Wed 13 Oct 2010
COLLECTING PULPS: A MEMOIR, Part 3 – Detective Fiction Weekly, by Walker Martin.
Posted by Steve under Collecting , Columns , Pulp Fiction[32] Comments
PART THREE — DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY
by Walker Martin
Every now and then collectors of detective pulps mention The Big Three, which refers to the best three detective/crime magazines: Black Mask, Dime Detective, and Detective Fiction Weekly, in that order.
Detective Fiction Weekly lasted over 900 issues during 1924-1951, mostly on a weekly basis. The first few years it was known as Flynn’s and Flynn’s Weekly and had the subtitle of “Detective Fiction with the Thrill of Truth.” William J. Flynn was credited as being the editor and blurbed as having been “25 years in the Secret Service of the U.S.”
The early issues had some photo covers and printed many so-called factual or “true” articles. However they read like fiction to me and now strike me as sort of dated and not very readable. In fact, I cannot recall ever meeting a collector who really liked the early issues in the mid-twenties.
Flynn’s was published by Munsey and was a companion magazine to Argosy. The best fiction was written by a sort of Golden Age group of writers: Agatha Christie, Edgar Wallace, J.S. Fletcher, Caroline Wells, Freeman Wills Crofts, H.C. Bailey, R. Austin Freeman, and Mary Roberts Rinehart.
For example Agatha Christie in addition to several short stories, also had as a serial, Who Killed Ackroyd? Edgar Wallace published the J. G. Reeder stories as well as several serials. Arthur Reeve was present with his Craig Kennedy series. But these writers were outnumbered by quite a few mediocre and forgotten authors.
However all this was to change starting with the June 2, 1928 issue when Flynn’s Weekly became Detective Fiction Weekly. Howard Bloomfield took over as editor somewhere around this period, and during his six years as editor he changed the magazine for the better.
Gone were the bland covers, and by 1929 they had a bright yellow eye-catching background, showing a lot more action and violence. The contents page was redesigned and the magazine now looked more attractive and impressive. He started to publish such writers as Erle Stanley Gardner, H. Bedford-Jones, Fred MacIsaac, Fred Nebel, George Harmon Coxe, Frederick C. Davis, MacKinlay Kantor, all with their first stories for DFW.
Instead of the more sedate and quiet crimes of the Flynn’s era, Bloomfield wanted a tougher story with more action and humor. He also started using the work of Carroll John Daly on a more frequent basis.
Bloomfield was so successful at sprucing up DFW, that Popular Publications hired him to revive and reinvigorate Adventure magazine during 1934-1940.
As an example of his success with DFW, the Jan 11, 1930 issue has an interesting letter column, known as “Flashes From Readers”, in which an announcement is made that DFW had 69 stories mentioned as notable in the O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1929. All 69 of the stories are listed with the comment that the total from all other detective magazines combined is 79. The nearest competitor had only 21 stories. This shows quite an improvement in the quality of fiction.
Of course the competition published far fewer issues since they were on a mostly monthly schedule. Black Mask had a total of 340 issues and Dime Detective had 273. For DFW to fill over 900 issues on a weekly basis is the sort of statistic that is hard to grasp.
Most pulps published 12 issues a year, which must of been hard to fill with quality fiction. But DFW’s 52 issues a year would drive an editor to a nervous breakdown. If enough good fiction was not available one week you just could not publish blank pages. That explains the variable quality of some of the contents.
But there were plenty of good writers and many series characters to keep readers amused. It’s true that Dashiell Hammett appeared only once under the name of Samuel Dashiell (Oct 19, 1929) and Raymond Chandler also once in May 30, 1936.
However readers also loved Erle Stanley Gardner who appeared dozens of times with such series characters as Lester Leith, Sidney Zoom, Patent Leather Kid, Senor Lobo, and The Man in the Silver Mask. Richard Sale was very popular and also had many witty stories starring newpaper reporter, Daffy Dill and photographer, Candid Jones.
