Tue 2 Nov 2010
COLLECTING PULPS: A MEMOIR, Part Four: Detective Story Magazine, by Walker Martin.
Posted by Steve under Collecting , Columns , Pulp Fiction[33] Comments
PART FOUR — DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE
by Walker Martin
We have so far discussed and covered the so called Big Three: Black Mask, Dime Detective, and Detective Fiction Weekly. However there was a fourth magazine that has not received the proper attention that is due especially when you consider influence and the number of issues published. Detective Story Magazine with the October 5, 1915 issue became the very first pulp magazine to be devoted entirely to detective, mystery and crime fiction.
In fact it just about started the trend for pulps to be devoted to one genre. Earlier examples are Railroad Man’s Magazine in October 1906 and The Ocean in March 1907. But with Detective Story the publisher, Street & Smith, got the idea to develop a line of magazines such as Western Story, Sport Story, Sea Stories, Outdoor Stories, and Love Story. The title showed the reader exactly what type of story he could expect to read.
Not only was this the first of many detective and crime magazines, but it lasted longer than any other detective pulp magazine, 1057 issues during 1915 through 1949. The 1057 issues are even more than 929 issues of Detective Fiction Weekly.
Not too many collectors bother with Detective Story and it certainly is not on the same level as Black Mask, Dime Detective, and Detective Fiction Weekly, but it did publish a lot of interesting stories. In fact if you read and collect hero pulp fiction then Detective Story should be of interest to you because the magazine dealt with heroes and villains, some of which wore costumes and fought crime figures before the first hero pulp titles started in the early 1930’s.
The early issues still showed the dime novel origins (Nick Carter), but soon the fiction moved away from the teenage boy market and started to appeal to the adult mystery and detective fan. Even in 1916 it was possible to read such writers as Johnston McCulley, Sax Rohmer, Caroline Wells and H. Bedford-Jones.
With the February 20, 1917 issue the crude covers improved, showing more color, the price was increased to 15 cents, and 30 extra pages were added for a total of 160. Frank Blackwell was editor, though Nick Carter was first credited, and he remained editor for at least 20 years. Since he also would edit Western Story starting in 1919, he must of had a staff of assistant editors to help with these weekly magazines.
Another man who also lasted 20 years was the cover artist, John A. Coughlin. I know it is hard to believe but he did every cover each week for around 20 years, 1915-1935. As I was recently looking through my set I was watching for some other artist but I never noticed anyone else but Coughlin.
That’s 52 cover paintings each year or over 1,000 for the 20 years. Plus he was doing covers off and on for just about all the other Street & Smith pulps.
During the years I’ve owned several of his cover paintings from Detective Story and at present I still have two. It’s very interesting to see the development of Coughlin as an artist, from the crude early paintings in 1915 and 1916 to his excellent symbolic later work.
I don’t know of any other pulp cover artist who dominated one magazine so thoroughly for a thousand issues. I guess the closest would be Nick Eggenhofer but his work was mainly interior drawings in Western Story and other pulps.
From just about the very beginning the magazine specialized in series characters and in fact there were so many series that I sometimes mistakenly refer to the pulp as Detective Series Magazine. There are perhaps close to a hundred different series, too many to list in this article but I’d like to point out a few of the more interesting ones.
Johnston McCulley was the leader by far and was an expert at developing all types of series. In fact he is responsible for one of the most well known and recognized figures in literature and film, the series character Zorro.
The first series he developed for Detective Story was Black Star, followed by such characters as Terry Trimble, The Spider (no relation to the Norvell Page Spider), Thubway Tham, The Thunderbolt, The Man in Purple, The Avenging Twins, and the Crimson Clown. There may be others that I missed.
Probably the most outrageous character was the Crimson Clown who appeared in around 20 stories in the 1920’s. He’s a crime fighter but for some strange reason he dresses up as a clown in the full clown costume and makeup. I would think this would make him very noticable to the police and criminals.
The Spider appeared in about a dozen long novelettes in the teens and starred John Warwick as the gentleman crook who works for the criminal mastermind, The Spider. Thubway Tham appeared in over a hundred short stories mainly in the twenties and was a lisping pickpocket who worked the subways. The stories have a comedy element but I find them almost unreadable due to the lisping dialog whenever Thubway Tham opens his mouth. However the readers loved his adventures.
