Black Lizard Press.

The Black Lizard imprint first appeared in 1980 when Don Ellis printed Barry Gifford's novel PORT TROPIQUE. Ellis began to focus on more commercial ventures and Gifford drifted away, eventually ending up in France. In 1983 Gifford found a dozen out-of-print novels in a Parisian bookstore by a forgotten American crime novelist, Jim Thompson. The Black Lizard imprint was resurrected to reprint the Thompson books and serve the gritty criminal ethos of fifties pulp, including the tawdry stylized covers. Eighty-two titles were published, including two anthologies edited by Gifford. There were new works by such authors as Murray Sinclair, and reprints of Thompson, David Goodis, James M. Cain, Gertrude Stein, and Charles Willeford. In 1990 Don Ellis sold Black Lizard to Vintage Books.