Norbert Davis and John K. Butler were popular as was Fred MacIsaac. Unfortunately MacIsaac either fell out of favor with the editors in the late 1930’s or developed an enormous writer’s block because he committed suicide in 1940. Judson Phillips was very popular and had a long running series about the Park Avenue Hunt Club.
Another popular writer was Carroll John Daly with such series characters as Satan Hall, Mr Strang, and Twist Sullivan. Daly is a very controversial figure among readers and collectors. He is often credited as being the first writer to deal with the hardboiled private detective and his name on the cover often meant a 15% percent increase in circulation.
However many readers find that his novels have not held up well and that he is almost unreadable. Stephen Mertz wrote a defense of Daly in The MYSTERY FANcier dated May 1978. In the article he states that Daly is as good or better as Hammett, a very strong opinion not shared by many.
Over the years I have leaned more toward the view that Daly was not a good writer simply because I found his stories to be dated and not too believable. Race Williams often annoyed me by stopping the story dead, and speaking directly to the reader.
However, I do have to admit that on occasion I have liked Race Williams. Since Daly is not a big favorite of mine, it has been a long time since I tried one of the stories. Because I was writing this column about DFW, I recently read “Parole” in the April 6, 1935 issue.
This is the first of three novelettes introducing Mr. Strang, a vigilante and bitter foe of the corrupt parole system. I actually enjoyed the story and found it to be more subdued and not as unbelievable as much of Daly’s work. The theme of a corrupt parole system is not dated and is still a problem today.
In fact the editors followed Daly’s novelette with an article titled, “The Ghastly Folly of Parole”, which goes into the abuses of the parole system. One abuse that still occurs is when a murderer is sentenced to life and gets out on parole after seven years.
Since Daly was popular in all three of The Big Three, there must be some validity to those that find his work to be enjoyable as action crime fiction.
Another writer who did not write about series characters but was one of the top authors was Cornell Woolrich. Starting in 1934 he wrote dozens of suspenseful mysteries for DFW.
To give you an idea of the tremendous number of series running in the magazine, here is a listing of the series I noticed in the span of a half year or 26 issues. Most of these are not by well known writers but will show the emphasis on series:
Donald Barr Chidsey — Morton & McGarvey
H. Bedford-Jones — Riley Dillon
J. Allan Dunn — The Griffon
Milo Ray Phelps — Fluffy McGoff
Edward Parrish Ware — Ranger Calhoun
— Battle Mckim
Victor Maxwell — Sgt Riordan
Eugene Thomas — The Lady From Hell
Franklin Martin– Felix Luke
T. T. Flynn — Mike & Trixie
Sidney Herschel Small — Richard Wentworth (not The Spider)
J.Lane Linklater — Paul Pitt
Serials were a regular feature with at least one and sometimes two per issue.
While thinking about this article, I looked through all 900 issues and noticed that I had obtained almost all the issues in the early 1970’s at only $1 or $2 each. I know this beyond a doubt because I penciled in the price paid on the corner of the contents page.
I know it’s hard to believe, but I even paid as low as 15 or 25 cents per issue. Which brings up the question of why, even 40 years later, DFW is still one of the most inexpensive pulps to collect. You can still find copies for sale at the $20 or less price, even while issues of Black Mask and Dime Detective often are priced at over $100 for copies in the 1930’s.
Because DFW was a weekly, it must have had a high circulation and therefore issues appear to be more numerous than the monthly pulps. Also the magazine did not have a lot of Hammett and Chandler, so we don’t see issues for sale at hundreds of dollars each.
Since they were filling 52 issues a year, the quality of the magazine appears to be lower than Black Mask and Dime Detective, who only had to find good fiction for 12 issues. At any rate, DFW is a bargain nowadays and issues are a lot more numerous than some other titles.
I’ve talked before about the influence of Ron Goulart’s book The Hardboiled Dicks. I started to hunt down copies of DFW and found my first large amount at a fellow collector’s home.
He had stacks of most of the issues when it was known as Flynn’s Weekly. He was willing to accept less than $1 each because of condition. It seems a coal miner had read the magazines in a coal mine and stored them there, perhaps because his wife would not let him keep them in the house, a common problem with non-collecting spouses.
