Adventure House

Arthur O. Friel debuted in ADVENTURE in 1919.  With his engrossing tales of the unexplored Amazon jungle, he quickly became one of the pulp's most popular authors, a position he held for many years.  here, reprinted for the first time, are Friel's first ten stories for ADVENTURE.  They follow the experiences of two rubber industry workers, Pedro and Lourenco.  Their journeys into the jungle, one fo the wildest and most inhospitable places on Earth, lead to fantastic, suspenseful—and often violent—adventures, and encounters with bizarre and fascinating people.  These stories are some of Friel's most entertaining work, and some of the best fiction to be found in the adventure pulps.

Also included is an in-depth discussion of Arthur O. Friel, an enigmatic real-life explorer, and the roots of his Amazon stories.

Volume 2 presents the second ten adventures of Friel's Amazon rubber industry workers, Pedro and Lourenco, as they encounter strange characters and perilous situations in the unexplored Amazon jungle. Whether battling headhunters, or being turned into sex slaves by a tribe of wild women, the atmosphere is steamy and the suspense unrelenting. From the great pulp magazine, Adventure (1920-21).

• 240 pages
• 6x9
• John Locke Cover Design
• Reset type edition
• ADVENTURE 10/03/18
• The Cave * Charles Beadle
• ADVENTURE 08/03/19
• The Tree of Life * Charles Beadle
• ADVENTURE 08/18/19
• The White Frog * Charles Beadle
• ADVENTURE 01/18/21
• City of Baal * Charles Beadle
• ADVENTURE 09/03/21
• Buried Gods * Charles Beadle
• ADVENTURE 06/20/22
• Gifts of Diamonds * Charles Beadle
• THE FRONTIER 03/25
• White Magic * Charles Beadle
• THE CITY OF BAALby Charles Beadle                     

Mysterious Africa... At the turn of the 20th Century, Charles Beadle served the British Empire in the colonies of southern Africa; saw duty in the Boer War. Afterwards, he worked his way north through perilous territory as an oddjobber, trader and explorer. When his travels ended, he tapped his storytelling gifts and turned the Africa of experience into enthralling fiction, becoming a stalwart of the great adventure pulps. Included in this collection of seven short stories and novelettes-- originally published in Adventure and The Frontier--are strange tales of daring quests, wildlife in riot, treacherous characters, inscrutable witchdoctors, bizarre tribes, gruesome fates--all the mystery, discovery, danger . . . and dread, of unknown lands. From small-scale stories of isolated outposts under stress, to epic sagas of lost races in the depths of the jungle--from the macabre to the breathtaking--here is adventure at its best. Also included is a detailed discussion of the historical context of Beadle’s stories, and a look at his fascinating life and career. 6x9-inch perfect bound, 240 pages7 stories, $20.00

City of Numbered Men: The Best of Prison Stories
Edited by John Locke

During Prohibition, America's prisons filled beyond capacity with convicts, turning decrepit institutions into seething cauldrons of hate and despair.  The papers reported daily on escape attempts, inmate violence, tough
wardens, grisly executions, and horrendous riots that were beaten back with machine guns and tear gas . . . all the raw material that famed pulp publisher Harold Hersey needed to launch a pulp magazine: PRISON  STORIES. Each hardboiled issue featured sociopathic cons, snitches, corrupt guards, devious wardens, and brutal violence. Included are stories from all six issues of this ultra-rare pulp, complete and uncensored with original illustrations.

Additional features:

• Complete cover gallery
• The startling history of PRISON STORIES
• "Harold Hersey: Tales of an Ink-Stained Wretch," the first comprehensive biography of pulp publishing's most colorful character
• Author biographies
• Highlights from the monthly letters column
  
• 6x9-inch perfect bound
• 276 pages
• $20.00

Two weird detective novelettes from Detective-Dragnet Magazine. "Cult of the Corpses" (January 1931) puts a detective on the trail of a murderous voodoo cult operating out of a Manhattan nightclub. "Dealers in Death" (July 1931) pits a detective against the machinations of the insidious Mr. Letherius, a contract killer who specializes in bizarre and undetectable forms of murder.

