New Treasures: The Library of America Publishes Elmore Leonard

New Treasures: The Library of America Publishes Elmore Leonard

Elmore Leonard Four Novels of the 1970s-small Elmore Leonard Four Novels of the 1980s-small

The Library of America has made a fine business of publishing archival quality omnibus editions of the most important novels of the 20th Century. We’ve covered several here recently, including:

A Princess of Mars and Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, edited by Gary K. Wolfe
American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny, edited by Peter Straub

They’ve also published omnibus editions of Kurt Vonnegut, Dashiell Hammett, Philip K. Dick, Ross Macdonald, David Goodis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many others. I received several review copies in the mail from Library of America recently, including one of their Elmore Leonard collections. It’s been years since I’ve read anything by Leonard, but then again, it’s been a long time since I’ve held something as enticing as these collections. If you’re looking to put together an impressive genre library, this is the place to start.

Elmore Leonard: Four Novels of the 1970s was published on August 28, 2014. It contains Fifty-Two Pickup, Swag, Unknown Man, and The Switch; it is 809 pages, priced at $35 in hardcover. Elmore Leonard: Four Novels of the 1980s was published on September 1, 2015. It contains City Primeval, LaBrava, Glitz, and Freaky Deaky; it is 1024 pages, priced at $37.50 in hardcover. There are no digital editions.

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Bob Byrne

If you’ve never read Elmore Leonard, he gets my vote for the best hard boiled-style author of the post hard-boiled era.

A FINE crime writer. If you liked the movie, Get Shorty (and I loved it), the book is even better.

Ken Lizzi

Beautiful! If there is a crime fiction mountain, Leonard’s work stands at the summit. Hail to the king of crime.

Henry Ram

Two things come to mind as I read this.

1.) The second photo of Elmore Leonard, in which he has a sort of Yuri Andropov or General Wojciech Jaruzelski look about him in those dark glasses, is not as flattering as it could be.

2.) The Library of America is an excellent series, but it’s a great shame that Robert E Howard, Harold Lamb, Louis L’Amour and other highly deserving authors have yet to make it in.

Joe H.

Speaking of people I really need to read one of these days. Justified was one of the best things to hit TV in a long, long time.

Joe H.

No, I haven’t ready any of the Raylan books yet — would those be a good place for a Leonard newbie to start?


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