A Home for Hitt

Several readers of my Vintage Sleazecore blog suggested Orrie Hitt deserved his own forum and I agreed. So here it is.

At his prime, Orrie Hitt wrote like a machine from 1953-1963, then started to taper down from 1964-1968, then seemed to vanish, although many titles from the 50s-60s were reprinted under different titles in the 1970s, making some believe they were new and/or ghosted.

Hitt died in 1975 from cancer complications. Many young men who read paperback genre and sex books back then knew Hitt well — he dominated the market with more than 150 titles, selling in the millions (so why did he die destitute?).

His name and work has been fairly obscure the past 25 years or more, best known to paperback collectors and fans of sleazecore, crime noir, and tawdry sex tales.

We here at the Society to Revive Orrie Hitt Like a Shabby Zombie believe it’s high time for a Hitt revival, resurgence, and re-duxe with the recent movement of re-discovering softcore sex and crime noir from the 1950s-60s being so cool, so hip.

3 Responses to “A Home for Hitt”

  1. Don Lee Says:
    December 2, 2009 at 5:34 am

    Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed all the information on Orrie Hitt; he has descended upon me w/ a whole bunch of old classic paperback writers, everybody from Jim Harmon to Gil Brewer to whoever. So many writers. Anyway, please keep bringing forward new information on all these people. You are helping out a lot of people locate books they badly want to find. Guys like Orrie Hitt form the secret core of American Literature, not the Big Icons most people look to. Onward!

    Reply
  2. Don Lee Says:
    December 8, 2009 at 9:35 pm

    I was just wondering if you knew who was in charge of Orrie Hitt’s estate, in case some intrepid publisher was interested in bringing some of his work back into print?

    thanks,
    Don

    Reply
  3. maurice hitt Says:
    December 20, 2010 at 7:16 pm

    Great site.

    Reply

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