REHupa

Here is a 1965 Paperback Library edition of A. Merritt’s Dwellers in the Mirage. The battling warriors with horned helmets presages the big sword and sorcery boom that would begin in 1966 with the first Conan Lancer paperback.

You don’t see this particular edition too often. Paperback Library editions have a tendency to fall apart due to the cheap glue (like Lancer). There are some Gardner Fox historicals from Paperback Library written under pseudonyms that are almost impossible to find from this era.

Dwellers in the Mirage is probably my personal favorite by Merritt. It is a mix of sword and sorcery and lost race with a Lovecraftian beasty thrown in for good measure. It may be the tightest of the Merritt novels. Paperback Library had a 1962 printing with a generic cover and then this edition. You can tell something was brewing out there. Maybe the Frazetta covers for Ace editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs got things started. Avon would reprint Dwellers in 1967 with their artist, Douglas Rosa who was doing the Merritt and Talbot Mundy reprints at the time.  I like the 1965 Paperback Library cover. The artist is unknown.