The issues were covered with coal dust and no matter how you scrubbed or wiped the copies the dust would remain. After reading one these magazines, your hands would be black and your lungs clogged with the dust. I still have these copies and 40 years later the dust is still there.
There also must have been rats in the mine because some of the issues have big chunks chewed out of the corners. Since the type is ok, the stories can still be read even though the pulp chips are falling heavily and the coal dust leaves a black mark.
Some collectors have asked me why I accepted less than good copies like the magazines described above or reading copies lacking the front cover, etc. I was simply buying so many different titles, not to mention books and vintage paperbacks, that I could not afford to hold out for only the best.
I was not rich and had the usual responsibilities such as wife, children, home mortgage, car payments, etc. If I was going to build up complete sets before the prices rose up above what I could afford, then I could not be too fussy about condition.
I’ve noticed most condition collectors who look for so called “fine” condition, do not really read the books and magazines. Or if they do read them, then except for SF, it is just about impossible to put together a complete set of the different titles.
There are a few exceptions but I’m always surprised at collectors who do not read the books or magazines that they collect. I like nice condition just like everybody else but I’m basically interested in reading, not just looking at the book in a shrink wrap.
As usual with these memoirs, there always is a woman involved. With the exception of a half dozen or so women collectors, most ladies do not care about old magazines and see them as so much clutter and a waste of time and money. Women and pulps do not mix.
Here is another tale of woe in the battle between pulps and females. The first DFW I ever found was in an enormous second hand bookstore in Trenton, NJ called Acres of Books. In 1970 I had a job in an office building near the store and just about every lunch hour I would walk over and spend the hour, not eating and talking about nothing like my non-collecting co-workers, but happily digging through boxes of old books.
Since the job required that I wear a suit and a tie, I often arrived back from lunch in less than presentable shape. It took me a long time to gain the confidence of the old lady who managed Acres of Books but after seeing me at lunch for several months, she finally let me into the “Pulp Section.” This was a roped off forbidden section containing the valuable “collector’s items.”
She let me pick out one DFW from 1930 and as we arrived at the cash register, I had visions of the price being more than I could pay. She said “that will be 25 cents.” To her, asking a quarter for a dime magazine, was a big mark up. She still remembered the 1930’s and the depression as being not that long ago.
Needless to say, I soon talked her into letting me buy a lot more than one pulp at a time. At the time I was dating a receptionist and as I passed her desk she noticed my dusty condition and wondered what on earth happened to me during lunch.
I used this as an opportunity to introduce her to the world of pulp magazine collecting and I took the DFW out of the dirty bag to show her. I gave my usual speech about what a pulp was and handed her the magazine. She held it as far as possible from her and with a puzzled expression said only, “It smells.”
As my friends know, I love the smell of the different pulps; each title has its own special scent and aroma. So this reaction from a girl I was interested in was not a promising sign at all.
DFW eventually came to a bad end, as did all the pulps, slowly fading away. In the early 1940’s they must have been having circulation problems and the magazine went from weekly, to every other week, to monthly.
They tried covers with just the story titles and no illustrations and they tried the larger size of 8 1/2 by 11. They even tried covers showing Nazis whipping girls in their underwear. Nothing worked and they finally sold the title to Popular Publications.
They put out 20 monthly issues in 1943 and 1944 before the paper shortage killed off the title. It was revived for 6 issues in 1951 but by then the pulps were dying and on their way out. Coming around the corner were the digest mystery magazines like Manhunt, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Saint, Mike Shayne, and so on, but that’s another story.
The days of the great pulp titles were over and by 1955 nothing much remained except SF Quarterly and Ranch Romances.
Because pulp reprints are so popular, I’m sure there will soon be collections of the series characters. Battered Silicon Dispatch Box Press already has published a collection of the Bedford-Jones Riley Dillon stories and there is an enormous two volume Park Avenue Hunt Club collection by Judson Phillips.