These are early (and entertaining) examples of the early '30s trend toward weird detective stories. Included is a detailed discussion of the trend; and a profile of author Maxwell Hawkins.

Stories complete with original illustrations.
6x9-inch perfect bound; 150 pages, $13.95

• 176 pages
• 6x9
• John Locke Cover Design
• Reset type edition
• THRILLING DETECTIVE 06/32
• Doctor Coffin: The Living Dead Man * Perley Poore Sheehan
• THRILLING DETECTIVE 07/32
• The Murdered Wife * Perley Poore Sheehan
• THRILLING DETECTIVE 08/32
• Dead Man Blues * Perley Poore Sheehan
• THRILLING DETECTIVE 09/32
• Seven Seconds To Die * Perley Poore Sheehan
• THRILLING DETECTIVE 10/32
• Horror House * Perley Poore Sheehan
• THRILLING DETECTIVE 11/32
• Hollywood Ghost * Perley Poore Sheehan
• THRILLING DETECTIVE 05/33
• Manhattan Monster * Perley Poore Sheehan
• THRILLING DETECTIVE 09/33
• Small Town Stuff * Perley Poore Sheehan
  

The lid of the coffin was heavy.  Yet it shook, it yielded.  It might have been moved not so much by living muscle as by some blind but deathless will.
   The lid rose.  It slide aside.
What appeared brought a contraction to the throat of the man watching.
The movements of the thing in the long box were groping, broken, disarticulate, as if a clotted rag—a crushed and shapeless mass—were crawling into life.
   Out of this moil and much of what had once been a human being, a gaunt and bloody hand appeared at an inhuman angle, then a disheveled and misshapen head.
   It was a horror.

Doctor Coffin must rank as one of pulpdom's strangest denizens.  He'd been the famous actor, Del Manning, before faking his own death.  He returned as the mysterious Doctor Coffin, proprietor of a chain of Hollywood mortuaries by day, crimefighter by night.  From 1932-1933, Thrilling Detective featured him in a series of novelettes by Perley Poore Sheehan, veteran fictioneer and Hollywood screenwriter.  Collected here are eight of Doctor Coffin's exploits, including the first six.

See him transform the actors' mastery of disguise into a potent force for justice.  See him haunt the City of Stars.  See him turn his life into the greatest masquerade of all.

Features an introduction by John Wooley, world foremost authority on Hollywood detectives.

FROM GHOULS TO GANGSTERS: THE CAREER OF ARTHUR B. REEVE Edited by John LockeVOLUMES 1 & 2; 7x10" perfect bound; $20 each When journalist Arthur B. Reeve (1880-1936) turned his talents to fiction, he couldn’t have foreseen the results. His "scientific detective," Craig Kennedy, took the world by storm in 1911. Kennedy was labeled "the American Sherlock Holmes" while Reeve quickly became the most popular American detective-story author. For the next quarter- century, Reeve worked tirelessly at the writing game. His stories were published in a variety of magazines, slick and pulp, then turned into bestselling books. His newspaper serials were read in homes across the country. He wrote hit movies; reported on the notorious crimes of the day; hosted a national radio program. He was friend to police chiefs and presidents. Kennedy appeared in print, on stage, in films, comic strips and, eventually, television. By the time of his death, Reeve--and his famous detective--were American institutions. But the astonishing breadth of his career has never been fully explored--until this two-volume set, a major advance in what has previously been known about Reeve and his works.

Volume 1 collects stories from all phases of Reeve’s career. Included are tales of Craig Kennedy, and Reeve’s lesser-known detectives. The early stories that made Reeve famous are here, as well as stories written for specialized markets, and obscure works written for pulps and newspapers; all taken from their original appearances. Since Reeve’s early stories were rewritten for book publication, and his later stories were never reprinted, the stories here are freely available for the first time. 255 pages.

