Black Dog Books‘ The Golden Goshawk reprints a short series by H. Bedford-Jones (1887-1949), the adventures of Captain Dan Marguard.
These were written under the pen name of Captain L.B. Williams, which he would also used as Bedford-Jones’ “co-author” of his “Ships and Men” series in Blue Book in 1937-39 (since reprinted by Steeger Books and reviewed here).
This series of four stories were probably written all at once, but due to the pulp market, showed up in different magazines over several years. Black Dog Books editor and publisher Tom Roberts provides a good introduction on Bedford-Jones and the stories.
The series is:
- “The Golden Goshawk,” Danger Trail, August 1928
- “The Jest of the Jade Joss,” Wide World Adventure, August 1929
- “Ruby Eyes of Rhibi,” Far East Adventure Stories, February 1931
- “Midnight Magic on Mindanao,” Far East Adventure Stories, February 1932
The stories star American Captain Dan Marguard, who is joined by his “elder brothers” Ni-Long Tong and Koh Hum, and has adventures in the South Seas in the sloop Gadfly. They battle with a variety of nefarious characters like witch doctors, smugglers, and pirates — and always come out ahead.
In the first adventure, they go after a treasured fetish known as the “Golden Goshawk,” held by a dangerous cutthroat who heads up a band of several hundred.
The second adventure has Marquard approached by a young Chinese man to help him rescue his bride-to-be, along with three other Chinese girls, from a dangerous pirate leader. Marguard agrees as ending this leader will benefit all the traders in the area, not just him.
Marguard rescues a Dutch explorer, who passes away on his ship in the third adventure. This leads him to retrieve the dried head of the explorer’s partner, held by a headhunter tribe. And along the way, Marguard retrieves a pair of valuable gems.
And the final adventure, he helps prevent a bloody native uprising. The local English authority, who he knows, is sick, which allowed this to happen.
I find it interesting that Bedford-Jones had several short series with four to six stories that seemed to have been written as limited series, so to speak, versus being a planned on-going series that didn’t catch on. I’ve reviewed several that have been reprinted, and I am sure more will come.
It is interesting how this one got farmed out over several years in different magazines instead of appearing in sequence in the same pulp magazine. It’s another interesting adventure series from Bedford-Jones, and not the last one. If you haven’t checked out his works, you should.