But the original pulp magazines are so inexpensive, you can easily find affordable copies of DFW on eBay or at the two pulp conventions: Windy City Pulp Convention in Chicago and Pulpfest in Columbus, Ohio. One thing is for sure. There is a lot of good mystery and detective reading in 900 issues!
Previously on Mystery*File: Part Two — Collecting Dime Detective.
Coming next: Part Four — Collecting Detective Story Magazine.
Editorial Comment: A fine companion piece to this chapter of Walker’s memoirs is “Those Detective Fiction Weekly Mugs,” by Terry Sanford, in which he discusses some the series characters which populated the pages of the magazine. You can find it here on the main Mystery*File website.
October 13th, 2010 at 6:24 pm
Another great piece, Walker. 900 issues! Wish I had them all. I too enjoyed Daly’s “Parole.” I certainly don’t consider him a “good” writer, but he sure is fun to read. The first three Mr. Strang stories were published in hardcover as Mr. Strang, and in a review some time back I laid out my reasons for believing Strang should be considered a Hero Pulp character. The four-part sequel, “The Legion of the Living Dead” is also a kick. One of Steve Mertz’s favorite Daly characters is Doc Fay (also from DFW), whom I have yet to sample.
October 13th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
I’ve been having fond thoughts of you lately, Walker, after the great image of my dear, departed friend, Michael Avallone, looking over your pulp collection. However, while I’m too lazy to check on that old article, I’m pretty sure I didn’t say Daly was a BETTER writer than Hammett. If I did say that, I was wrong. What I recall saying is that (as of that writing–what, 30 years ago?) Daly’s influence (the vigilante 2-gun hero) was more apparent in the mass market success of everyone from Spillane to Pendleton, while that lean, diamond hard Hammett/Joe Shaw style was short-lived & soon softened and, by 1940, had pretty much given way to the more poetic stylings of writers like Chandler & Ross MacDonald. Ah, the heck with it. On a more newsworthy front,I am working at getting a collection published of Daly’s post war work, which I’ve always enjoyed more than his Mask, Dime and DFW stuff. It should be out early next year with (hopefully) plenty of hoopla.
October 13th, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Steve
Count me in for any new Daly collection. While I don’t think you can exactly call him a good writer, his best work can be entertaining and has a raw spirit and energy that to me is what the pulps were all about. He isn’t the artist Hammett or Chandler were or the professional Gardner was, but at his best — and some argue his Satan Hall series for DFW is his best — he had a grab you by the collar and drag you into the narrative quality that epitomizes the pulps.
Walker
DFW published some of my favorite pulp series, the above mentioned Satan Hall, Gardner’s Lester Leith and Sydney Zoom, Richard Sale’s Daffy Dill (love to see those collected), and Judson Phillips (Hugh Pentecost) Park Avenue Hunt Club — among whose memebers is my favorite Pentecost sleuth, red bearded Viking artist John Jericho.
As for the pristine copy vs the reading copy, I suspect you are right. Those of us who actually want to read the thing mostly hope it doesn’t crumble into little brown chips in our hands when we touch it. Not that we don’t appreciate a pristine copy, but a readable copy of someting we have been hunting for and wanting to read is often just as rich a find.
I’m the same way about books — there are one or two that have to be kept in plastic bags to keep all the pages together, but they are so rare and contain things that I can’t find elsewhere I’m just glad to have them. I’ve one old anthology that included Lord Charnwood’s complete impossible crime novel TRACKS IN THE SNOW, that is little more than a pair of covers a remnant of a spine and pages hanging on by a whisper, but because almost nothing in it has been reprinted it’s a favorite. Sort of the Tiny Tim of my collection (Dickens, not the Tonight Show).
That may define the true difference between the collector and the reader/collector. Sort of like the hunter who only takes the trophy vs the guy who eats what he kills.
October 13th, 2010 at 11:08 pm
I’m sure that you’re right, Walker, about the 1920’s FLYNN’S being filled with fairly mediocre stuff, and I don’t have many of that vintage myself. But any magazine that published Christie and her Ackroyd novel — something I never realized before — ought to be looked into a little more carefully.