A favorite of mine stars John Flatchley, alias The Thunderbolt and his stupid sidekick, Saggs. It is the usual theme of the bored, rich young man robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, etc. He robs from six rich men who legally ripped off investors and he returns the money to the original owners. All this is done without bloodshed.
Erle Stanley Gardner’s Lester Leith was patterned after this type of character as were so many others. The hero wears a hood with a thunderbolt on it and is such a nice, good guy that he carries a gun, but it is empty with no bullets.
Street & Smith had a hardcover line called Chelsea House and many of the stories in these series were eventually published as books. All six stories about The Thunderbolt were collected into two Chelsea House hardcovers.
But there were plenty of other writers also dealing with series characters. Herman Landon, for instance, wrote about The Philanthropist who eventually developed into The Picaroon. Both heroes are gentlemen crooks but they are very strange indeed because after stealing money or jewels, they leave cards stating that the stolen items will be returned if the victim gives 10% of the value to charity.
The charity of choice is usually the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). I find these novelettes absurd, but I love the insane character! Landon had another long running series starring a crime fighter and crook named The Gray Phantom.
One of the most fascinating series was by Arthur Hankins and starred an ex-cop and museum guard named Israel Pocket. The series appeared in 1918 and the hero works undercover in the stomach of a fake whale on exhibit. There he can spy on the museum visitors and prevent crime. His co-workers call him “Jonah.” Even as early as 1918 these six stories show that it was possible for quality fiction to exist in the pulps.
Another interesting series that ran for a long time in the 1920’s was by Roy Hinds and dealt with an elderly Jewish pawnbroker who aids criminals. The Simon Trapp series was humorous, and he was not your typical pulp hero. There is no redeeming Robin Hood morality in many of the stories, and often I finished a story thinking that Simon was crook and that was that.
The Doctor Bentiron stories written by Ernest Poate was another long-running series. Poate has been unjustly forgotten. Dr Bentiron is an interesting and strange character who lies around in his bathrobe, dribbling ashes and chain smoking. He is often bored but manages to solve crimes and has the habit of often grunting for some reason.
Amos Clackworthy by Christopher Booth was a major character whose adventures were reprinted in the Chelsea House hardcovers. Clackworthy is a sophisticated conman who with his sidekick, The Early Bird, gyps suckers and steals their money. Possibly this character had an influence on Erle Stanley Gardner’s Lester Leith character.
Ruth Aughiltree had one of the stranger characters called “Old Windmills”, who was a busy body, senile, old man who solved crimes. A strange detective who I found enjoyable and unintentionally funny.
Mother Hansen, like many of the series characters mentioned above, ran for many stories — another odd series. Written by Paul Ellsworth Triem, she was an old lady who by day sat behind a cash register in a seedy restaurant but in the night she helped reform criminals. The one I just read had a burglar breaking into her house but by the end of the story she has saved the crook from the police and helped him escape.
Edgar Wallace was one of the biggest stars of Detective Story in the twenties and in addition to the interesting “Ringer” series, he had over 20 serials. Only his early death silenced him.
There were many other series, too many to discuss in detail. One of the best of the early writers was Hugh Kahler, who has been just about completely forgotten today. For four years, 1918-1921, he wrote around 35 long novelettes all 40 to 50 pages in length. Just about all of them are well done, some starring series characters named The White Rook, The Joker, The Justice Syndicate.
The stories had elements in them that you usually do not see in pulp fiction from around 1918: love interest handled in an adult manner, well done characterization, a private detective acting in a believable way, and plots that are slowly and carefully developed, leading to a surprise ending.
There is not a lot of violence in these stories, and sometimes the crimes do not even involve murder. One of the more impressive villains is named “The Wiremaster,” who has killed 10 men by some means of electric shock. The ten were unconvicted murderers who had beat the system and the law.
The Wiremaster acts as a vigilante and like many of the heroes and villains likes to send weird letters and threats signed The Wiremaster, The Third Hand, The Picaroon, The Gray Phantom, or The Scarlet Scourge. One story even has a letter signed by “The Green Pansy”.
Kahler eventually graduated to The Saturday Evening Post in 1920 and wrote slick fiction for 20 years. He became a close friend of George Lorimer, The Post’s editor, and was part of the antique collecting circle.
Other writers of note were Agatha Christie with short stories, Dorothy Sayers with a serial, Raymond Chandler with one novelette in 1941, and Carroll John Daly. The format for each issue usually consisted of one or two serial installments, a long novelette, short stories, a true crime article, and several departments.
