Photoplay Edition - Guidebooks

Guidebooks

Photoplay Edition (SISU, 1975), by the noted science fiction and fantasy author Emil Petaja, was the first book on the subject. Petaja based the book on his collection of photoplays, which at the time of publication numbered more than eight hundred. Petaja had owned many rare examples, including a few autographed by film stars.

Petaja's Photoplay Edition is composed of a checklist of books, with each entry detailing the book's movie title (which sometimes differed from the title of the novel), as well as its author, publisher, date of release, the motion picture company which produced the film, its leading actors, and the number of illustrations included within the book. Illustrating Petaja's guide are dozens of dust jackets and scene stills, each of which graced the original editions. Petaja also offers a short prologue, a longer history of photoplay books, and an anecdotal chapter telling the story of the author's involvement in collecting these books.

Photoplay Edition has been surpassed by later, more comprehensive, illustrated guides. These include Arnie Davis' Photoplay Editions and Other Movie Tie-In Books (Mainely Books, 2002), and Rick Miller's Photoplay Editions: A Collector's Guide (McFarland, 2002). Each list more than the 800 examples found in Petaja's pioneering guide. Thomas Mann's Horror and Mystery Photoplay Editions and Magazine Fictionizations (McFarland, 2004) examines genre editions.