I remember the days when DFW could be obtained for one or two dollars each, fondly! I have scattered runs of them, and you do need to have runs of them — if you’re a reader. With usually two serial installments in each issue (of two different novels) it doesn’t leave much for reading, if all you have is just one issue.
If you buy pulps just for the covers, though, it doesn’t matter, but then that was never me.
October 14th, 2010 at 1:01 am
Evan says, “900 issues! Wish I had them all.” That was exactly my feeling when I started collecting the title. Today, of course the twenties are not common, but it is possible to pick up the 1930’s and 1940’s issues at inexpensive prices. Ebay is a source but you always have to add postage to everything you buy. However the two pulp conventions are a mother load of back issues. That’s why I recommend that readers/collectors attend Windy City Pulp Convention and PulpFest. It is true there is hotel, travel, and food expense, but where else will you find thousands of pulps? And the expense is also offset by the great friends and contacts you will make at the shows. To be a collector you must have a passion or drive to obtain your wants. When you find a collection of rare books or magazines you will feel a high very similar to any type of addiction or drug. But it won’t kill you or ruin your health!
Stephen Mertz: Mike Avallone for around the last 10 years of his life became part of a group that often met at my house or attended pulp meetings at Al Tonik’s home. We would talk books and pulps all day and eat just about everything in sight. Mike was the most enthusiastic member of the group always upbeat, telling jokes, quoting lines from the movies, and though he did not have many pulps, he clearly loved them, especially THE SPIDER. He loved my wife’s Italian cooking and was always complimenting her, etc. People either took a liking to Mike or else they immediately took offense, usually because he was maybe TOO friendly and over the top. I’ve seen this happen more than once but our group was happy to have him as a friend. I think moving to the West Coast might have been a mistake because he became separated from all his East Coast pals. Out west, he no longer was the “Fastest typewriter in the East”. A great guy and we all miss him.
David: I certainly agree about Daly’s raw spirit and energy as shown in his pulp work. Concerning collecting for condition, if I had held out for “fine” condition pulps, I would now have maybe a hundred DFW’s instead of 900. The same thing applies to all the other titles I managed to find. I hope to talk about DETECTIVE STORY next and that’s even more issues than DFW, over 1,000. If I had held out for fine condition I wouldn’t even have a hundred issues. The exceptions to all this are the hero pulps and SF. Teenage boys and young men took loving care of the magazines and had that collecting mentality that so many boys have. However, grown men, working guys, office workers, etc, rolled the magazines up and stuck them in their back pockets, passed them around when finished reading, etc. And for the most part they were not reading SF and the hero pulps. The adults read westerns, detective, adventure pulps. Women were addicted to the love pulps and these magazines like LOVE STORY had the biggest circulation. It is very difficult to find these magazines in great condition.
Steve: Yes, DFW deserves to be looked at more closely. That’s one of the reasons I’m writing this series and I bet that’s why you are posting these entries. Another reason is our attempt to get across what it means to be a serious collector. These posts are not historical accounts of the magazines, though that’s part of it, they are accounts of what it was like to have the driving desire to collect and read massive runs of magazines that are unjustly forgotten today. These magazines were once a big part of America’s reading habits and some of them lasted decades and hundreds of issues. This is an attempt to keep their memory alive in today’s culture where magazines are a dying breed and the e-reader is the new book.
Once newstands groaned under the hundreds of pulp, slick, and literary fiction magazine titles. Now we have one short story in the NEW YORKER, not much fiction at all in the literary quarterlies, and no fiction to speak of in our slicks. The few digests like ANALOG, F&SF, EQMM, are just a shadow of what used to exist. Well as collectors, we all know we can recreate and carry on the pulp and digest days. There is alot of good reading buried in those old magazines.
October 14th, 2010 at 6:59 am
“Count me in for any new Daly collection.” I proofread the manuscript for the complete Satan Hall collection, for George Vanderburgh of Battered Silicon Dispatch Box. He got involved with other projects and hasn’t come out with it yet, so I don’t know when he’s planning to bring it out. Send him an e-mail encouraging him to publish it; web site is http://www.batteredbox.com
October 14th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Walker,
I’m enjoying your memories of collecting, just little spare time lately so I never comment. DFW is a quality magazine, worthy of more attention, no doubt about it.