The following departments ran for most of the magazine’s life: “What Handwriting Reveals,” “Expert Legal Advice,” “The How, When, and Where of Success.” There was also “Under the Lamp,” which dealt with ciphers and puzzles, “Missing,” which listed friends and relatives who had disappeared, and “Headquarters’ Chat,” which printed letters from the readers and announced coming attractions.
On occasion “Popular Detective Story Writers,” written by D.C. Hubbard, gave informal and perhaps incorrect biographical details about the writers. It printed over two dozen bios during 1928 to 1932.
Sometimes collectors have wondered how I managed to amass over 1,000 issues. It’s mainly because of what probably is the biggest windfall and deal during my 50 years of pulp collecting.
In the 1970’s there was one collector who also was collecting Detective Story and we were always bumping heads at the the annual Pulpcons. In fact, he managed to compile a bigger set of the magazine and ended up with 800 issues compared to my 500 issues. But in the early 1980’s the video revolution killed his interest in pulp collecting and instead of attending Pulpcon, he started to collect video tapes. At one point he told me he had several Betamax recorders taping movies.
I then started a campaign of calling and writing him letters every few months and this continued for a few years. The subject was always about him selling me his Detective Story collection.
Finally in 1985, during a telephone call, he told me if I would stop harassing him he would ship me the 800 issues absolutely free. All I would have to pay would be the freight charge on delivery. Sure enough a couple weeks later, a big truck dumped 500 pounds of Detective Story Magazines’s on my porch.
Of the 800 issues, I needed 239 and many others for upgrades. For several years after, I had so many duplicates, that I was willing to trade four Detective Story’s to get one of my pulp wants. Many collectors found the four to one ratio to be irresistible.
However, at one Pulpcon I was reminded that not many people cared about Detective Story. Since I had so many duplicates, I took 200 of the issues in the best condition to a show in the late 1980’s. I priced them all low at $5.00 each, except for the Crimson Clown and Mr Chang issues which I priced at $10.00.
Not a single issue priced at $5 sold. All the Clown and Chang issues sold because they were listed as hero characters in a pulp index. Even today there probably is not much interest in collecting the magazine.
While I was collecting Detective Story, I carried on a 25 year correspondence with Bob Sampson, from 1969 to his death in the early 1990’s. All our letters dealt with pulp matters, especially the Detective Story series.
You can read the results of many of our letters in Sampson’s excellent six volume survey of the pulps, Yesterday’s Faces. This is a set of books that every reader and collector of the pulps should own.
Starting in 1932 a series of changes occurred that indicated the magazine might be having problems. They dropped the price to 10 cents, then announced a monthly schedule which lasted for one issue, and then decided on twice a month.
The price eventually went back to 15 and 20 cents and the schedule to monthly. The cover was redesigned, serials were dropped, and in 1935 the departments were gone. The pages varied between 128, 144 and 160.
Long time veteran and Love Story editor, Daisy Bacon became the new editor in the early forties. In 1943 the entire Street & Smith line of pulps either went digest or discontinued publication, like Wild West Weekly and Unknown Worlds.
Daisy Bacon attempted to improve matters by encouraging some of the Black Mask and Dime Detective authors to write for her. Norbert Davis, John K. Butler, Fred Brown, all had good stories. She published over a dozen excellent stories by Roger Torrey, all novelettes starring detectives with Irish names. Only an early death because of alcoholism silenced him around 1945. William Campbell Gault was another fine writer who had around a dozen novelettes.
But there were still some bad signs. The digest covers were really poorly done and unattractive. Circulation must have been dropping because in 1949 they even tried going back to pulp size for three issues.
Nothing worked, however, and the pulp era was ending. Daisy Bacon would soon be out of a job and by the middle fifties the pulps were dead except for a couple holdouts. Street & Smith killed all their pulps except for Astounding. The digest boom was around the corner and there would be many new SF and mystery digests. Ironically Detective Story, the longest surviving detective pulp, would not be one of them.
Previously on Mystery*File: Part Three — Collecting Detective Fiction Weekly.
Coming next: Part Five — Collecting the other Popular Publications pulps.
November 2nd, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Thanks for another of your excellent articles about pulp collecting. I believe I first learned of The Crimson Clown from Andy Biegel. Unelss my memory is playing tricks with me he was a big fan of that series.
