H. Bedford-Jones (1887-1949) was a prolific pulp author with over 1,000 works, and several series. His longest series with a single character featured John Solomon, a mysterious cockney ship chandler who operated in Port Said, Egypt, before World War I with a network of agents.
Strangely, Solomon is often almost a secondary character in his own series. He often works behind the scenes, and is not seen for a long while. There always a more adventurous young man as the main character of the story, who usually marries the girl in the story and settles down at the end.
I’ve been posting on this character now that Steeger Books is reprinting this series as part of their H. Bedford-Jones Library. This time I am reviewing the fourth and fifth volumes of the series. One reason is that these stories appeared in the same month but in different magazines. The series started off in Argosy, but with the third story, “Solomon’s Quest,” appeared in Street & Smith’s People’s Magazine. But the next appearance of Solomon was in June 1915 where “The Seal of John Solomon” appeared back in The Argosy, while “Gentleman Solomon” appeared in People’s. In both cases, the story was cover featured. Solomon stayed in People’s for awhile before returning to Argosy.
I had already read “Seal” when it appeared in High Adventure #109, so was holding out for “Gentleman,” to review them both as I had previously covered “Seal” in my first posting on John Solomon.
I was also wondering where we’d find Solomon in these two stories. When last we left him, we were told that he had been running his shop in Port Said for 30 years, and at the end of the story he had lost part of his leg and retired to America. So how would this be handled? I guessed by either “retconning” it, or setting the stories earlier in the character’s life. You decide.
In “Seal,” we are told that Solomon has been operating his shop for 25 years, and is actually replacing all his people’s rings with a new design, as well as shutting down his shop. So this story ignores what happened in “Quest.” His rings had his name in Arabic, now they would have a square with lines crossing from the corners. These rings are how his agents could recognize each other.
He is pulled into an adventure where an Ohio missionary and his daughter are looking for a lost city in Arabia founded by crusaders. Solomon is aided by an American who is familiar to the area and is one of his infrequent agents for the past five years and here the main protagonist, Frederick Sargent. But there is danger and intrigue as well, as Turkish agents are also looking for the city for some secret it holds. Can Solomon and his associate help them before it’s too late? Interesting at the end of the story, he heads to America with Sargent.
One thing I have mentioned before is that I like lost-race/city/world stories, and I find that Bedford-Jones does the most realistic ones imaginable. While it’s fun to read these with their hints of past glories, and lost science (or hidden science), to read a lost-race/city story that you could imagine could really happen is also enjoyable.
“Gentleman Solomon” actually is a direct sequel to “Quest” and should have been the fourth story. He is living in Baltimore with Dr. Walter Firth and his wife, who aided him in “Quest.” Joining them is Dr. Cliff Seaforth, a friend of Firth’s, and surprisingly, Firth will be involved. Here, Solomon and his two associates will be heading to the Belgian Congo to look into the atrocities being committed there, as well as to save an American professor and his daughter who had been sent previously.
Due to the actions of the main villain, Dr. Seaforth winds up in the Congo by himself, with Solomon and Firth following. He meets up with Frances Earl, whom he knew in college, and they head inland to find her father. They must contend with the environment, what is going on, and the main villain until Solomon can arrive. And we have an element of lost races, as there is a lost race of white dwarfs who live in a mountain and maintain Egyption practices. Of course, things are put right, and they return to America with future marriage of Frances and Dr. Seaforth.
After reading these two, what I think may have happend is that “Seal” was written prior to both “Quest” and “Gentleman,” and sold to Argosy, which, instead of printing it sooner, for some reason waited. Because I feel it really better fit in the series before “Quest.”
The next story to be reprinted will be “Solomon’s Carpet,” also from People’s. It looks like this story finds Solomon in America, but a continuation from “Gentleman.” From what Matt Moring says, there will be 14 volumes in total in the series. As there are over 20 stories, we will soon be seeing more than one story to a volume. This makes sense with the later re-appearance in Argosy, as those are more short stories then short novels. If you’re not willing to wait for each volume, you can also invest in the three volume Complete John Solomon set from Steeger Books. Volume 1 of the Complete John Solomon contains the first six novels.
