The Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series Is a Fantasy Genre History Lesson

Paperback publisher Ballantine Books played a pivotal role in the development and popularization of the fantasy genre. Its Ballantine Adult Fantasy Series of 83 old and new fantasy titles published between 1965 and 1974 introduced many mainstream readers to the genre and set the stage for the genre's rapid growth over the past 50 years.

This video is an overview of the paperback book series and its impact. In future videos, I'll explore in more depth individual authors and books included in the series. Note also that I've defined the book series broadly to include titles that are closely associated with the series even though, officially, they weren't part of it.

0:01 Fantasy's mid-century stigma
2:10 Ballantine's opportunity
5:24 Overview of the books
6:14 Tolkien books
7:53 Authors who influenced Tolkien
9:15 Tolkien's contemporaries
10:38 Early fantasy precursors
12:15 Exotic cultures & adventures
16:11 Weird & uncanny fiction
17:48 New authors and works
19:20 Anthologies
21:05 What happened to BAFS?
22:15 Aftermath
24:24 Ballantine's impact
26:04 Collectability

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