November 2nd, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Excellent summation, Walker! I agree with you wholeheartedly about DSM’s importance — or, to be more precise, lack of same. The magazine compels a certain amount of interest for its longevity, but to those who aren’t collectors of Edgar Wallace or Johnston McCulley, there isn’t all that much of interest. Of course, there MIGHT be some closet Herman Landon or Christopher Booth collectors out there, but if so I’ve not run across them. And you rarely see guys with DSM want lists trolling the PulpFest or Windy City shows!
To your list of notable characters and/or issues I would add the two 1935 issues with Ellery Queen novelettes (including the well-regarded “Lamp of God,” published in the October number as “House of Haunts”) and the 1932 issue introducing Carroll John Daly’s Satan Hall, who subsequently made DETECTIVE FICTION WEEKLY his home.
November 2nd, 2010 at 7:44 pm
The word that’s always come to my mind when I’ve thought of DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE is “fusty.” But before I started writing this comment, I thought I’d better look the word up and see if it meant what I was thinking.
There are two definitions, and it’s the second one that seems to say I was using the word correctly.
1. smelling of damp or mold; musty
2. old-fashioned in attitude
Although maybe, you, Walker, being an expert on the aroma that old pulp magazines have, can tell us whether the first definition is correct as well.
I didn’t do a count, but my impression is that maybe up to half of the 1000 plus issues of DSM were published before 1930, and it was a long time after that before stories of a hardboiled nature made any headway into the magazine.
In the early days there were (my impression) lots of manor house mysteries, gentlemen crooks, and Philo Vance type private eyes, but very few Continental Op imitators.
Correct me if I’m wrong!
The big factor, in terms of the average pulp collector’s interest in the magazine, as I see it, unless you’re in the right mood for them, is that the stories are dull.
No other word for it.
Walker, when you point out all of the continuing series characters that can be found in the pages of DSM, I think you’ve hit upon the major selling point that those earliest issues might have.
And unless you’re a really dedicated collector or a pulp historian of sorts, maybe the only one?
November 3rd, 2010 at 12:01 am
Barry: You are right about Andy Biegel. He loved the crazy character of the Crimson Clown and he bought some of the issues from me.
Ed: Edgar Wallace really did alot of fiction for the magazine and many of the serials are quite enjoyable. It’s a shame he died so early because he probably would have kept writing for DS for many more years. Johnston McCulley, like Edgar Wallace, must have been a big favorite with the readers because he wrote so very much for DS. You are right about the first Satan Hall and the Ellery Queen novelets.
Steve: One thousand issues of DETECTIVE STORY certainly smell damp, moldy, and musty. The set resides along one wall in the big room where I have pulp paintings and next time you visit we will have to study the particular scent of old DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINES.
Concerning the type of fiction the magazine definitely published a sort of non-hardboiled story. But on the other hand, as you and I point out, they also published some very interesting series characters. In many respects the hero pulps continued to carry on this tradition with the heroes being reluctant to shoot to kill, etc. Of course THE SPIDER and some others were an exception and happily killed many villains.
The magazine, despite the faults, and the gentleman crooks and manor house mysteries, can be quite addictive once you begin to collect it seriously. At least that’s what Bob Sampson and I both found out when we started to pick up issues at Pulpcon and actually read the magazine. Too many collectors just reject the magazine because they compare it to The Big Three and find it less hardboiled, etc. However it was the first detective title, it lasted longer than any other detective title, and it racked up 1057 issues. Plus I believe it had a big influence on the hero pulps, certainly on the Street & Smith line like THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, AVENGER, WHISPERER, etc.
These factors cannot be disregarded and I believe if you collect detective pulps, then you have to check out DETECTIVE STORY and have some key issues in your collection. I hope this article will give some ideas as to which issues to hunt for. Certainly the first issue in October 1915 I see as a very key issue. Also collectors shuld be interested in the Chandler issue, Edgar Wallace issues, The Crimson Clown, Mr Chang, the first Satan Hall by Daly, and many of the crazy and amusing series characters.
If you just want to collect the tougher and more hardboiled issues, then definitely go for the Daisy Bacon issues when she was the editor in the 1940’s. The Roger Torrey, Fred Brown, and William Campbell Gault novelets in the digest issues I especially recommend.
November 3rd, 2010 at 1:16 am
I just re-read my previous comment. I didn’t realize how bad I made the magazine sound.
