I have previously posted about Victor Rousseau Emanuel (1879-1960), a prolific pulp author in the early years who is largely overlooked today. Some of his works have been reprinted, but there still remains several more works I think are worth reprinting.
He mainly wrote as Victor Rousseau, but also used some other pseudonyms (one being H.M. Egbert) especially for his works reprinted in bookform in the U.K.
I decided to devote a posting to just Rousseau, but please understand that I am not trying to do a complete or exhaustive biography of him. There are other resources for this. In particular, I recommend folks obtain a copy of His Second Self: The Bio-Bibliography of Victor Rousseau Emanuel by Morgan A. Wallace. Wallace is probably the expert on him, and this work is not expensive.
Originally from Britain, after initially getting started as a journalist and author, Rousseau moved to the United States. From there, he briefly moved to Canada, and then back to the U.K. before moving back to the U.S. permanently. His career had several ups and downs, and we see various periods for his career. Not to hit all of them (see my comment above), but here are some of the main ones.
Newspaper serials
One of his early jobs in the U.S. was working for Harper’s Magazine as an editor and writer. While working there, he did a several serials that appeared in newspapers in the early 1900s.
Of interest to me, and maybe others, is a trio of series that have been reprinted. These are the Dr. Ivan Brodsky, John Haynes, and Dr. Phileas Immanuel series. This may be surprising to some, but yes, many papers ran fiction for many years in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
These three series were later reprinted by Spectre Library. While they are out of print, if you look you can find them. I’ll be posting a review on all three of them. They are The Surgeon of Souls (2006), The Tracer of Egos (2007), and The Devil Chair (2009).
You might also want to obtain His Second Self, as well. It contains the first of the “Tracer of Egos” and “Devil Chair” stories, as well as a previously unknown 13th story in the “Surgeon of Souls” series, and another dozen short stories not reprinted elsewhere.
The Munsey pulps
Soon after, Rousseau gravitated to the pulps, writing several novels, serials, and short stories for the Munsey pulps, most of them being of a fantastical nature. The longer works were almost always cover featured. First is “The Sea Demons” (All-Story Weekly in 1916), recently reprinted by Armchair Fiction. “The Messiah of the Cylinder” (Everbody’s Magazine in 1917) is probably his best-known work, and some call it his magnum opus. Set in the future, it was written in response to H.G. Wells‘ When the Sleeper Wakes. It has been reprinted by Wildside Press.
From The Argosy in 1918 is “Fruit of the Lamp,” which is apparently a genie-related work. “Draft of Eternity” is from All-Story Weekly in 1918 and was reprinted by Steeger Books. Lost-world tale “Eric of the Strong Heart” appeared in Railroad Man’s Magazine in 1918, which Steeger Books also reprinted and I’ve reviewed here. A pair of lost-world works are “The Eye of Balamok” (All-Story Weekly, 1920) and “My Lady of the Nile” (Argosy All-Story Weekly, 1921). “Eye” was reprinted in Fantastic Novels. I hope more of these will be reprinted.
Later pulp work
Later on, Rousseau did work for the Bernarr MacFadden magazines in 1926-29. In particular, he did a psychic series starring Dr. Martinus for Ghost Stories, along with some longer works I’d like to see reprinted. He did works for other sf magazines. Several of these have been collected in Outlaws of the Sun and Other Tales to Astound from Black Dog Books. (I’ll be reviewing this at some point.) Other longer works include “The Phantom Hand” (Weird Tales, 1932) and “World’s End”(Argosy, 1933). “World’s End” was reprinted by Starmont House.
The Spicy pulps
Later, Rousseau seems to have gravitated to the spicy pulps, apparently as he couldn’t get work elsewhere. He created and wrote the first dozen Jim Anthony stories. His other spicy pulp works were under the name of Lew Merrill and a couple of other aliases. I have been reviewing the Jim Anthony stuff, who is a sort-of Doc Savage clone.
After that his career seems to have wound down, with most of his work, if not all, in the spicy pulps. In looking over the bio-bibliography, it seems Rousseau’s longest sustained work for any magazine was for the spicy pulps, which is kind of sad.
So check out Victor Rousseau. Hopefully, we will see more of his works reprinted. I have a few more reviews of his works planned.