FROM GHOULS TO GANGSTERS: THE CAREER OF ARTHUR B. REEVE Edited by John LockeVOLUMES 1 & 2; 7x10" perfect bound; $20 each When journalist Arthur B. Reeve (1880-1936) turned his talents to fiction, he couldn’t have foreseen the results. His "scientific detective," Craig Kennedy, took the world by storm in 1911. Kennedy was labeled "the American Sherlock Holmes" while Reeve quickly became the most popular American detective-story author. For the next quarter- century, Reeve worked tirelessly at the writing game. His stories were published in a variety of magazines, slick and pulp, then turned into bestselling books. His newspaper serials were read in homes across the country. He wrote hit movies; reported on the notorious crimes of the day; hosted a national radio program. He was friend to police chiefs and presidents. Kennedy appeared in print, on stage, in films, comic strips and, eventually, television. By the time of his death, Reeve--and his famous detective--were American institutions. But the astonishing breadth of his career has never been fully explored--until this two-volume set, a major advance in what has previously been known about Reeve and his works.    

Volume 2 consists of nonfiction material by and about
Reeve. Included is a 40-page narrative describing Reeve’s fascinating
career; articles by Reeve on crime solution, detective fiction, and his
career; a 75-page guide to Reeve’s work, covering his magazine and
newspaper appearances, film credits, stage, radio, books, comic strips,
and more; an extensive Art Gallery featuring cover reproductions,
interior illustrations, cartoons, ads, and ephemera; and complete
bibliography and index. 251 pages.

In 1929, a new kind of magazine appeared on the newsstands, the gang pulps!  And no magazine that preceded them gave the pulps a worse reputation.  Month after month, the stories luridly recounted the exploits of the most sadistic killers, the most craven squealers, the most coldblooded gun molls, the most corrupt cops, the most ruthless gang bosses, the most brutal mob wars, that ever escaped the realm of the imagination—a genre of extremes.

There had been outlaw heroes in crime fiction before, but none like this new breed, who toasted with bootleg liquor while their bloody victims lay dying on the floor.  Almost imeediately, the gang pulps came under attack from the censors.  America's morals lay dying on the pulpwood pages, they claimed.

Centered in the crosshairs was Harold Hersey, famed pulp editor, creator of Gangster Stories, Racketeer Stories, Speakeasy Stories, and a raft of other gang magazines.  The censors threated him with proseecution. Clean up—or else!

But the story of this clash has never before been told; nor have many of the stories been available since their original publication during the dying years of Prohibition.  In "Glorifying the American Goon," an in-depth introduction based on all-new research, the world of the gang pulps is explored: what the stories were about, what happened during the attack on Hersey, how he responsed, and how the stories changed.

But you won't have to take our word for anything.  Also included in Gang Pulp are nineteen rare stories, selected from both the pre- and post-censorship periods.  Did Hersey clean up the stories?  Judge for yourself in violent and profane pulp classics like "One Hour Before Dawn," "Rough on Rats," and "City of Bullets."

Volume 2 (of 3) features the next four novels of Chicago's most notorious fictional gangster. These stories, from 1931-32, find Big Nose involved with horse racing; fighting a mysterious underworld villain named the Spider. The middle two novels of the set, "Hell-Bent for Election" and "The Crime Crusade" follow Big Nose's entry into politics. He fights big city corruption with the same zeal he applied to mob warfare. Unique in pulp fiction.

Stories complete with original illustrations.
6x9-inch perfect bound; 266 pages, $20.00

Volume 3 completes the run of 12 Big Nose Serrano sagas. This volume includes the three short novels from Greater Gangster Stories, and a novelette from The Gang Magazine. In these four stories, Big Nose continues to confront the social ills of the Depression with the gangster's arsenal of violence, kidnapping and murder. A unique, and no longer forgotten, series from the gang pulps.