The Stephen Mertz’s article from The MYSTERY FANcier, May 1978(Hello Stephen!) was reprinted with permission 5-6 years ago:
http://www.blackmaskmagazine.com/carroldaly.html
I’ve not provided any new content to the website in years but there are some fine crime fiction related articles archived on the site:
http://www.blackmaskmagazine.com/essays.html
October 14th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Thanks for reminding us about the Daly collection, Rodney. I just sent George an email asking about it as well as the Merle Constiner collection of Luther McGavock stories from BLACK MASK. He has done some great pulp reprints. Thanks also for your help on these projects.
October 14th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Mea Culpa! I have a number of large pulp projects, ready to go. I simply have to merge the illustrations: The Satan Hall Collection; The Luther McGavock Collection with additional stories; The Jimmie Wentworth collection of China Town Adventures; The Philip Strange stories from Air Aces; and finally The Suicide Squad. Many of these are multiple volume collections as well. My delay was precipitated by the appointment of Bob Weinberg and I as the editors of Arkham House Publishers, some 20 months ago. In the interim we have established a list for 2010 through 2014 of publications, and we both have been diligently working through these projects. The Lellenberg is scheduled to ship from York, Pa. on either 15 October or 18 October, and we will take delivery next week. Please continue to be patient, and rest assured I am not sitting on my can in the meantime. Sure I do take time to carve pumpkins, and I suggest you look at my blog http://www.batteredbox.wordpress.com GAV
October 14th, 2010 at 11:48 am
Walker,
Loved the article. Thanks to Ed Hulse I’ve been picking up DFW for the last couple of years, looking specifically for the Erle Stanley Gardner Lester Lieth and Sidney Zoom stories. Love them. But, I’ve also enjoyed many of the other stories. Only have issues from the 30s, haven’t tried any from the 20s.
One thing, you should add Texas Rangers as a pulp that continued till 1958, the February issue was the last and the series was over 200 issues.
I look forward to more of your series here.
Mark
October 14th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
Rob: I’m glad you are enjoying my memories of collecting. Maybe I’m on the right track if serious collectors such as yourself see some value in my comments. Thanks also for the link to the Mertz defense of John Carroll Daly. My printed copy from THE MYSTERY FANCIER is barely readable due to my outraged comments scribbled in the margins. Daly and Hammett together? Sacrilege! Valuable link to the articles about BLACK MASK also. Hope to see you again at Windy City.
George: It’s beyond me where you find the time to be co-editor of Arkham House and still publish the Battered Silicon books. We eagerly await the pulp reprints that you mention.
Hi Mark: I’m glad you are a DFW convert. You can safely follow Ed Hulse’s advice. He is one of the very few “condition” collectors who actually reads the pulps. I’m eagerly waiting for his revised and expanded BLOOD N THUNDER GUIDE TO THE PULPS, the best one volume history of the entire field.
October 14th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Another excellent article Walker. DFW is one of my favorites also. I shall be looking forward to your next installment.
October 14th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
I have a soft spot for DFW because a 1931 issue of that magazine was the first pulp I ever bought. I think I paid a quarter for it at a used bookstore in downtown Fort Worth sometime in the mid-Sixties. I used to have quite a few other issues and enjoyed them, too.
October 14th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
Thanks for the excellent article on my favorite pulp title. I have about 770 issues of this pulp, and regularly read or reread the great stories. For PEAPS I have been writing articles about the series in DFW. Just finished one about Shamus Maguire, one of my favorites who ran from 1932-1934. I could go on at length about this pulp, but will restrain myself. The longest running series in DFW is the Sergeant Riordan series, which ran from 1925-1939. I regularly search Ebay for the issues I am missing, but it is hard to find the ones I need.
October 14th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Barry: Thanks for your encouragement. I appreciate your comments and you have always been very supportive. We both feel the same, mainly that it is alot of fun to talk about these greae old magazines.
