Oudemans’ Classic Resurfaces
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 1st, 2007
You can go online today and find a copy of A.C. Oudemans’ The Great Sea-Serpent for $3705 US. The book is very rare, having been published first in 1892, by E. J. Brill in Leiden and by Luzac & Co. in London.
Soon, a much more reasonably-priced edition will be available.
The reprinting of the classic cryptozoological text, The Great Sea Serpent by Antoon C. Oudemans, has been in the works for months, with a new introduction by Loren Coleman. It will be published late in February, with an official publication date of March 1, 2007. This book is being produced as a high-quality paperbound volume by Cosimo Classics as part of the “Loren Coleman presents” series. The ISBN is 1602060126.
The book is the first of several classic books on cryptozoology, which will be forthcoming for 2007 and 2008. The initial book in the “Loren Coleman presents” series was Mark A. Hall’s Thunderbirds: America’s Living Legends of Giant Birds (2004).
After several years of obtaining original antique books and working on the classic reprints, Cosimo will realize the appearance of several volumes being published periodically during the next few months. Natural history buffs, students of cryptozoology and science historians, as well as librarians, are bound to be happy to have these unique hard-to-find volumes back in print.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
’bout time! I’ve been looking for a copy of this for decades with no luck (well, some luck, I have a copy of his booklet on Loch Ness).
Keep the good stuff coming!
Great idea! There are many books that need to be made available again.
Good going, Loren! Any idea on a projected price range for the new edition?
I have been an Oudemans fan since I first found the book–which I first saw in Sanderson’s library, BTW. I knew of his work AFTER I saw Heuvelmans’ book and I was rather surprised because I already disagreed with the basic theory: however, Oudemans was a very intelligent, very determined and very persuasive writer despite the fact that he was not writing in his native language. Like Heuvelmans, I feel like I can get inside the man’s head and see why he said certain things a certain way, and Oudemans made several statements that were extremely shrewd deductions and most other writers on the subject missed.
Always wonderful to see the Classics return.
Ah, Oudemans… As he was a Dutch person (I live in the Netherlands) and onetime director of a famous Dutch zoo and at one time even living in the same city as I did, I was able to investigate a bit. Just some weeks ago I was shown a unique manuscript of Oudemans in his own hand writing on a zoological topic, it still sported his old telephone number and signature, apart from his hand writing – I will check its title again – this mss has not been published at all, anywhere.
Apart from his standard and indeed hard to find classic (I knew of a collector who had two copies), I also have his pamphlet entitled “The Loch Ness Monster”, Brill, 1934 which is richly illustrated, making it perhaps one of the earliest publications on the Loch Ness mystery. That same publisher also published in 1953 the intriguing pamphlet “De Grote Zeeslang”(“the big Sea Serpent”) by B.H. Stricker.
Kudos to you Loren and Cosimo for bringing these classics back. They’re priceless.
BTW, I also had a copy of the Loch Ness Monster pamphlet, which I donated to the SITU. THAT copy probably has gone missing as well!