Fusty. Dull.
Could I have done more to keep anybody from getting interested in collecting DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE.
Well, I tried. Ed Hulse mentioned not seeing any collectors wandering the aisles at PulpFest buying DSM. There’s at least one, Ed — me. It’s one of the few pulp magazines that I’m actively buying now.
Who needs the competition?
My observations: Copies from the teens are obviously hard to find. That’s a long time ago. Copies from the 20s are easier, but the asking price is usually higher than I think the condition is worth. I don’t need mint copies, but I do like to have ones that don’t fall completely apart when you read them.
As far as copies from the 1930s go, they start to get harder to find again. Sales must have been going down throughout the whole decade. Those from the 1940s are about as common as any other detective pulp from the same period. I do like the digests. They’re a mixed breed, with hardboiled stories by authors such as Roger Torrey, Fredric Brown, Day Keene and Edward Ronns (Aarons) intermingled with much cozier yarns from female writers like Maud McCurdy Welch, Inez Sabastian, Agatha Gandy and Margaret Manners.
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:41 am
Steve: As you say in Comment #5, it’s one of the few pulp magazines that you are now actively buying. This backs up what Bob Sampson and I discovered back in the 1980’s, collecting DETECTIVE STORY can become addictive. There were so many issues and so many authors that there is something for every collector.
If you are definitely a fan of the hardboiled type of fiction, then the 1940’s issues are the ones to hunt for, especially the digest ones. Editor Daisy Bacon managed to lure some of the tough guy writers from BLACK MASK and DIME DETECTIVE. It’s funny because with her background as the successful LOVE STORY editor, you would think she would continue the more sedate, country manor type of story. But she turned hardboiled and bought the magazine up to date. But the digest covers sure look like LOVE STORY MAGAZINE covers!
November 3rd, 2010 at 2:41 pm
I’m now quite desperate to read some adventures of The Crimson Clown! Have they ever been reprinted anywhere?
Is it ever revealed in the stories exactly WHY he thinks that dressing up as a clown will help him fight crime? I’ve imagined a Bruce Wayne type sitting in an armchair….
BRUCE: Criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot. I need some way to strike terror into their hearts.
(A Clown come crashing through the window)
BRUCE: That’s it! I shall become a Clown!
November 3rd, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Bradstreet
Ramble House has recently reprinted one collection of Crimson Clown adventures:
http://www.ramblehouse.com/crimsonclown.htm
Here’s their write-up about the character, which still doesn’t answer the question, I know, but it’s all I have. I’ve never read one myself, but like you, I think I owe myself the pleasure.
“Delton Prouse is a man with a mission: to steal from the rich and powerful and give half of the proceeds to the poor through charity. The other half he keeps for himself so he can continue to hobnob with the rich and powerful. He gets away with it because he has a perfect modus operandi. He dons a red-hooded clown’s outfit over his street clothes and packs a pistol full of pepper spray. He also carries with him a syringe full of a drug that will knock a person out for a half hour—and he’s not afraid to use it—on himself if it will help him escape. Ramble House is proud to bring this 1927 Robin Hood’s adventures back into print for the first time in decades. It’s a classic by the author of Zorro!”
November 3rd, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Make that two collections from Ramble House. They’ve also reprinted THE CRIMSON CLOWN AGAIN:
http://www.ramblehouse.com/crimsonclownagain.htm
And here’s a list of Crimson Clown stories that have been ever been reprinted:
http://members.cox.net/pulpreprintindex/crimsonclown.html
Whether this list includes all of the CC stories, or only those reprinted in one place or another, it’s not quite clear.
November 3rd, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Thank you for another very interesting article!
I own a few issues of this pulp – the only pulps owned here! Found a couple issues in terrible shape for under $5.
(I’m not a collecter, just a mystery reader.)
Really like a story in one: Hugh MacNair Kahler’s “The Crooked Wire” (1920). Wrote about it on my web site:
http://mikegrost.com/hibk.htm#Kahler
Was interested that Walker Martin singled him out.
I thought he was an excellent mystery plotter, too.
Would love to read a collection of detective novellas by him.
Maybe he is one of the “missing links” in detective fiction history.
November 3rd, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Kahler is an author I knew nothing about until I read about him in this chapter of Walker’s memoirs.
