On Black Friday weekend 2024, Steeger Books put out their next sets of Argosy Library volumes, Series XVI and XVII, now getting closer to 200 volumes.
As always with each series, 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 XVI consists of:
- Satan’s Mark: The Complete Cases of Satan Hall, Vol. 2, by Carroll John Daly
- Into and Out of the Primitive, by Robert Ames Bennet
- The Web of Destiny: The Complete Cabalistic Cases of Semi Dual, Vol. 4, by J.U. Giesy and Junius B. Smith
- Midnight Taxi: The Complete Cases of Smooth Kyle, Vol. 1, by Borden Chase
- The Jade Serpent: The Complete Chinatown Cases of Jimmy Wentworth, Vol. 2, by Sidney Herschel Small
- The Sapphire Death: The Adventures of Peter the Brazen, Vol. 7, by George F. Worts, writing as Loring Brent
- The Swamp Angel: The Complete Cases of Calhoun, Vol. 2, by Edward Parrish Ware
- Stunt Man by Eustace L. Adams
- The Dark Peril by Max Brand
- The Snow Girl by Ray Cummings
We get the next collection of Satan Hall stories from Carroll John Daly, the creator of the hard-boiled detective. Satan Hall is Daly’s ruthless police detective with a distinctive look. Here we get the next five stories and I’m very behind on getting my posting out on him.
I previously posted on a pair of lost-world stories by Robert Ames Bennet. While he mainly wrote Westerns, he wrote a few that weren’t. This time we get a pair of stories that appeared in Munsey’s The Scrap Book: Into the Primitive (1907-08) and Out of the Primitive (1911). The Scrap Book ran from 1906-12, spinning out The Cavalier and then merging with it. The two stories tell of a small group surviving in the wilds of Africa.
We get the fourth collection of Semi Dual stories in The Web of Destiny, an unusual occult detective by J.U. Giesy and Junius B. Smith. Here we get the next two stories in the series. I look forward to this one.
A new series in Midnight Taxi, the first collecting the stories of Federal Operative Peter “Smooth” Kyle by Borden Chase (a pseudonym of Frank G. Fowler). A former taxi cab driver, he uses his past career to work undercover in New York. This has the first story, serialized from The Argosy, but I have no idea how many stories are in the series.
The next in the series of Jimmy Wentworth stories is The Jade Serpent by Sidney Herschel Small. Here we get the next six stories in this series starring a detective born in China who works in San Francisco’s Chinatown. This series is from Detective Fiction Weekly and ran nearly 30 stories, often cover featured.
Peter the Brazen is probably George F. Worts’s most well-known character. Written under his Loring Brent pseudonym, this radio operator turned adventurer in his later stories where he went up against a sinister foe named The Blue Scorpion and others.
Another series continues with The Swamp Angel, which has the next group of stories of U.S. Forest Ranger John Calhoun by Edward Parrish Ware. We get the next four stories of this detective series set in the swamplands of Arkansas, as well as an intro by the late Robert Sampson.
A stand-alone novel, Stunt Man by Eustace L. Adams is a story of intrigue set in the world of Hollywood movies. It appeared in The Argosy in 1937. The author was best known for his many aviation stories aimed at boys, but he wrote other works as well.
From Max Brand, the pseudonym of Frederick Faust mainly used for his Western writing, we get The Dark Peril. It’s an action-filled crime novel. Here our hero has a dark secret as he is on a quest for riches, while others hunt for him.
Finally, from Ray Cummings is The Snow Girl. In a science-fiction tale set in Antarctica, a group must deal with a renegade group led by a young woman. She has a deadly weapon created by her father, which she threatens Little America in her quest for gold.
As always, a great set of volumes with new series, continuations of others, and stand-alone works. There are several I plan on getting, others I might. And some I’m not that interested in. But always something for everyone.
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