Friday, January 15, 2016

A. A. Wyn and Ace Books

A.A. Wyn (1898-1967) founded Ace Books in 1952, having worked for many years previously in the pulps and the comics under the business name of Ace Magazines.  Generally he was known for paying authors as little as possible. But one author, David McDaniel (1939-1977), found a special way to protest. He wrote for Ace Books some original Man from U.N.C.L.E. novels, based on the television series, including the 8th book in the series, The Monster Wheel (1967). 

What McDaniel did was design the chapter titles so that if you read down just the initial letters from chapter 1 through chapter 16 (ignoring section titles), it reads:  AAWY NISA TIGH TWAD or "A.A. Wyn is a tightwad." And here it is for all posterity to see. Thus is A.A. Wyn immortalized.


1 comment:

  1. THAT FACT is adorably fabulous, Douglas ---> JR of Berkeley

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