A prolific pulp author who is largely forgotten today outside of pulp fandom is Henry James O’Brien Bedford-Jones (1887–1949), better known as just H. Bedford-Jones.
He wrote historical fiction, adventure, crime, spy, western, and science-fiction. While he had several series and continuing characters, none were as popular as contemporary characters such as Tarzan or Zorro. While some of his works were reprinted in book form at the time, after the pulp era, he seems largely forgotten.
The closest to a biography/bibliography is King of the Pulps: The Life & Writings of H. Bedford-Jones by Peter Ruber, Darrell C. Richardson and Victor A. Berch. It came out in 2003 from the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, and while hard to find, it’s worth getting if you want to learn more about Bedford-Jones and his works. While a great book, was frustrated by the bibliography. There is no key to it and it took me a bit to figure it out, and would have liked to have seen all his series listed out separately.
He wrote nearly 200 novels and over 1,000 shorter works. His main publisher was Blue Book magazine; but he also appeared in Adventure, All-Story Weekly, Argosy, Short Stories, Top-Notch Magazine, The Magic Carpet/Oriental Stories, Golden Fleece, Ace-High Magazine, People’s Story Magazine, Hutchinson’s Adventure-Story Magazine, Detective Fiction Weekly, Western Story Magazine, and Weird Tales. Stories tell of him writing two to four works at the same time on different typewriters, and he used about two dozen or so pseudonyms, which makes it harder to figure out what he wrote.
Many of his works were historical fiction/adventures, about knights, pirates, buccaneers, vikings, musketeers, revolutionaries, legionnaires, soldiers, sailors, and assorted adventurers. I’m not sure what would be considered his magnum opus. Maybe his sequel to The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan (1926)? His longest character series is of Cockney agent John Solomon, but he had others such as pirate Denis Burke, buccaneer O’Brien, mercenaries O’Neill & Burkett, gentleman burglar Riley Dillon, and Sheriff Pinky Jenkins. In addition, he had several long-running series such as “Arms and Men,” “Ships and Men,” “Warriors in Exile,” “Clippers and Men,” and “The Sphinx Emerald.”
It’s frustrating trying to figure out what to look for and to read. Everyone has different tastes. I know I am not that interested in westerns or historical fiction. Adventure tales, especially with a fantastical element, such as “lost races/lost worlds,” appeal to me. I want to learn more about John Solomon, as there are some lost race tales in the series. Also some of Bedford-Jones’ adventure series are of interest.
One work I recently read is The Buddha’s Elephant, which appeared under the pseudonym of Allan Hawkwood in All-Around magazine in 1916. This short novel was reprinted by Pulpdom as a photocopy, with a new cover. It’s a “lost race” story set in western China in the then-present day, and tells of four men looking for a mythical “Walled Town Mountain”, inhabited by Greeks from Alexander‘s army, that may have been found by a recent, but lost expedition. The men find it, but have to contend with political intrigue, as there are issues between the Greeks and the Chinese, and with different groups vying for power. There is the requisite beautiful princess in the mix, which one of the men falls in love with. What sets this one apart from the usual lost race story is it’s more realistic. There is no super-science involved, the politics are played seriously, as are ties to the modern world. There are apparently a pair of works that are similar, also under the Allan Hawkwood name: Khmer the Mysterious and its sequel, The Golden Woman of Khmer, both from People’s Favorite Magazine in 1919. I would love to see someone reprint all three works in one volume.
In recent years, several publishers and groups have been reprinting work from Bedford-Jones. Pulpdom, Pulp Adventures, and High Adventure have reprinted several of his works in different issues. Many of the magazines that have his works have been reprinted in facsimile editions from publishers such as Girasol, Wildside Press, Fiction House, and Adventure House. Wildside, Black Dog Books, Murania Press, and Altus Press have reprinted novels and collections of his works as well. Altus Press has made the biggest splash with their uniform H. Bedford-Jones Library, which includes 43 volumes so far. Some are complete collections of series, like the “Sphinx Emerald,” “Ships and Men,” “Adventures of a Professional Corpse,” while others are the start of series like John Solomon and Pinky Jenkins or stand-alone novels.
I debated even listing the current output from these reprint houses and my impression of the works, but I plan on doing reviews of those works as I read them. I encourage others to check out these works, read and post your views to encourage others to check out this overlooked author.