His stories might indeed be worth reprinting. I hope Mike doesn’t mind my excerpting such a large chunk of his comments on the author, but here goes:
“Kahler’s work makes a striking contrast to Dashiell Hammett’s, which will emerge just three years later in Black Mask. Kahler is far more middle class and genteel in his picture of society.
“There are plenty of underworld crooks in Kahler, but they tend to be criminal masterminds, not the low lifes that flit through Hammett. These masterminds tend to be more like businessmen than hoods – in “Queer Coin” they actually are businessmen, gone bad.
“Kahler has an edge in social criticism over Hammett, however. The hero of “Queer Coin” is a workingman who broke his arm while on company business, was promptly fired as he was unable to work, received no compensation from his company, was forced to live off his meager savings to survive, and who is slowly starving to death as the story opens.
“There is nothing like this in the whole history of Black Mask, as far as I can tell. Or in any Golden Age mystery either. Kahler’s blunt look at the lives of ordinary working people in the days before workman’s comp and unemployment insurance seems to be unique in its era.
“Black Mask often showed police and civic corruption, as well as underworld violence, but economic social criticism seems largely absent from its pages.”
November 3rd, 2010 at 6:08 pm
BRADSTREET: Over 30 years ago I got hooked by the Crimson Clown adventures and look where it led me—over 1,000 issues of DETECTIVE STORY! So watch out what you wish for. I don’t recall the hero having any sane reason for dressing up in full clown costume and makeup, except to disguise his identity, which is crazy because the clown costume would attract attention.
STEVE: Thanks for the links to the Ramble House collections of the Crimson Clown. They also reprint the beginning of a couple stories.
MIKE: I’m like you, I would love to see a collection of Hugh Kahler’s novelets. He is one of the reasons I love to collect the pulps; there are forgotten authors buried in the old magazines who wrote excellent fiction. I’ve read the two Kahler novelets that you mention: “The Crooked Wire” is in the February 3,10,17, 1920 issue. I read it back in April 1985 and noted that it was Kahler’s longest story to appear in DS at 56 pages. By the way The Crooked Wire is a blackmailing villain. “Queer Coin” appeared in the July 13, 1920 issue. You mention on your website that “…his works can become quite absorbing reading”. That’s certainly what I discovered.
I think that sometimes we tend to stress the hardboiled too much in the pulps. There were other types of fiction that were not tough and hardboiled and this does not mean they are not worth reading or collecting.
November 4th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Thanks fellas! The Crimson Clown hunt begins now…
November 9th, 2010 at 4:33 am
I don’t know about the situation in today’s market, but in the eighties I had little trouble finding many of Johnston McCulley’s series such as the Crimson Clown, Spider, Black Star (western), the Thunderbolt, and Avenging Twins in inexpensive hardcover reprint editions. It’s not the same as collecting the original pulps, but at the time was a fairly inexpensive way to read material not otherwise available.
I had the same problem as Walker with Thubway Tham, though our chief complaint seems to have been one of the reasons they were so popular. One of those social gaps that can’t be easily overcome. What we find offensive or tedious was what made them popular in the day.
Re McCulley, Robert Sampson has a nice overview of some of his heroes in YESTERDAY’S FACEs.
While his numerous heroes are certainly interesting — especially their relation to the hero pulps — as far as his best work goes I’d have to give that to his westerns. They are superior to any of his mystery or even his repetitive Zorro stories, and a few of them really stood out (unike most of his work some of his westerns even managed to get reprinted in paperback).
Some of the westerns can still be read for enjoyment and not mere curiosity.
The most interesting thing about Herman Landon’s Picaroon is his name. The real life Picaroon was one George Barrington, an eighteenth century actor and king of London’s pickpockets who among other things may have conned the infamous Count Cagliostro out of a small fortune, and whose exploits would be envied by any fictional gentleman adventurer.
After a successful career as a handsome actor and pickpocket Barrington was caught, imprisoned in Newgate and sentenced to hang, but saved his neck by choosing to be deported to Australia. On the voyage over he put down a mutiny on the prison ship, and once in Australia rose to become a highly respected magistrate.
His exploits can be read in the novel THE PICAROON by Ernest Dudley (creator of Dr. Morelle) and in his own autobiography (which sadly mostly deals with his actions from the shipboard mutiny on), the latter which can be downloaded from Project Guttenberg.
As for Landon, like McCulley his books are available in fairly cheap hardcover collections and at least one GRAY PHANTOM book on line.
