When Edison and The Lumière brothers introduced the movies to the world in the latter part of the 19th Century, it was inevitable that some day there would be an image and a person that would cast a spell upon the entire planet through the projection of that magic image on screens everywhere.
For at least a decade Marilyn Monroe seemed to be the reason movies were invented.When she vanished from view so suddenly and perhaps so inevitably, it was no surprise that a great flood of explication and mythologising would pour from the presses of the world. Marilyn has become arguably one of the most written about persons in history, reaching iconic status as the years have gone by, as the medias hunger for her continues nearly 50 years after her death.
Frederic Cabanas’ 1992 book brings together nearly 500 of the books published up to that time, with a further 50 magazines solely on the actress. It’s quite an extensive list and is the only book to focus on the international editions of books as well as the English language ones.Listed alphabetically by author, each book has it’s International Standard Book Number (ISBN) and year of publication. And in some cases you can see a cover picture, which is handy for identifying which countries had different covers.
For collectors like me it was vital for using when compiling ‘wish lists’ of items from other countries back in the days when people would trade items with other fans.With the birth of the Internet it became easier to find books on websites like Abe Books & I found Frederic’s book an enormous help when sourcing international versions of books because of it having the ISBN to use in my search & I found all the books I wanted and was able to fill in gaps in finding many books that were no longer in print.
Even though the book is so old now it is still essential for anyone who is thinking about collecting Marilyn books or anyone wanting to expand on what they have. It’s not that easy to find but sometimes turns up on the second hand book search sites like Abe.com and the Amazon market place.
By Fraser Penney