James: Your story about the 25 cent first issue of DFW that you bought sounds like my story also. I’m reminded of the 1950’s when there were many second hand magazine stores that had stacks of pulps 2 for a quarter. Unfortunately, at that time I was only a teenager and just interested in SF. I remember seeing alot of detective, western, and adventure pulps going unsold. When these stores closed up the pulps were just tossed away in most cases.
Monte: I’ve heard of your articles about the series characters in DFW. It’s a shame that the essays remain buried in the PEAPS issues which have a small circulation. I would love to see them reprinted in a book or at least available online. Any chance for a possible collection of your work?
October 15th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I don’t know if you heard, but I’m going to edit a new collection of Lester Leith stories for Doug Greene at Crippen and Landru. I’m reading my own issues of DFW, plus some PDFs I got from the University of Texas – Austin, which have little character, but are more portable.
Any particular uncollected stories you would strongly recommend?
October 15th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Jeff, that’s great news about a collection of Gardner’s Lester Leith stories. The only other one I’m aware of is the 1980 digest, THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF LESTER LEITH. It also came out in a hardcover the next year.
After Ed Jenkins, The Phantom Crook series in BLACK MASK, I consider the Lester Leith series to be among Gardner’s best work in the pulps. I have to admit, though I enjoy the stories and find them humorous, I cannot recommend one over the other. There were over 60 novelets in DFW starting in 1929 and continuing right into the forties. I consider them like potato chips, one of my favorite snack foods. I love them and cannot stop at just one, but I can’t pick one potato chip over another. Maybe Monte can pick some out as being the very best but I just find them fun to read and quite enjoyable. I remember when Bob Weinberg and I discovered Lester Leith back in the 1970’s. He loved the bizarre plots and the insane swindles and robberies. I also found them fast paced and very funny.
October 15th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
I have that first Leith in Hardcover. There are 2 Jenkins collections and he’s been anthologized in several other books. I’m excited to introduce new Leith stories as most collections that I see only re-use the same 5-6 Leith stories that were reprinted in EQMM and then in book form. It will be good to increase the pool of stories to use. Monte recommended using more of the early stories, and I am going to try to find the very last one as well.
October 16th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
I have written 21 series overview articles about the characters in DFW, all fairly short. I doubt if anyone would be willing to publish them in book form, as it would be too small a market. Occasionally an article appears online.
October 18th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
The Lester Leith series is far and away the most entertaining Gardner wrote for DFW. It might be his best pulp series, period. I’m strong for his Phantom Crook stories, but they lack the humor and inventiveness of the Leith yarns.
Walker and I and our mutual friend Digges La Touche (aka The Reading Machine) have often discussed DFW. I think it’s generally an underrated magazine — not as good as BLACK MASK or DIME DETECTIVE, but better than generally assumed. In addition to the characters created for it, DFW also featured novels and novelettes featuring Bulldog Drummond, The Saint, Michael Shayne, and other familiar characters. And it published many of Cornell Woolrich’s finest stories, including PHANTOM LADY. It’s also a bargain for collectors, being far less expensive than most other detective pulps of the period.
October 18th, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Ed Hulse mentions Digges La Touche, otherwise known as “The Major”, after one of his favorite pulp series, or “The Human ATM Machine”, because of his pulp spending habits. Digges not only collects DFW but is one of the last of the old time collectors, who used to excerpt pages from beat up and coverless pulps, and make up their own little booklets and amateur bound volumes. Back in the *old* days, like the 1960’s, 70’s and even 80’s, there used to be quite a few of these guys busily binding and making their own personal books. Jim Archambault, Harry Noble, Darrell Richardson, Mike Fogaris, and other forgotten collectors, liked to do this binding because it gave some “respectability” to the pulps by making the pulps into books plus the practice of binding the series stories together was sort of fun.
I’ve always been against excerpting because I can’t stand to see even a coverless pulp ripped apart. Plus sometimes collectors get carried away and start destroying perfectly good magazines just to get some Max Brand stories under one cover, etc. Digges must have well over a hundred little booklets of pulp fiction, maybe even hundreds.
