Shasta Publishers

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Shasta Publishers was a small Chicago-area science fiction and fantasy press founded in 1947 by Erle M. Korshak, T. E. Dikty, and Mark Reinsberg. The name, suggested by Reinsberg, recalled a summer job near Mount Shasta. The founders, as fans and collectors, wanted a complete list of SF and fantasy works published to date. In 1940 they began asking readers of pulp magazines for help and started a card file and manuscript, but the project was set aside when Dikty went to war. After World War II the materials disappeared, so they had to restart. Korshak and Dikty ran a bookstore in 1946, and Korshak met Everett F. Bleiler, who took over the project. The Checklist of Fantastic Literature was published in 1948 under the Shasta imprint.

Shasta initially planned to publish reference books, but it ended up releasing fiction by authors such as John W. Campbell Jr., L. Ron Hubbard, Robert A. Heinlein, and A. E. van Vogt. The press ceased publishing in 1957 after producing 19 titles under the Shasta name. Robert Weinberg notes that Shasta used elaborate multicolor jackets and produced some of the finest small-press jackets, including The Wheels of If, Slaves of Sleep, and Kinsmen of the Dragon, all with art by Hannes Bok.