Stories complete with original illustrations.
6x9-inch perfect bound; 224 pages

• The Life and Crimes of Big Nose Serrano * Will Murray
• A Page from the Publisher's Notebook * Gangster Stories, December 1929
• Serrano of the Stockyards * Gangster Stories 05/30
• The Gang Buster * Gangster Stories 10/30
• The Gunless Gunman * Gangster Stories 02/31
• Dames, Dice and the Devil * Gangster Stories 06/31
• 263 pages
• 6x9

 

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Product Details Paperback: 258 pages Publisher: Off-Trail Publications (July 5, 2010) Language: English ISBN-10: 1935031090 ISBN-13: 978-1935031093 Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.5 inches

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Product Details Paperback: 274 pages Publisher: Off-Trail Publications (July 5, 2010) Language: English ISBN-10: 1935031139 ISBN-13: 978-1935031130 Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.6 inches

Officially, Elmer Brown Mason was an entomologist for the United States Government, his beat, the swampy backwaters of the South.  Privately, he journed to the dangerous corners of the world in seach of adventure.  For a brief but intense period, his experiences inspired thrilling stories of exploration and wonder.

The ten fascinating—and fantastic—stories collected here are set in the Everglades, the Louisiana bayous, the Amazon jungle, Borneo, and other dangerous placed known to few people of his era.  The Popular Magazine, featuring the South American epic, "The Golden Anaconda."  Also included are five tales from All-Story Weekly, topped by the horror-laden two-part saga, "Black Butterflies" and "Red Tree-Frogs."  All ten stories were published from 1915 to '16, when the world was much younger than today.

GROTTOS OF CHINATOWN: The Dorus Noel Stories
By Arthur J. Burks
Introduction by John Locke

Dorus Noel spent many years in the Far East, and had the torture scars to prove it. Now he was back in New York, working undercover in Manhattan's Chinatown, confronting the most insidious crimes and criminals imaginable, cases beyond the ability of the police. Burks' Chinatown is a society of strange alliances, a place of dark menace and mystery, an urban nightmare of secret passageways riddling the district like rabbit warrens, a world under the shadow of China's ast.

Collected here for the first time are all 11 Dorus Noel stories from All Detective Magazine (1933-34). Also included is extensive new information on All
Detective and the fascinating career of the Speed-King of the Pulps, Arthur J. Burks. Stories complete with original illustrations.

6x9-inch perfect bound; 192 pages, $16.00

HOBO STORIES
By Patrick & Terence Casey
Introduction by John Locke

Hobos spoke their own language, lived by their own code. Veterans of the
road enslaved younger runaways, to use them as servants, to dispatch their
innocent faces to back doors to beg. True hobos scorned brethren who
accepted work instead of handouts. To do nothing, to pay nothing, was the
hobo dream, the true measure of freedom, the true test of authenticity.

Patrick and Terence Casey wrote five stories set in Hoboland--that is, the
backroads, railyards, and seedy hobo jungles of America where tramps
traveled and congregated. The initial story appeared in THE SATURDAY EVENING
POST (1914), the remainder in the leading pulp ADVENTURE (1916-21).
Together, they constitute a grand saga of life in a strange, often violent
underworld of yesteryear. HOBO STORIES collects the series.

The amazing Caseys . . . they were two brothers from San Francisco who sold
regularly to the pulps as teenagers. Soon thereafter, they conned their way
into the prestigious pages of ADVENTURE with tales of actual jungles--in
Borneo and Central America. Included in HOBO STORIES is a biography of the
Caseys, an examination of the roots of their hobo fiction, and, from the
pulp ROMANCE (1920), their revelatory short story about the adventures of a
teenage pulp writer.

6x9-inch perfect bound; 332 pages, $20.00

If She Only Had a Machine Gun: Crime Stories by Richard Credicott
Introduction by Dave Credicott
Edited by John Locke & Rob Preston

6x9-inch perfect bound; 360 pages, $20.00

For the first time, we’re able to offer a complete pulp career in a single volume. Richard Credicott’s first story appeared in October 1929, unlucky timing indeed. Over the next few years, he struggled to make the pulp racket pay. His best work appeared in the gang pulps and ranks with the very best to be found there, wildly entertaining stories of mob mayhem and intrigue. His specialty was the molls, the tough chicks who gave the ultra-violent gangster life the touch of spice that made it all worthwhile.