October 19th, 2010 at 3:38 am
Another aspect of DFW that shouldn’t be overlooked (mentioned in the article) is that they featured some memorable covers over the years — including some for Daly’s Satan Hall and for the Park Ave. Hunt Club. Indeed, that Park Ave. cover of the top hatted gent in white tie and tails weilding a Tommy gun may be one of the most famous pulp paintings ever done.
October 19th, 2010 at 5:48 am
Speaking of DFW original pulp cover paintings, at PulpFest in Columbus Ohio a dealer had a large painting for sale illustrating a 1930’s Richard Sale story starring Daffy Dill and Candid Jones. Price was $3,600 but for some reason I didn’t want to pay over $3,000, so I didn’t buy it. I do have three other DFW cover paintings for which I paid alot lower prices, between $700 and $1500 each.
November 2nd, 2010 at 10:15 am
[…] on Mystery*File: Part Three — Collecting Detective Fiction Weekly. Coming next: Part Five — Collecting the […]
January 14th, 2012 at 9:24 pm
I was interested in finding an article in Detective Fiction Weekly,regarding my grandfather receiving a medal from the publication,inscribed,Detective Fiction Weekly,bravery,to Peter McNeil,July 28,1928.
January 15th, 2012 at 12:33 am
I have this issue and on page 530 there is a half page piece on Peter McNeil, who was a Dockmaster of the Battery, NYC. The article describes his 43rd rescue saving a man from drowning. It also mentions some other rescues. Unfortunately my copy is not in good shape and if I try to photocopy the article for you, the magazine will fall apart.
Perhaps another collector can help you with a copy of the article. I’ve also heard of libraries making copies or getting microfilm copies of magazines. Perhaps the Library of Congress?
April 13th, 2014 at 7:38 pm
This article was interesting and informative. I’ve recently received about 550 issues of DFW from 1924-1941. I really don’t know much about pulp fiction but I am trying to familiarize myself with the grading standards (there seems to be an assortment of standards so I would guess that I should include a copy of the standards I use, in each eBay auction?) I need to know if there is anything besides condition that might influence the value of the individual issues. How would I find out if there are any desired because of authors? artists? series? I’ve fallen in love with these great covers .. do you know if the artwork is public domain or not?
April 14th, 2014 at 9:41 am
That’s quite a collection of DFW’s you have there. In terms of selling them on eBay, you’re right about their condition being important to would-be buyers, and more essential than what you say about them in words, be sure to provide several photos of each. Authors also determine the value, artists not so much. My suggestion would be to list several authors for each issue, especially those for the longer stories and let the would-be buyers pick out the ones they’re looking for.
April 14th, 2014 at 1:56 pm
Steve,
I really appreciate your input about listing the authors. When I volunteered to sell these for family members that have dire financial problems … I had no information to go on except they wanted me to sell a few vintage magazines. I can see now that this will probably take up the majority of the next 6 months or more of my life. I’ve already scanned the front covers of these and put them all in plastic sleeves. I can see that more photos would benefit the description and save me some words … there goes my first week!
I’ve had an offers from someone who wants to sell them on consignment or to buy them outright but with no information about commission fees or who foots the bill for sending(non-media mail) 8 large boxes of fragile magazines across the country.
I’m not overwhelmed yet, but I did have other plans for the summer! Ha!
April 23rd, 2014 at 4:17 pm
Does anyone know where I can find a comprehensive list of authors who contributed to DFW? I’ve been looking for such a list without any luck.
Thanks
October 31st, 2014 at 6:26 am
Yesterday I was at another collector’s house and I saw him sell 141 issues of DFW for only $10.00 each. They all were in nice condition, mostly in the 1920’s. So it appears that the magazine often still sells for low prices.
I just checked ebay and there are a couple hundred issues for sale but it doesn’t look like many are being sold. The prices are all over the place with many being overpriced. I see the 1936 Raymond Chandler issue sold for over $400.
September 20th, 2018 at 3:13 am
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