About a couple of years ago, Altus Press started a new line called the “Argosy Library,” which is composed of several series of 10 books each highlighting some of the great fiction that appeared in the early pulps.
All are taken from the pulps started by Frank A. Munsey, who started to convert his fiction magazines to pulp paper and reduced their price, making them more profitable. He published the well-known Argosy magazine, which got its start in the late 1800s, and several other popular magazines such as The All-Story and Flynn’s Detective Fiction Weekly.
We got Series I, II, and III. Series III has been out for awhile, and I overlooked doing a posting on it. I think we are overdue for a Series IV.
Series III consists of:
- Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Clovelly, by Max Brand
- War Lord of Many Swordsmen: The Adventures of Norcross, Volume 1, by W. Wirt
- Alias the Night Wind, by Varick Vanardy
- The Blue Fire Pearl: The Complete Adventures of Singapore Sammy, Volume 1, by George F. Worts
- The Moon Pool & The Conquest of the Moon Pool, by Abraham Merritt
- The Gun-Brand, by James B. Hendryx
- Jan of the Jungle, by Otis Adelbert Kline
- Minions of the Moon, by William Grey Beyer
- Drink We Deep, by Arthur Leo Zagat
So let’s take a closer look at these.
I’ve posted on Burroughs, and I think that few don’t know about Tarzan. The earlier stories are falling into the public domain, and several publishers are now reprinting then. Jewels of Opar is the fifth novel, so not sure why Altus started with this one.
Max Brand, pen name of Frederick Schiller Faust, is best known to most people as a Western author. Clovelly isn’t a Western, but about a swordsman in London during the reign of Charles the Second.
W. Wirt wrote many adventures stories, including a series about Jimmie Cordosy for Argosy (the first set of which were reprinted as part of the Series I of the Argosy Library). War Lord of Many Swordsman is the first of a series about Captain John Norcross, a veteran of WWI, who takes a group of 150 black U.S. soldiers into Asia in the search for riches.
The Night Wind is an interesting character created by Varick Vanardy. Running over four novels, Alias the Night Wind is the first. He is a man of unusual physical strength falsely accused of a crime, who must clear himself. However, Wildside Press has already reprinted the whole series, and also put out an original fifth volume. I’ve yet to read and post on this series, but hope to. I’m not sure why Altus is doing their own edition of this work.
We’ve already had works by George Worts in this series, including the first of his Peter the Brazen series, written under the pen name of Loring Brent. The Blue Fire Pearl is the first volume collecting the stories of Singapore Sammy, a sailor and adventurer in the South Seas. This volume collects the first five stories, which appeared in Short Stories. The character then moved to Argosy. Strangely, Black Dog Books has a volume with the same set of stories, and has a second volume of Singapore Sammy stories with the next five. BDB will hopefully reprint the rest, but again I wonder why Altus came out with a competing collection. I’ve rather see more Peter the Brazen stories first.
I’ve already posted about A. Merrit, and his Moon Pool stories (sometimes treated as one single work) have been reprinted many times. So yet another edition of the two Moon Pool works, though this time with an intro by Will Murray.
The Gun-Brand is an adventure tale set in the Northwest by someone who lived it, author James B. Hendryx. Altus Press has been reprinting many of his Halfaday Creek stories in several volumes. This one is a standalone novel about Chloe Elliston and her associates working to make their fortune in this tough land.
Otis Adelbert Kline is usually brushed off as a “Burroughs clone,” which I don’t think is fair. But he has series set on Venus and Mars, as well as a sort-of Tarzan clone, Jan of the Jungle. There is one more Jan story, Jan in India, so hopefully Altus will reprint that one. Altus has previously reprinted the first of his Mars novels, The Swordsman of Mars, and I hope they put out the second and last of that series.
In the style of Buck Rogers, Minions of the Moon by William Grey Beyer, has a man going in for surgery who is put into suspended animation for 6,000 years! This is the first of the “Minion” series by the author, so I hope we see the other three in the series. This seems the only works by this author.
Arthur Leo Zagat was a prolific, if short-lived, pulp author. He did the Red Finger series, as well as the Doc Turner series in The Spider magazine. Other works include the Tomorrow series, put out in two volumes by Altus Press. Drink We Deep is an sf novel, where an archaeologist discovered a plot by sinister “little men” who want to take over the surface world. If you enjoy his work, check out the others I’ve mentioned, as well as the three volumes of his weird fiction from Ramble House.
As with the previous set, there are some works I’m interested in getting. Others I’m not more due to not being interested in that particular genre or the like. I do look forward to what is planned for Series IV of this series, as there are several story series within these I want to see the next volumes.
