The Checklist of Fantastic Literature is a bibliography of English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

, fantasy and weird

Weird fiction

Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction written in the late 19th and early 20th century. It can be said to encompass the ghost story and other tales of the macabre. Weird fiction is distinguished from horror and fantasy in that it predates the niche marketing of genre fiction...

 books compiled and edited by Everett F. Bleiler

Everett F. Bleiler

Everett Franklin Bleiler was an editor, bibliographer, and scholar of science fiction, detective fiction, and fantasy literature. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he co-edited the first "year's best" series of science fiction anthologies, and his Checklist of Fantastic Literature has been called...

 with a preface by Melvin Korshak and a cover by Hannes Bok

Hannes Bok

Hannes Bok, pseudonym for Wayne Francis Woodard , was an American artist and illustrator, as well as an amateur astrologer and writer of fantasy fiction and poetry. He painted nearly 150 covers for various science fiction, fantasy, and detective fiction magazines, as well as contributing hundreds...

.

With a print run of 1,933 copies, it was the first book from Shasta Publishers

Shasta Publishers

Shasta Publishers was a science fiction and fantasy small press specialty publishing house founded in 1947 by Erle Melvin Korshak, T. E. Dikty, and Mark Reinsberg, who were all science fiction fans from the Chicago area...

. The bibliography is nearly complete and lists over 5,000 titles published prior to 1949. The books are listed by author and indexed by title. Willy Ley

Willy Ley

Willy Ley was a German-American science writer and space advocate who helped popularize rocketry and spaceflight in both Germany and the United States. The crater Ley on the far side of the Moon is named in his honor.-Life:...

 described it as "indispensable to librarians, book dealers, and especially antiquarians."

Publication history

• 1948, USA, Shasta Publishers
  Shasta Publishers
  Shasta Publishers was a science fiction and fantasy small press specialty publishing house founded in 1947 by Erle Melvin Korshak, T. E. Dikty, and Mark Reinsberg, who were all science fiction fans from the Chicago area...
  
  , Pub date 1948, Hardback
• 1972, USA, Fax Collectors Editions , Pub date 1972, Hardback
• 1978, USA, Firebell Books , Pub date 1978, Hardback, revised as The Checklist of Science Fiction and Supernatural Fiction