This volume includes all eighteen of Richard Credicott’s stories, published from 1929-33, in MOBS, THE UNDERWORLD, RACKETEER STORIES, GANGLAND STORIES, DETECTIVE-DRAGNET, DIME DETECTIVE, and others. Included is a complete biography of Credicott’s life and writing career, offering rare insights into the ups and downs of the pulp-magazine world of the early Depression.

Until this time, there were no known living relatives of any of the gang-pulp authors. In fact, it’s exceedingly difficult to discover even the most basic information about this mostly obscure group. Therefore, it was a complete surprise and an unexpected privilege to meet Richard’s son, Dave Credicott, who enthusiastically provided an introduction to this volume, counterpointing the history with reminiscences of his father.

All of which makes this volume a unique contribution to pulp history.

Fulton Oursler was one of the great editors of his time, ruling over the Macfadden publishing empire for two decades. He created the first true-crime magazine, True Detective Mysteries, and off-beat titles like Brain Power, Ghost Stories and True Strange Stories. He achieved national fame in the '30s as the editor of Liberty. But stage magic was his first love, and, in his heart, he remained a conjurer in a black cape and top hat. In this collection of early fiction, Oursler's bewitching imagination takes flight in tales of magic, murder and mesmerizing mystery. Apparitions, half-wits, secret panels, devious deceptions, lunatic asylums, warring magicians, criminal masterminds-it's all here. Also featured is an in-depth exploration of the amazing career of Fulton Oursler.

The Ocean: 100th Anniversary Collection

Edited by John Locke

 

The Ocean is one of the great forgotten pulp magazines. Started by Frank Munsey in 1907, it lasted a mere eleven issues before folding in 1908. It was also one of the first specialized pulps—a sea-story magazine—with contributions from an amazing variety of authors: some, the best sea-story writers of the day; others, destined for anonymity; and still others who achieved fame in surprising ways. This 100th Anniversary Collection presents twenty of the best stories published in The Ocean, representing the wide scope of the magazine’s contents.

 

Over 30 pages of nonfiction material included: a history of The Ocean; profiles of editor, Bob Davis, and the motley crew of authors who found their way into The Ocean’s pages—and ours.

Some of the featured stories:

 

* “In the Land of To-Morrow” by Epes Winthrop Sargent. This illustrated two-part serial was an early scientific romance, of the kind Munsey pulps would become famous for. A down-on-his-luck inventor is introduced to a secret island where science is the highest ideal, the technology is futuristic, and freedom is . . .

 

The author was moonlighting. A noted columnist, he was one of three founding partners of the Broadway trade paper, Variety.

 

* “When All Were Equal” by T. Jenkins Hains. A harrowing tale of men at sea struggling against nature’s fiercest weather. It was a time when every man was looking out for himself, and no one there was thinking of dying for the other fellow’s sake. It was just struggle, breathe, and struggle, with the wind, now as cold as ice, howling over us and the frost of the winter in the air.

 

Hains knew of what he wrote. A seasoned sailor, his yacht was caught in a hurricane in 1903. When a passing ship stopped to help, the rescuers found his rudder broken, his rigging torn to shreds, and his wife lashed to the mast. And that only scratches the surface of his remarkable life. . . .

 

* “When His Chance Came” by Clarence Budington Kelland. When his captain is stricken with smallpox, a first mate takes charge of a coal-ship crossing Lake Superior—and the superstitious crew threatens mutiny. “I’ll get this boat into Duluth if I have to kill every one of you with my bare hands and work her in alone!”

 

Kelland went on to become one of the highest-paid authors of his era—and one of the greatest gadflies.

 

6x9” perfect bound, 20 stories, 234 pages, $18