Argosy Library, Series XI

On Black Friday weekend 2021, Steeger Books put out their next two sets of “Argosy Library” volumes, Series X and XI.

Here is Series XI. With these, we get a new cover design that will be what is used going forward. One thing I miss is the info on the back cover for where these stories came from and a thumbnail of the original cover artwork.

As always, we get 10 books of great, and sometimes overlooked, fiction that appeared in the early pulps. We get some stand-alone works, as well as volumes of various sub-series. This selection seems very heavy on crime and detective stories and series.

Most are taken from the pulps started by Frank A. Munsey, who converted 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.

Series XI consists of:

• The Phantom in the Rainbow, by Slater LaMaster
• Threads of Evidence: The Complete Cases of Riordan, Volume 1, by Victor Maxwell
• Masters of Darkness, by Murray Leinster
• Lies at Any Price: The Complete Cases of Gillian Hazeltine, Volume 1, by George F. Worts
• He Rules Who Can, by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur
• The House of the Ego: The Complete Cabalistic Cases of Semi Dual, Volume 3, by J.U. Giesy and Junius B. Smith
• Death to a Tenor, by Fred MacIsaac
• Murder’s Masquerade: The Complete Cases of Mike & Trixie, Volume 1, by T.T. Flynn
• The Land of Limping Law: The Complete Cases of Calhoun, Volume 1, by Edward Parrish Ware
• Cocked Dice: The Complete Cases of Daffy Dill, Volume 1, by Richard B. Sale

What do we get this time?

We get a mystery tale in The Phantom in the Rainbow by Slater LaMaster (1890-1936) an author and playwright I’m not familiar with.  Yes, that’s his real name.  Sort of.  It’s Benjamin Slater LaMaster. Here, a young man makes the mistake of impersonating a rich man, and is targeted by a criminal known only as “The Phantom” who apparently has psychic powers. Will he succeed to defeating this fiend?  He only has another pulp work, a “planetary romance”.  Both works appeared in Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1928/29.

From the pages of Detective Fiction Weekly, we get Threads of Evidence: The Complete Cases of Riordan, Volume 1, which collects this series of police procedurals by Victor Maxwell. It stars Sgt. Riordon and Detective Halloran which was a long-running series.

From science-fiction author Murray Leinster is Masters of Darkness. It’s a series of four stories that have criminals using a sinister science device also known as the “Preston and Hines” series and appeared in Argosy.

George F. Worts is the author of the Peter the Brazen and Singapore Sammy series. With Lies at Any Price: The Complete Cases of Gillian Hazeltine, Volume 1 we get the adventures of lawyer Gillian Hazeltine, who is claimed to be a forerunner of Perry Mason. At 30 stories, he ran for longer than the other series. A prior volume is also available, with later stories in the series.

In He Rules Who Can by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, we get a historical adventure featurings a Viking who goes to Constantinople in 1038 with 500 Norseman and is given command of the Varangian Guard. This work appeared in Argosy by an author who was a longtime contributor to Adventure.

After getting three volumes reprinting a trio of long serials toward the end of this series, we finally get the next volume of Semi Dual, the unusual “occult detective.” As noted by the title, The House of the Ego: The Complete Cabalistic Cases of Semi Dual, Volume 3 picks up from the early Volumes 1 and 2. I have enjoyed this series by J.U. Giesy and Junius B. Smith, and wonder how many volumes we will need to complete this series.

Fred MacIsaac is probably best known for The Rambler, a wandering reporter who solved crimes in a series in Dime Detective. About half the series has been reprinted in two volumes. But he wrote a lot in Argosy and other pulps, so he has a few other works in the Argosy Library, and in Death to a Tenor (cover featured in Detective Fiction Weekly), we get a bizarre crime where a tenor is killed, but his girlfriend says she heard him sing a song after he died.

With Murder’s Masquerade: The Complete Cases of Mike & Trixie, Volume 1, we get the first of this series staring bickering detectives Trixie Meehan and Mike Harris of the Blaine Agency. We seldom get female detectives in the pulps, so this should be of interesting. It’s by T.T. Flynn, whom I’m not familiar with, and appeared in Detective Fiction Weekly.

Set in the “Sunken Lands of Arkansas,” the detective series of U.S. Ranger Jack Calhoun start in The Land of Limping Law: The Complete Cases of Calhoun, Volume 1. These come from Detective Fiction Weekly by the prolific Edward Parrish Ware

From pulp author turned scriptwriter and detective Richard B. Sale is Joe “Daffy” Dill, a wisecracking reporter who investigates the underworld. Cocked Dice: The Complete Cases of Daffy Dill, Volume 1 gives us the first seven of this long-running series in Detective Fiction Weekly.

Surprisingly, 5 of the volumes in this series came from Detective Fiction Weekly!  With both of these new Argosy Library sets, there are several volumes I have ordered. There are several that I don’t have an interest in, but that’s how it goes. Hopefully there are works here that will interest everyone. I would have liked to have seen the next volume of Jigger Masters stories, or the final Garret Service Omnibus.