{"id":9283,"date":"2019-12-23T10:00:11","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T15:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=9283"},"modified":"2025-10-10T14:40:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:40:50","slug":"the-argosy-library-series-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2019\/12\/23\/the-argosy-library-series-v\/","title":{"rendered":"The Argosy Library, Series V"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/eric-of-the-strong-heart.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[9283]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-9331\" src=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/eric-of-the-strong-heart-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"'Eric of the Strong Heart'\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/eric-of-the-strong-heart-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/eric-of-the-strong-heart-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/eric-of-the-strong-heart-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/eric-of-the-strong-heart.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a>In late 2019, we get Series V of the &#8220;Argosy Library,&#8221; from <a href=\"https:\/\/steegerbooks.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Steeger Books<\/a> (previously Altus Press), with 10 more books of great &mdash; and sometimes overlooked &mdash; fiction that appeared in the early pulps. We get some stand-alone works, as well as volumes of various sub-series.<\/p>\n<p>As always, most are taken from the pulps started by <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulp-info\/pulp-history\/\">Frank A. Munsey<\/a><\/strong>, who converted his fiction magazines to pulp paper and reduced their price, making them more profitable. He published the well-known <em>Argosy<\/em> magazine, which got its start in the late 1800s, and several other popular magazines such as <em>The All-Story<\/em> and <em>Flynn\u2019s Detective Fiction Weekly<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Series V consists of:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Eric of the Strong Heart<\/em> by <strong>Victor Rousseau<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>Murder on the High Seas and The Diamond Bullet: The Complete Cases of Gillian Hazeltine<\/em> by <strong>George F. Worts<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>The Woman of the Pyramid and Other Tales: The Perley Poore Sheehan Omnibus, Volume 1<\/em> by <strong>Perley Poore Sheehan<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>A Columbus of Space and The Moon Metal: The Garrett P. Serviss Omnibus, Volume 1<\/em> by <strong>Garrett P. Serviss<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>The Black Tide: The Complete Adventures of Bellow Bill Williams, Volume 1<\/em> by <strong>Ralph R. Perry<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>The Nine Red Gods Decide: The Complete Adventures of Cordie, Soldier of Fortune, Volume 2<\/em> by <strong>W. Wirt<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>A Grave Must Be Deep!<\/em> by <strong>Theodore Roscoe<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>The Complete Adventures of Koyala, Volume 1<\/em> by <strong>John Charles Beecham<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>The American<\/em> by <strong>Max Brand<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><em>The Cult Murders<\/em> by <strong>Leonard Cline<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more-->So what are these works?<\/p>\n<p>Victor Rousseau (1879-1960) was a prolific pulpster who wrote fantastical works early on, some of which have been reprinted recently, including in the Argosy Library, and he also wrote the first <strong>Jim Anthony<\/strong> novels (also available from Steeger Books). <em>Eric of the Strong Heart<\/em> is a lost-race novel that appeared in <em>Railroad Man&#8217;s Magazine<\/em> \u2014 if you can believe it! In it, <strong>Eric Silverstein<\/strong> has nightmares of Ragnarok, learning it is real when he meets a strange woman at a freak show. I am always up for a good lost-race novel, so I may be getting this one.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m familiar with George F. Worts as the author of <strong>Peter the Brazen<\/strong> and <strong>Singapore Sammy<\/strong>, and we&#8217;ve gotten those series in the Library. But this time, we get the start of another series featuring <strong>Gillian Hazeltine<\/strong>. This character is considered a prototype for better-known <strong>Perry Mason<\/strong> as he is a criminal attorney\/investigator. He has a long series of stories and this first volume, <em>Murder on the High Seas and The Diamond Bullet: The Complete Cases of Gillian Hazeltine<\/em>, contains two stories as indicated in the title.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-black-tide.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[9283]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-9334\" src=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-black-tide-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"'The Black Tide'\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-black-tide-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-black-tide-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-black-tide-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-black-tide.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a>I recently read and reviewed another early work from Perley Poore Sheehan (1875-1943), and bemoaned the fact that his early works, especially several fantastical works, haven&#8217;t been reprinted. So now we get <em>The Woman of the Pyramid and Other Tales: The Perley Poore Sheehan Omnibus, Volume 1<\/em>. This volume, the first of I have no idea how many volumes, reprints four of his stories from <em>All-Story<\/em> and <em>Argosy<\/em>, starting with one I want to read, &#8220;The Woman From the Pyramid,&#8221; about an Egyptologist who dreams of a woman, meets her, and is somehow thrown back to the Egypt of the past. Also included are three other works \u2014 &#8220;The Lone Seminole,&#8221; The One Gift,&#8221; and &#8220;Egrets&#8221; \u2014 but I don&#8217;t think they are fantastical. These seem set in Florida, so it would be interested to read to see how accurate they are.