Finally, a word for A.E. Apple’s entertaining MR.CHANG series. Chang is certainly a member of the Yellow Peril school, but filtered through Raffles and less a fiend then a master criminal. The books are entertaining to read and in their own way clever fun.
November 9th, 2010 at 6:46 am
The “…inexpensive hardcover reprint editions” that David talks about in his first paragraph are mainly Chelsea House books published by Street & Smith. These books reprinted some of the fiction from their line of pulp magazines, mainly DETECTIVE STORY and WESTERN STORY.
He is right about them being inexpensive in the eighties but I used to collect Chelsea House and had two or three hundred of them. The Johnston McCulley titles he mentions were the big sellers when I started to sell the books in a vain attempt to downsize my collection recently. They were no longer inexpensive.
Now Chelsea House books are not as easy to find as they used to be and often are in beat up shape. It is very hard to find nice copies in dust jacket because back in the thirties readers had the annoying habit of throwing away the dust jackets. They saw the jackets as garish and liked the somber look of the jacketless books lined up on their shelves. More respectible and dignified.
After selling all the collectible titles that collectors liked I was left with close to a hundred titles that I couldn’t sell. These mainly were the obscure mystery, western, adventure, and romance novels that Chelsea reprinted from the pulps. If I remember correctly our host, Steve Lewis, bought these unwanted books for a dollar each from me at one of the Bordentown, NJ pulp shows. That satisfied his pulp fix for awhile.
November 10th, 2010 at 1:29 am
The story that Walker tells is true. He didn’t even change the names to protect anybody, namely me.
To tell you the truth, I took pity on him. After seeing him schlep those books around from convention to convention, with no takers after the first one, when he sold all of the ones in dust jacket plus a Johnson McCulley or two, and factoring in his bad back, I just knew he didn’t want to take them home with him one more time.
I have a feeling, though, that if I’d waited two more conventions, he’d have simply given them to me, just to get them off his hands.
The romance novels I sold on eBay, along with few duplicate titles. The rest? All good reading. All boxed up. Waiting for me to read them.
— Steve
November 10th, 2010 at 11:56 am
I wonder if any of you recall a mail order outfit called EDITIONS. They most dealt in ex library books rather than remainders and quality varied but you could find some rarities and even complete sets (I picked up a uniform edition of Robert Louis Stevenson replete with a biography, and volumes of his letters and articles for $50 from them once in surprizingly good shape).
Anyway, they often had works by older writers among all the best sellers and mid list titles and it was there I picked up most of my Chelsea House editions as well as quite a few by writers like Sabatini, Packard, Curwood, Stewart Edward White, Rex Beach, W. C. Tuttle, and other once popular writers not to mention some of the harder to find Dumas titles. It was a good source for some more obscure works and since more serious collectors usually wouldn’t have former library books in their collections the competion wasn’t as cut throat as with some booksellers in the mail market.
I know the Internet has made the search for many books a bit easier, but I have to admit there was a certain thrill in finding one of those catalogues in the mail and eagerly thumbing through it looking for that one author and name at the top of your list. Many of those from EDITIONS had been pretty well read, but then some of them I wouldn’t have been able to find anywhere else in any condition, and I am primarily a reader and not a collector if I had to make the distinction.
November 10th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
I’m sure I remember Editions, and if they were based somewhere in New York State, then you and I are talking about the same seller. I used to buy books from them, once I moved up from the Hardy Boys to adult mysteries, but you never quite knew what you were going to get when you ordered from them. It might be a First Edition in dust jacket, or a Grosset or book club reprint, or an ex-library copy just about hanging together, but not by much.
I’ve been going through my various previous attempts to catalog my collection and trying to consolidate them. So far I’m up to Asimov in the A’s, but when I hit David Alexander, the mystery writer, a week or so ago, I remembered it was Editions I bought several of the hardcovers from, books I’m sure I paid no more than $3 each for, but are so scarce now that prices twenty times that are what’s being asked online.
I’d like to see one of their catalogs again, but I’m sure I never thought to save one.
November 11th, 2010 at 3:06 am
Steve
That’s the one. Once in a while you would get a book that still had the little library card pocket and card with the number of times it had been checked out pasted in, and they annoyingly used strapping tape to tape the dust jackets on (or at least the library had), but once in a while you would get a nice first edition in decent condition, and their prices were reasonable, even on sets. Most of my Edgar Wallace and Sax Rohmer hardcovers came from them, and quiet a few of my Victor Canning.
