Well, sadly, Adventure House‘s excellent pulp reprint series High Adventure will come to an end with issue 200 coming out in early 2025.
This long-running reprint zine, since 1991, has put out a lot of great stuff. Early on there were a lot of pulp hero reprints, but soon we got a variety of genres (spicy, sf, crime, adventure, aviation, etc), authors (H. Bedford-Jones, F. Van Wyck Mason, L. Patrick Greene, J. Allan Dunn, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, J.D. Newsom, and more), and magazines (People’s, Short Stories, Underworld Detective, Ten Detective Aces, etc.).
In the meantime, here is an overview of three recent issues, #196, #197, and #198.
#196 is an H. Bedford-Jones special, with four stories taken from Blue Book and one from People’s between 1919 and 1921. I’ve already read and reviewed one story, “The Second Life of Monsieur the Devil,” so won’t repeat that here. The issue’s cover is taken from the December 1919 issue and ties to a scene in one of the stories here.
For those not aware, Bedford-Jones (1887-1949) was the “King of Pulps,” probably the most prolific pulp author, with hundreds of novels and short stories and who knows how many non-fiction pieces, doing historical fiction, action/adventure, westerns, aviation, naval, and other types of stories.
“Captain Wexham’s Reputation” (January 1921) is a short nautical tale set in the Dutch East Indies, centered around the title character, who has a small schooner. “After the Manner of Asia” (December 1919) is a story set in Malay, near Singapore, with a young woman heading up country to take over a hospital and inherit a plantation from her late brother. There are others, including the local rajah, a new British resident, and an American doctor. Where do they fit into things. Thankfully, a Chinese merchant, a friend of her brother’s, will help her out.
“Too Much Emperor” (People’s, Sept. 10, 1921) is a tale of Asian intrigue set in Chinatown in San Francisco. A young Chinese-American man wants a young girl as his wife, but she has been bought by a tong leader. Can he get her out of the situation? “Blue Ghost” (June 1920) is another long tale set in China. The “blue ghost” is a special kind of tiger. Three men are after it. But there is more to these men than it seems: two Americans and an Austrian baron. And not all are good. Who will win and who will lose?
I’ve never come across a Bedford-Jones tale I didn’t enjoy. All of these are good ones.
#197 is a People’s adventure special, with three stories from three different early pulps. The cover is taken from the January 1917 issue of People’s and tied to a Bedford-Jones’ John Solomon story. First up is “Luck” (People’s, April 25, 1918) by Jackson Gregory (1882-1943), a journalist and pulp writer. He mainly did westerns and detective stories in several of the major pulps. In this story, a young man takes a dare from an older and now successful businessman: He will leave the club with nothing and make a success of himself. Can he do so, and get more than a pile of money?
From Perley Poore Sheehan (1875-1943), whom I have posted on before, is “Kidnappers of Dark Entry” (Cavalier, July 26, 1913). It is set in northeast Florida. Dark Entry is a river/wetland there. A young man is staying at his uncle’s house overlooking the river when an unexpected boat attracts his attention. He meets the captain, whose daughter has been kidnapped by people wanting money from him. Can our hero rescue her, and what will happen when it’s all done?
And finally we get “The Gun Runner” (Short Stories, April 1915) by Frederick F. Moore (1881-1947), who was a prolific author with stories, usually nautical or military ones, in the “big four” pulp magazines. It looks like only High Adventure has reprinted him, and he appeared in issues #171, #185, and #191 previously. It’s a short tale set in the Sulu Sea, where authorities are after a gun runner. Will they catch him?
#198 is a focus on Brief Stories centered around a five-part adventure series by Eugene Cunningham. Brief Stories ran for over 100 issues from 1919 to 1930. The cover is from the May 1928 issue, which ran the fifth and final part of “Red Shirts of Destiny.” Also included is “Jumbo and the Rag Doll,” by William Marion Rouse (1884-1937), from the June 1924 issue. Rouse was a fairly prolific author, if not that notable.
Eugene Cunningham (1896-1957) was better known. Serving in the U.S. Navy in both World War I and WWII, he was a journalist and writer of western stories, along with mystery and sea stories, later writing TV screenplays. A notable work by him is Triggernometry (1934) on gunfighters of the Wild West. His “Red Shirts of Destiny” is a sort-of western, but set in Nicaragua during the U.S. Civil War. It centers around a cashiered Marine lieutenant, now a soldier of fortune, who gets involved in a revolution, falling in love with an important figure there.
I’m sad to see this magazine ending. I need to go back through the back issues and get ones that look interesting. There is a lot of good stuff there, including in these three issues.
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