<\/p>\n<p>Garrett P. Serviss (1851-1929) was a journalist and astronomer who dabbled in early sf with a handful of tales, most of which have been reprinted by others. <em>A Columbus of Space and The Moon Metal: The Garrett P. Serviss Omnibus, Volume 1<\/em> is the first of two volumes. These two stories appeared in <em>The All-Story<\/em> magazine. &#8220;A Columbus of Space&#8221; is about a visit to Venus that shows a planet with two races, one on the light side and another on the dark side, who don&#8217;t know the other exists. &#8220;The Moon Metal&#8221; is about a mysterious figure who offers a new valuable metal, artemsium, which the gold market collapses due to overabundance.<\/p>\n<p>As there are only a few other stories he&#8217;s done, will the second volume include <em>The Air Pirate, The Second Deluge, Edison&#8217;s Conquest of Mars<\/em>, and <em>The Moon Maiden<\/em>? I&#8217;ve yet to get into reading Serviss, so may get this one.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Black Tide: The Complete Adventures of Bellow Bill Williams, Volume 1<\/em> is the first of I don&#8217;t know how many volumes that will reprint <strong>Bellow Bill Williams<\/strong>, a popular character from the 1930s <em>Argosy<\/em>. Bellow Bill is another of those outlandish sailors who get into various adventures in the South Seas. He may be yet another character who inspired <strong>Doc Savage<\/strong>. This volume has his first six stories from 1929-31.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve read and <a href=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2019\/01\/14\/the-adventure-tales-of-w-wirt\/\">reviewed<\/a> the first volume of the stories of <strong>Jimmie Cordie<\/strong> by W. Wirt, and now we get <em>The Nine Red Gods Decide: The Complete Adventures of Cordie, Soldier of Fortune, Volume 2<\/em>. With this volume, the stories are from <em>The Argosy<\/em>, and we get the next five adventures. So I am planning on getting and reviewing this one.<\/p>\n<p>Theodore Roscoe (1906-92) wrote several adventure series and works, and Steeger Books has been reprinting his <strong>Thibaut Corday<\/strong> series. <em>A Grave Must Be Deep!<\/em> is a standalone work, a murder mystery set in Haiti that mixes in voodoo. So it may be interesting to check out.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-american.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[9283]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-9332\" style=\"border: 1px solid #f0f0f0\" src=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-american-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"'The American'\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-american-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-american-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-american-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-american.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a>Max Brand, really <strong>Frederick Faust<\/strong> (1891-1942), is best known as a Western author, but here we get a different work in <em>The American<\/em>, which is a historical epic about an American mixed up with the French Revolution. I find it interesting that all the Max Brand works I see reprinted of late are <em>not<\/em> Westerns.<\/p>\n<p>Another adventure series I am not familiar with is the <strong>Peter Gross<\/strong> series by John Charles Beecham from <em>All-Story Magazine<\/em>. <em>The Complete Adventures of Koyala, Volume 1<\/em> is actually a sub-series within that one, which has the mysterious <strong>Koyala<\/strong>, who is the &#8220;Argus Pheasant of Borneo.&#8221; This South Seas adventure series mixes in &#8220;yellow peril&#8221; as well. This one reprints the first two novels from this sub-series.<\/p>\n<p>Another pulpster I&#8217;m not familiar with, Leonard Cline (1893-1929), apparently wrote <em>The Cult Murders<\/em> under his <strong>Alan Forsyth<\/strong> alias, one of two murder mysteries from <em>Detective Fiction Weekly<\/em> written while serving a sentence for manslaughter. Sadly, he died of a heart attack, which cut short his career. Among other works is one praised by <strong>H.P. Lovecraft<\/strong>, so I need to look more into this author.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s another good series of books. Some I am going to get, a few I might at some point, others probably not. We just got the next two set of Argosy Library works, so I&#8217;ll make comments with the third set. As always, as I read some of these, expect more detailed reviews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In late 2019, we get Series V of the &#8220;Argosy Library,&#8221; from Steeger Books (previously Altus Press), with 10 more books of great &mdash; and sometimes overlooked &mdash; fiction that appeared in the early pulps. We get some stand-alone works, as well as volumes of various sub-series. As always, most are taken from the pulps [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":9332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at the Argosy Library, Series V. #pulpmags @steegerbooks","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[135,14],"tags":[171,443,188,209,1163,404,1165,1166,406,760,1164,94,939,639,1152,651,584],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-9283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reprints","category-review","tag-adventure-pulps","tag-argosy","tag-detective-pulps","tag-frank-a-munsey-co","tag-garrett-p-serviss","tag-george-f-worts","tag-john-charles-beecham","tag-leonard-cline","tag-max-brand","tag-perley-poore-sheehan","tag-ralph-p-perry","tag-science-fiction","tag-steeger-books","tag-theodore-roscoe","tag-thibaut-corday","tag-victor-rousseau","tag-w-wirt"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2019\/12\/the-american.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-2pJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9283"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13301,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9283\/revisions\/13301"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9283"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=9283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}