Then it was I discovered H. P. Lovecraft—with wide-spread and gelid-coated arms. I remember traversing the great cold void to join Randolph Carter’s Dream-Quest. I, too, held the Silver Key and found out what secrets were held in the High House in the Mist.
Ballantine Books at this time upped the Fantasy stakes by releasing and in some cases re-releasing books that they now had created a market for. Peter S. Beagle’s wondrous fantasy The Last Unicorn and a uniform edition of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos—the last replete with very garish covers by John Holmes. The kind of covers that caused my folks to wonder just what kind of crap was their young impressionable son reading? (A view they still wonder about.)
I gathered and read many of the Fantasies that carried the Unicorn head colophon and all held various wonders. Some were a little dated and required a lot of concentration to read, where others carried you off with nary a moment’s hesitation. I heartily recommend hunting up these treasures in second hand shops if only to reassure yourself that Fantasy isn’t always filled with cliche puns about the color of anyone’s panties or tied to a major gaming company.
“… when the series first began I felt a degree of heady euphoria … I could rediscover and reprint anything virtually, because I was the expert and the publisher was simply the enthusiast. So I began to think of Cabell, Dunsany, William Morris, George Macdonald, and my original list of books to reprint was about sixteen … The publishers felt that if they could make the readers understand that this stuff was like The Lord of the Rings that the same readership, all those millions of college kids out there, would buy it. So in direct ratio to how much it was like Tolkien it sold well.”
—Lin Carter (Fantastic V26 #1)
For a complete list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballantine_Adult_Fantasy_series
These covers were particularly effective to me as a high schooler. They actually made me want to READ the books, though I had no prior awareness of them. Wish I still had the poster they released of the combined LOTR covers. The covers for the two-part release of NIGHT LAND were also evocative and effective.