Arthur O. Friel’s lost-world novels

An interesting writer of pulp adventure fiction, Arthur O. Friel (1885-1959) focused on stories set in South America, which he knew well as an actual explorer of the region, though this occurred after he started writing his stories.

Before Col. Percy Fawcett disappeared there, Friel had been exploring the area. He had spent a six-month period in Venezuela on the Orinoco River in 1922 on the search for a supposed white tribe. He would wrote a non-fiction work about this called The River of Seven Stars (1924).

I would like to find a copy of this, and someone apparently reprinted it, but I am not finding a copy.

Friel started writing for Adventure in 1919, then later started to appear in Short Stories in the 1930s and eventually only appeared there.

He was previously the South American editor for the Associated Press. Friel was one of Robert E. Howard‘s favorite authors, and others have noted his influence on their writing.

For Adventure, he did two main series of stories. One is the Pedro and Lourenço series, about a pair of rubber industry workers having strange adventures in the jungles between Peru and Brazil. I plan to do a separate posting on them. His first stories were only with these two characters.

The other is known as the McKay, Ryan, and Knowlton sequence, which is made up of four serialized novels. That is the focus of this posting.

The series is composed of four works, each serialized over four issues:

• “The Pathless Trail” (Adventure, October through November 1921)
• “Tiger River” (Adventure, July through August 1922)
• “The King of No Man’s Land” (Adventure, March through April 1924)
• “Mountains of Mystery” (Adventure, January through February 1925)

Now, there is also a kind of fifth work, “In the Year 2000” (Adventure, May through June 1928) which is set after a worldwide war and features the grandson of Knowlton and McKay. This one has never been reprinted in book form.

All four were reprinted in hardcover shortly after their appearance in the pulp by Harper Brothers. “The Pathless Trail” and “Tiger River” were later reprinted by Centaur Press in its Time-Lost series in the 1970s, with great covers by Jeff Jones, and the other two were planned for, but didn’t happen. I was hoping someone like Armchair Fiction, Black Dog Books, Wildside, or Steeger Books would reprint the whole series. Instead, a small group called Weird and Wonderful Publishing reprinted the four. All have a foreword by Michael Nagy that is largely the same, as well as a short final word. These were reprinted from 2021-23 and are available on Amazon thanks to print-on-demand.

As noted, the series is about a trio of Americans who are exploring in South America. They are former soldiers who served together in WWI. Roderick McKay is a former captain and leader of the group. He is tall, black-haired, with gray eyes. Tim Ryan is a former sergeant, squat, and red-haired, with a marked Scottish accent, though he’s from Brooklyn. Meredith “Merry” Knowlton is a former lieutenant and is blond-haired, blue-eyed, and tanned. They eventually help to establish a “kingdom” somewhere close to Peru, it’s central base being in ancient ruins left by a mysterious white race.

“The Pathless Trail” introduces us to the trio, and they are joined by Pedro, Lourenço, and José Martinez. They are tasked with finding David Dawson Rand, who has inherited a valuable estate. He was known to have traveled to Rio, then disappeared. But a book was published by an explorer who told of his meeting a strange man. He appeared to be a white man with green eyes and a patch of white hair above one ear, all particular characteristics of Rand. The strange red marks on his body show that he’s somehow connected to a tribe known to be cannibals.

The group starts at Remate de Males on the Javary River in Brazil, close to the border of Peru. They encounter a German, Karl Schwandorf, who has been living there for several years. He knows the area, often going off in the jungle with a group of men, though for what is unknown. We quickly realize he will be our villain. He has a strange interest in what our heroes are doing. He even goes so far as to recruit a group of Peruvians who will take the trio upriver.

And things go south when the men try to attack the trio, with only José, the nominal leader of the Peruvians, standing up against them. In the end, the trio are alive, with José wounded. They go back down the river to a rubber plantation of a Col. Nunez, where they explain things. They also gain the assistance of Pedro Andrada and Lourenço Moraes, and learn that José is a bit of an outlaw.

Soon, they are off to find our missing man. There will be danger (from cannibal tribes) and more deaths, and we will learn what Schwandorf does on his trips. And what connection he seems to have with Rand. Will the trio succeed?

In “Tiger River,” McKay, Ryan, and Knowlton come back on a gold-finding trip, joined by David Rand, who discovered, when he got back to the U.S., that he didn’t inherit a fortune, as the rightful heir was found alive. They happen to run into their old friend José Martinez and ask him to join them, as he has knowledge of the local region. We learn more about José, as well as why he is considered an outlaw. But he has been shown to be a loyal and brave friend, so he is accepted by the group.

They are on the Tiger River, a real river that flows out of Ecuador through Peru to the Amazon. José knows there is a source of gold, as someone had returned with a pouch of gold nuggets, but half-crazed and with all of his toes missing. This time, they only have to worry about a tribe of headhunters instead of cannibals. And José also tells them of a rumored “white Indian” tribe as well. What will they encounter?

Soon they encounter danger when two of them are attacked by both a strange Indian, as well as two jaguars. They are lucky to get out relatively unscathed. But then they run afoul of this rumored “white Indian” tribe. Through a series of activities, they wind up becoming protectors of this tribe for a brief time. Moving further north, they encounter a strange group living in a ravine ruled over by some kind of “jungle Circe.” After further death and danger, the team comes out as the winner, but what happens next for these five explorers?

In “The King of No Man’s Land,” which appears to be set about 2 years after the prior novel, we find José is now “king” of a growing nation of “white Indians.” While wiping out headhunters, they encounter our trio of Americans. They have come looking for David Rand, who returned to the area about a year ago. As they catch up, we learn about what José has been doing. He found a secure location that has stone ruins of a lost people, destroyed probably by tremors from nearby volcanoes. Here, he has been building up his nation.

With the Americans, they rescue a strange woman, Nuné, who claims to be a priestess of God living with the natives. Our trio hopes that José, maybe with Nuné, will help them locate David, who may have gone native. But things are further complicated by a request from Peru for José to join them in securing the area for Peru instead of Ecuador. But José realizes that doing so will betray his new people to exploitation by the Peruvians.

It seems the Huma tribe, maybe led by David, is coming for José’s people. Why? And what will the outcome be? Whatever it will be, this will be the last we will see of David, José, and Nuné. As José put it, “I have found a ruin, and made a home.”

With the final novel, “Mountains of Mystery,” we now find our trio of McKay, Ryan, and Knowlton returning to South America, but this time to the Guyana region in search of a supposed tribe of “white Indians” who are blond and blue-eyed, living in the mountains. Strangely, this is the same area and mission that Friel himself did on his 1922 trip. I wish I could read that to see how much it might mirror this novel.

As it’s a new area, our trio is joined by some new characters. They gain the help of a local guide Portonio. After being abandoned by two others who also take their launch, the group is met by senor Lucio “Loco” Leon, also known as the “Crazy Lion,” who is knowledgeable about the area and is the only white man who is a friend of the local Indians.

In some ways, this one is similar to the prior works. Leon takes the place of José. There will be danger and more, not just from the environment, but from native tribes who don’t want them to get to the Talking Mountain. Or do they? Will there be a character like David Rand? And what will the trio find in the end? A lost white tribe or just another tribe of Indians? And will they find any riches before returning to the U.S.?

So overall, this was a good series of works. As Friel was familiar with the area and people, it has a feeling of authenticity. The native people are not treated as just stereotypes either, something that too many assume will occur in pulp fiction. I would like to get a copy of Friel’s non-fiction work, The River of Seven Stars. This should also be reprinted. I hope to soon post on Friel’s Pedro and Lourenço series as well.