Note: This is a preview of “Knocking Over the Candy Store”, my 2,000-word article on Harlan Ellison’s first short story collection, The Deadly Streets, originally published in the now-out-of-print Archive edition of that book. To read the full essay, please join my Patreon account at the $5 “It came from the morgue…” level.
On 5 March 1958, editor Donald A. Wollheim of Ace Book wrote to U.S. Army PFC Harlan Ellison in Elizabethtown, Kentucky about the possibility of purchasing his long-delayed novel, Web of the City, from Lion Books, which was selling off its properties and going out of business. While Pyramid Books would have the honor of publishing Ellison’s first novel—as Rumble (1958), much to the author’s chagrin—Wollheim suggested Ellison assemble a 60,000-word collection of juvenile delinquency stories for publisher A.A. Wyn. Within five days, Ellison’s first book of short fiction, The Deadly Streets, had been assembled and shipped off to New York.
Subtitled “a collection of stories about juvenile delinquency,” only eight of the thirteen tales originally earmarked for inclusion made the final table of contents…
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JASON DAVIS
Freelance Writer / Editor