Mon 6 Sep 2010
This and That, Following a Holiday Weekend.
Posted by Steve under Characters , Personal Notes , Pulp Fiction , Reference works / Biographies[10] Comments
The last time I was seriously online was Friday, which was when Hurricane Earl had us in New England squarely in his sights and was barreling up the coast toward us. Most of the projections were correct, though, and the storm missed us … by that much.
We scurried around outside the house though, picking up and storing in the garage the table and chairs on the deck and anything else strong winds might pick up and dash down the street, or through a window, just in case. Sometime preparations in advance work, and it did this time. All we got was 15 minutes of rain and no wind to speak of.
Just a little excitement to start the beginning of September and the end of summer. Wish I could say that postings on this blog are going to become a little less erratic, but I don’t think I can. Bear with me. I didn’t mean to go quiet all weekend, but that’s the way it turned out. It wasn’t planned; it just happened.
I also am hoping to get caught up on email sometime soon. If you haven’t heard from me in a while, and you were expecting to, I apologize. Your only consolation might be that you’re not alone. I’ll try to do better.
Looking back, I didn’t do a lot of reading in August, and that frustrates me, but everything I’ve read has been reported on here. Not reviewed have been six or so movies, but it’s been too long since I’ve seen them for me to report on them with any feeling that I could do them justice. You’ll have to wait until I watch them again, which I may.
What follows are some announcements of sorts, some of this and more of that, as the heading says. Some might deserve posts of their own, but in order to cover them all quickly, I’ll combine them into this one long post.
â— First of all, I’d like to to remind you that Dan Stumpf’s book ’Nada, as by Daniel Boyd, which I previewed here last July has now been published. You can buy it from Amazon and other online sources, and if I may once again, I strongly recommend that you do.
I’ve just posted a version of my review of the book on Amazon, but I see that both Bill Crider and George Kelley have beaten me to it. (All three of us have given it five stars.)
â— Ken Johnson has asked me to mention that he’s revised and expanded his checklist of the digest-sized paperbacks that were published mostly in the 1940s. I’m happy to do so, and in fact what I will do is publish his note to me in full:
“I want to let people know that The Digest Index, my online reference to digest-size paperbacks, which was originally posted two and a half years ago, has now been substantially revised and reposted. It is hosted by Bruce Black on his Bookscans website and can be accessed here: http://bookscans.com/Publishers/digestindex/digestindex.htm
“Among the revisions are the addition of 11 new imprints, the addition of series information into both author indexes (to books and contents), and the addition of artist identifications into the publisher index. Because I still lack a lot of cover artist data, I did not attempt a full artist index but instead supplied a summary of which imprints each artist was mentioned under and plugged in scanned samples of their signatures. This is in addition to tightening up the original data with more identification of abridgments and retitles, as well as additional personal data for a number of authors.
“I’ve put a lot of effort into this Index, but it still has a lot of holes in it. Additions and corrections are always welcome. Actually, feedback of any kind is welcome; I get the sense sometimes that hardly anyone has seen it.”
To which I reply, while I don’t go there every day, I do find the need to refer to it at least once a week. A large percentage of these books were either mysteries and westerns, making the information for me very useful. It’s a remarkable piece of work. Check it out!
â— Finally, a comment left by the anonymous PB210 following my review of a Hugh North novel by Van Wyck Mason needs some additional exposure, I thought:
“I tried to compare the Hugh North novels to other long running secret agent novel series by one author:
Hugh North: 1930 to 1968, 38 years, all by Van Wyck Mason
Matt Helm: 1960 to 1993, 33 years, all by Donald Hamilton (one remains
unpublished)
Quiller: 1965 to 1996: 31 years, by Adam Hall/Elleston Trevor
Modesty Blaise (in prose): 1965 to 1996, 31 years, by Peter O’Donnell
“So far based on what I have written above, De Villiers has the overall record, while Van Wyck Mason has the record in the English language. Others more knowledgeable may have thought of a longer series by one author.
“Anyone have any information about Herbert New?”
I’ve not had a chance to check any of PB210’s data, nor do I know the Herbert New to whom he refers in his last question, but comments and suggestions of other authors are most certainly welcome.
September 6th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
De Villiers would seem to win hand down since as far as I know he is still writing them at 80. As for longest running spy series OSS 117, Hubert Bonisoir de la Bath by Jean Bruce has run from 1948 to 2010 — but continued by his wife, son, and grandchildren since 1964.
Clarence Herbert New’s Freelances of Diplomacy series ran for twenty five years in BLUE BOOK, but only one book appeared.
However, Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu ran from 1912 to 1960 all featuring secret agent/sleuth Sir Denis Nayland Smith.
William Le Queux wrote from 1890 to 1929 but had no single series character in most of them. Similarly E. Phillips Oppenheim wrote spy fiction from around 1914 to 1940.
Colin Forbes Tweed series ran from 1982 to 2007. Valentine Williams Clubfoot from 1921 to 1946. Bernard Newman’s Papa Potntivy ran from 1938 to 1960, and Manning Coles Tommy Hambledon a bit longer than that
But single author single series most likely De Villiers and Mason are the winners, though I wonder if De Villiers actually writes all the Malko Linge series himself since they are a small industry in themselves even spilling over into comics and published by his own company.
I’d have to give Mason pride of place based only on the fact that the North books were a hardcover series, not paperback originals (the same goes for Quiller and Modesty Blaise).
September 6th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Steve
Glad you rode out the hurricane. I’ve been in a few when I lived on the Gulf Coast including Carla back in 1960 when they shut everything down and the Guard came in and enforced martial law (but I got out of school — so who cares).
Sounds as if you missed the worst of it thankfully.
At least a tornado doesn’t generally hit that broad an area, plus it is over with in minutes, though nailing things down is a bit pointless. In general I’d rather avoid both.
September 6th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Thanks, David. I was fairly sure you could add substantially to the list!
As for Clarence Herbert New, he’s new to me!!
I’ll have to look some more into his adventures. Obviously I don’t know as much about BLUE BOOK magazine as I should.
September 6th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Not only did New’s series run in BLUEBOOK for so many years, it was in every issue except for one issue that he missed because a bear chewed off his arm. He had other shorter series running under various names also in BLUEBOOK, such as Culpepper Zandt, etc. Really quite an amazing achievement to be in every issue of a quality fiction magazine for a couple decades.
Steve, if you want to get a crash course on Clarence New in BLUEBOOK, talk to Digges La Touche at the NYC Paperback show on Sept 19, 2010. He has a near photographic memory and has read most of the series of the years. Frankly, the series is not a big favorite of mine and I find the stories too turgid and talky. But I consider this to possibly be my fault in failing to be able to appreciate the stories.
September 6th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Turgid and talkie isn’t entirely unfair to New, but there is some fun to be had with them, especially if you can tolerate or enjoy Le Queux and Oppenheim. The best I can describe them is a sort of cross between the Scarlet Pimpernel and Mission Impossible.
Robert Sampson has quite a bit to say about him and the series in volume 6 of YESTERDAY’S FACES. Sampson describes the Freelancer’s series as more or less a 2 million word novel.
And as Walker says, that run in a magazine like BLUE BOOK may be unprecedented.
For anyone interested you can download the book collection for free from Google Books replete with illustrations if you have an Adobe Reader.
September 6th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Glad you weathered the storm, Steve….(Sorry, puns are a nasty habit I just can’t break.)
Thanks for the timely reminder of ‘Nada. I’ve just ordered it from Amazon.
I also ordered Chinese-born Yuate Huang’s new non-fiction memoir/study “Charlie Chan: The Untold Story Of The Honorable Detective And His Rendezvous With American History”.
I’m eager to read them both.
September 6th, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Oh, re Quiller, Elleston Trevor’s son worked on the books with him not unlike Dick Francis collaboration with his wife and son and Clive Cussler’s with his son. The last Quiller novel was completed by his son.
As I said, I don’t know, but would be surprised if all the Malko Linge books were by De Villiers alone, though it is possible. Other long running French spy/adventure series include Francis Coplan (also films and comics), Nick Jordan, Bob Moraine (films, comics, and an animated series), and a few others, but Bruce’s OSS 117 began in ’48 and is still running even to two recent films.
September 19th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Bit of an update:
Philip McCutchan wrote the Commander Shaw novels from 1960 to 1995, which makes 35 years.
Regarding Dirk Pitt; I kind of wanted to use the one author to exclude the multiple author series such as Nick Carter. Cussler wrote the Dirk Pitt novels solo from 1973 to 2003, so that gives him 30 years.
Thanks for the information/clarification on Elleston Trevor/Adam Hall.
February 6th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Another thirty plus years long series with one author; Charles McCarry’s Paul Christopher novels ran from 1973 to 2007, for a total of 34 years.
It still surprises me that in the English language, few authors have come close to meeting Van Wyck Mason’s records.
September 18th, 2011 at 10:17 am
William Haggard’s Colonel Russell series ran from 1958 to 1990, so 32 years; still not matching Mason.