Forgotten Lore Bookshop

Forgotten Lore Bookshop A small used bookshop specializing in rare and antiquarian volumes, first editions, & signed books.

Member of the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association.

I've restocked the decorative Grimm inventory. Open today until 5:30.
08/15/2026

I've restocked the decorative Grimm inventory. Open today until 5:30.

Today is Alfred Hitchcock's 127th birthday. Seems like a good enough occasion to pay tribute to one of his very early fi...
08/13/2026

Today is Alfred Hitchcock's 127th birthday. Seems like a good enough occasion to pay tribute to one of his very early films - and to show you my copies of the source material.

Here's an exceptional copy of the gift edition of Stephen King's Lisey's Story. [2006] hardcover with colorful slipcase....
08/12/2026

Here's an exceptional copy of the gift edition of Stephen King's Lisey's Story. [2006] hardcover with colorful slipcase. These are uncommon, particularly in fantastic condition with slipcase.

$135.

Book of the Week:Children of the Atom. Wilmar H. Shiras. [1959] Science Fiction Book Club; good or better jacketed vinta...
08/10/2026

Book of the Week:

Children of the Atom. Wilmar H. Shiras. [1959] Science Fiction Book Club; good or better jacketed vintage hardcover.

This is a cool vintage copy of one of the highly-regarded twentieth century science fiction works. The narrative starts with this premise: It's 1972 - United States of America. The reader learns that, several years previously, a dozen or more employees at an atomic facility came down with radiation sickness after an accident at the facility. These workers eventually died, but not before having children. Now there are about thirty mutant kids scattered about the country, all very special kids who, as they grow into young adults, will realize the difficulty of living in the real world.

Maybe it's time to gather those kids in one place?

$50.

Today is International Cat Day, which reminded me of this very cool vintage Vonnegut I recently shelved. It's CAT'S CRAD...
08/08/2026

Today is International Cat Day, which reminded me of this very cool vintage Vonnegut I recently shelved. It's CAT'S CRADLE [1965] first mmpb softcover printing. Crisp and unmarked with just light handling wear, toning.

$75. BUT... I recently reworked my Best Coupon mailer promo for the rest of summer (SPKY SZN is almost here y'all). You don't need to have a printed copy of the ad; just mention it.

Open today until 5:30.

Of all the film adaptations in this stack, what's your favorite movie?
08/07/2026

Of all the film adaptations in this stack, what's your favorite movie?

This is a 1936 broadside printed by FF Hansell & Bro., a New Orleans book firm that was located on Carondelet Street. Ha...
08/06/2026

This is a 1936 broadside printed by FF Hansell & Bro., a New Orleans book firm that was located on Carondelet Street. Hansell & Bro. sold books and stationery in the Crescent city from the mid nineteenth century until the late twentieth century.

It's a great example of "ephemera," which is a term booksellers and collectors use to define a paper item that wasn't really meant to survive beyond its original use but did in fact survive. Ephemera can be very valuable, particularly if it has wide appeal, because there often isn't much to go around.

So this poster or flyer is from a well-known New Orleans landmark, and it appears there aren't many other surviving copies - if any. And it advertises then-unknown and now very known titans: Gone with the Wind, Jamaica Inn, Eyeless in Gaza, and The American Language.

It's 8.5 by 14 inches with light toning and wear (the folds). It makes a really nice decorative piece, which is why I've hung it in Forgotten Lore.

Everything I post on social media is for sale. I quite like this broadside. The colors, the size, the contents, the vibe. Very cool.

So it's for sale. The price? I have no idea. I suppose a buyer and I would just have to come to an agreement.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Open today through Saturday, 10:30 until 5:30.

I've recently added to the Forgotten Lore Dune stack. It's a first printing of Brian Herbert's Dreamer of Dune. [2003] v...
08/05/2026

I've recently added to the Forgotten Lore Dune stack. It's a first printing of Brian Herbert's Dreamer of Dune. [2003] very good jacketed hardcover. This is a substantial biography of his father Frank Herbert, creator of Dune.

There are only five jacketed first printings listed on the American Book Exchange, so this might be a fantastic opportunity to add to *your* Dune stack.

$75 (but on sale for $63.75 through August).

Open today until 5:30.

The International Collectors Library is an imprint that published traditional and modern classics from the 1940’s throug...
08/04/2026

The International Collectors Library is an imprint that published traditional and modern classics from the 1940’s through the mid-1980’s. It was a book club designed to provide folks with decoratively appealing books at very affordable prices. With traditional-looking binding styles, gold embellishments, and ribbon markers – these were good-looking volumes.

But because the central idea was affordability, the books were made with low-quality materials. They were bound in thin textured paper designed to look like leather, and the texts were printed on acidic paper. Because the books were bound flimsily they chipped very easily at the spine extremes, and the unbound corners bumped easily as well. And if you stored these books in a dry climate? They’d just disintegrate and turn to dust.

So – now what? There are still a million of these books in collections and on the secondary market. But because ICL books were ephemeral—not really intended to last more than a generation—they are mostly in rough condition and not worth very much.

But there are, of course, some exceptions, some that survived intact. Some even thrived in book-friendly spaces. And they *are* pretty. There are a few titles whose retail values are well over a hundred dollars. That is **if** they’ve stood the test of time. For example, I’ve sold an ICL Bell Jar for $250. It was flawless.

So, in the end, ICL books are pretty – and they are collectable. But only if they slugged through the twentieth century in very loving homes.

Take this one, for example. It’s the Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, printed about 1970. It’s flawless, having made it this far in a conscientious book environment.

So I’ll take care of it for now, until we find it a loving forever home.

$40.

Today is Percy Shelley's 234th birthday. Though he was an able poet in his own right (definitely one of the Big Six of R...
08/04/2026

Today is Percy Shelley's 234th birthday. Though he was an able poet in his own right (definitely one of the Big Six of Romantic Poetry), maybe he's best known for lending his surname to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin.

This is one of those marriages of two superstars where we might wonder who benefited whom. Percy was a prolific poet, but he died in 1822, just about four years after Frankenstein was first published. Though the first edition was printed anonymously, the book was dedicated to Percy Shelley. Did Percy Shelley's brief but dynamic poetry career bolster Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, keeping it afloat until it could survive on its own? Or did Frankenstein's literary power drag the now-dead Percy's poetic canon into the late Victorian Age and then the twentieth century? Neither?

One interesting fact: It's the 1831 third edition of Frankenstein that we use now as the standard edition. Percy'd been dead for nearly a decade, and Mary made substantial changes relative to the earlier editions.

It's the timeless question of the Beyoncé chicken or the Jay-Z egg.

Open today 10:30 until 5:30.

Address

628 S Friendswood Drive
Friendswood, TX
77573

Opening Hours

Tuesday 10:30am - 5:30pm
Wednesday 10:30am - 5:30pm
Thursday 10:30am - 5:30pm
Friday 10:30am - 5:30pm
Saturday 10:30am - 5:30pm

Telephone

+12819938902

Website

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