Mon 25 Jan 2021
Pulp Stories I’m Reading: ERLE STANLEY GARDNER “Slated to Die.â€
Posted by Steve under Pulp Fiction , Stories I'm Reading[13] Comments
ERLE STANLEY GARDNER “Slated to Die.†First published in Argosy Weekly, January 11, 1936. Delbert “Del†Free #1. Novelette. Probably never collected or reprinted.
Del Free, whose first and most likely only appearance this was, is one of those gentlemen of leisure in Erle Stanly Gardner’s pulp stories who every so often seeks out adventure by poring carefully over the personal ads of local newspapers and sees what he can find. Here’s the one that catches his eye to start this story off:
At eleven o’clock tonight drive your
car to place where you had your puncture
about a month ago when you walked in to
the Big-E-Garage. Park it and wait. We
will blink our lights three times. Every-
one well. Sends love. A. B. C.
This, of course, would catch my eye, too, if I had the free time and a lust for doing something out of the ordinary. Free scouts out the area, finds a car he thinks may be Valere’s, blinks his lights three times, and finds himself way over his head in, of all things, a kidnapping scheme, and caught between a girl who is trying to pay off the gang who are holding her father ransom, the gang members themselves, and yet another gang who also has read the same personal ad that Free has.
The result, from the point of view of the reader of the story itself, is a long, involved tale of who is where, doing what, being captured and threatened with torture before escaping, and in general racing around not knowing exactly what is going on, the latter on the part of all three parties.
There is no deduction in this tale. It is pure action from start to finish. Not one of Gardner’s better tales, but even so, third rate Gardner is a lot better than a lot of his competitors.
One other thing. Most of the rest of this issue of Argosy Weekly is taken up by small chunks of serial installments, which is why most pulp collectors today are not all that interesting in buying single issues of the magazine. There are four such installments in this issue: various portions of novels by Borden Chase, H. Bedford-Jones, Karl Detzer, and Dennis Lawton.
Question: Did those people who bought copies of Argosy from their local newsstand back in 1936 read a given issue straight through and throw them away, or did they stack them up at home and then read novels that had been serialized only once they had all the parts together? It’s too late to ask anyone who was there then, but maybe some of you just happen to remember how their grandparents handled this.
January 25th, 2021 at 8:08 pm
They were marketed with the idea you read them straight through, and from the letters pages in ADVENTURE I think many did since the frequently mention a particular installment of a serial and looking forward to the next.
Like comic books they were designed as disposable literature not to be collected and reread, and the fact so many serials were later slightly changed and re-issued in cheap hardcovers suggests they were considered impermanent in their original form.
Some pulps were coming out twice a month at some points in their history making following serials a bit easier.
Speed was always a Gardner hallmark, and one reason he remains compulsively readable. If you are reading primarily for escape Gardner’s headlong way of telling a story is perfect. Even later in the Perry Mason stories where plots could get fairly Byzantine Gardner hardly pauses for a breath as if he expected the reader to finsih at one sitting.
January 25th, 2021 at 8:32 pm
The biggest offender, in terms of how many serials were going at one time, was ARGOSY, but do note that the full title was ARGOSY WEEKLY.
It made it easier, I imagine, to keep track of all the various story lines. Not that everyone liked and cared to follow all four that were offered at a time.
Also weekly with a multitude of serials going at once were WESTERN STORY and DETECTIVE STORY WEEKLY.
January 25th, 2021 at 8:52 pm
That weekly status helped in the slick magazines too. The Post ran two or three serials at the same time and multiple shorts at their height, but the serials ran from four to eight weeks depending on the length of the piece.
Aside from assuring readers would buy the next issue serials also meant that you didn’t have time to invest in a lot of other magazines since most people would be struggling to read one issue of any magazine a week much less follow several.
January 25th, 2021 at 9:10 pm
My grandparents subscribed to Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, the American Magazine, and I think, but am not sure, both Look and Life. No pulp magazines, ever, but that’s still a lot of reading. My favorite among them was the American Magazine, maybe because I could handle it better than the others, supersized all.
January 25th, 2021 at 11:31 pm
Don’t forget most readers liked serials and did not bother to save up the issues to read the installments all at once. They liked reading the serial part and then wondering what was going to happen in the next installment a week or month away.
This may have first became evident during the time Charles Dickens was writing serials. Some readers were so excited by the serial process that they couldn’t stand the suspense and would wait outside the bookstores and newsstands for the next issue. Publishers noticed this and thus we have Argosy and All Story with 5 or 6 serials sometimes.
January 25th, 2021 at 11:58 pm
I agree. It’s been probably the #1 format since Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Shaped reading habits for generations; even back to the days of steam-driven presses. Inherent to publishing. Huge topic that I’ve never seen completely summed up by anyone.
And then the silent studios got hold of it with the cliffhangers (‘girl tied to train tracks’, ‘villain twirling mustache’ etc).
January 26th, 2021 at 1:22 am
I can’t help but compare and contrast Gardner, and indeed many of pulp fiction’s millionaire playboy rogues, with his contemporary (at the time of this story) Eric Ambler’s common men thrust into uncommon situations.
Gardner played the situation for action and thrills, while Ambler used it to explore and expose the connections between big money, politics and war by all means. Gardner is more fun; Ambler is the one I’ll remember.
This may be because I was re-reading Uncommon Danger yesterday.
January 26th, 2021 at 1:27 am
“Gardner is more fun; Ambler is the one I’ll remember.”
Beautifully said, Sai.
January 26th, 2021 at 9:31 am
The last big ballyhooed magazine serial I can remember is TRUE GRIT in the SATURDAY EVENING POST, late 1960s.
Or am I missing something?
January 26th, 2021 at 1:37 pm
While thinking about Dan’s question about the last big magazine serial, I had to sadly realize that magazine fiction is just about dead now. As for serials, Asimov’s SF and Analog still run serials but not many and they don’t impress me as being “big”. We still have F&SF, EQMM, AHMM, Interzone and Black Static but they don’t run serials. The online fiction I don’t consider magazines. New Yorker runs one story each issue but no serials and the same applies to all the many literary journals and little magazines.
So serials are just about dead and in fact so is magazine fiction compared to the good old days of the pulp era and digest magazine boom.
January 26th, 2021 at 7:33 pm
I seem to recall LIFE or LOOK breaking their habit regarding fiction to run Leon Uris TOPAZ, and the POST ran Eric Ambler’s DIRTY STORY and Derek Marlowe’s DANDY IN ASPIC (as THE ASSASSIN) fairly late in the game. By around 1969 or 1970 they were only publishing the rare short story.
I agree with Walker about readers liking serials, and in those days there was a good deal less competition for their attention.
I wonder if the original creators of the pulps would be flattered or horrified (or both) at the prices some of issues now command?
January 27th, 2021 at 9:49 am
I’m old enough to remember serialized SF stories in Science Fiction magazines. I used to wait until I had all the parts (usually 3 installments). Waiting three months was sometimes agonizing, but being able to read the complete serialized novel in a day or so made the process worth it.
January 27th, 2021 at 10:28 am
Exactly what I always did. I always hated it when up to half of a magazine was taken up by a serial I couldn’t (wouldn’t) read for another month or two. Weekly installments might have been tolerable, but not monthly. And either way, what if you were late at the news kiosk and you missed the last issue?