Lancer Books was a line of paperback books published in the 1960s and 1970s by Irwin Stein. Larry Shaw was an editor at Lancer, which was noted for its fantasy and science fiction, such as Jack Williamson's The Humanoids. Lancer's Conan the Barbarian series marked the first appearance of all Robert E. Howard's stories about his sword and sorcery hero in paperback. Along with true crime and espionage titles, Lancer also published books of social commentary, such as The Angry Black, edited by John Williams, and pop culture, such as The Beatle Book. Some Lancer paperbacks had mauve or green edges. The firm went bankrupt in the mid-1970s, but Stein continued as a book packager into the 1980s.