As you said though you never knew what condition they would be in or if it was a first edition, Grosset and Dunlap, or even a photo play edition with photos from the film or play. Still, even then, for $3 for many titles it was worth the gamble.
The catalogues were plain white covers with no illo and on the cover in the left hand corner their logo and name in a little box, on good paper and stapled binding, nothing fancy, but not newsprint either, standard magazine size, and each issue was grouped alphabetically. I think they came out every two weeks, but I’m not sure on that. They covered a little bit of everything from law books to reference works, but usually had a nice selection of fiction and were a good source for contemporary writers who didn’t get published in paperback and were mostly writing for the then lucrative lending library market.
And they would get the darndest books sometimes — I even bought a Fortune Du Bosigoby from them (French mystery writer in the late 19th century who ripped off everyone from Eugene Sue to Gaiborou).
I can’t imagine collectors cared much for them, but they were a fine source of reading copies and a good way to upgrade to a hardcover copy if you read a book in paperback and wanted it in hardcover. I started in with them in the late sixties to early seventies and they were around into the eighties I think. As I recall they had some sort of deal buying library discards mostly from libraries in the East, but some nationally.
I would have said they were in New Jersey, but it may have been New York. Like you I haven’t seen one of the catalogues in over twenty years.
November 11th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
You’re right, David. I just discovered their address in an old mystery fanzine:
Editions Ltd. (Mavis Marsh), 20 Clark Road, Bernardsville, NJ, 07924.
November 13th, 2010 at 4:25 pm
[…] on Mystery*File: Part Four — Collecting Detective Story Magazine. Coming next: Part Six — Collecting the […]
September 8th, 2011 at 5:17 pm
I’ve been gradually catching up on Walker’s intriguing articles and always enjoy them. Whenever I see S&S Detective Story Mag issues from the 1940s era at the pulp shows, I enjoy checking them out for the occasional outstanding author (Fredric Brown being my favorite) and stories on topics that interest me (I love tales involving reporters — that’s me, for 46 years now! –and private detectives, female detectives, etc.)
I can’t imagine collecting Detective Story Magazine in long runs, since I wouldn’t have the space, but if you can find them under $5, there’s definitely some entertaining reading, at least in the late 1930s and 1940s issues. For the most part, I vastly prefer stories written in the 1940s and 1950s — plus a goodly number from the 1930s by the masters, of course.
Steve’s reference to the 1950s mystery writer David Alexander intrigued me — he wrote eight great hardback mysteries set on Broadway, since his protagonist, Bart Hardin, is a tough Broadway journalist. I’ve managed to find four of the eight Hardin hardback novels (1954-1959), but I’ve never found any of the (reprint) Hardin paperbacks — and I have thousands of 1940s and 1950s paperbacks.
I had to pay between $12 and $40 for the four hardbacks, all in jacket. Altogether, David Alexander wrote 15 novels and one anthology from 1951-1961. I’m sure I could locate more novels on the Internet, but I prefer to shop at shows and in used-book stores until I get frustrated enough to search for a last book on-line, etc.
To me, the fun of collecting is in the hunt as well as discovering delightful reading. I’ve attended well over 250 comic, pulp and book shows in the past 42 years and have visited well over 500 used-book stores in all of the “lower 48” states. One result is an in-depth knowledge of what is rare and scarce.
Thanks again, Walker, for your writing — always fun to read!
May 28th, 2012 at 8:16 pm
I am trying to find copies of Detective Story Magazine in which my father had stories published. Unfortunately I am not sure of any of the dates with the exception of the February 1947 issue in which I believe his story entitled “The Corpse Moved Once” was published. Can you direct me to a possible source where I could track this issue or possibly at least a copy of his story? His name was C. T. Sullivan. He did not save any of his published work. I do have copies of some correspondence with Daisy Bacon.
May 28th, 2012 at 9:00 pm
AJ
Here’s a list of stories your father wrote. All of them appeared in DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE
Ball of Twine, Feb 1946
Death in the Evening, Sept 1947
Next in Line, Mar 1948
Specialist in Death, July 1944
Specialist in Death, July 1948
The Corpse Moved Once, Feb 1947
There are dealers who may have copies in stock. You can also try eBay. Issues of DSM from the 40s show up fairly often. I hope this helps!
— Steve
June 6th, 2012 at 6:57 am
I’m in the process of rejuvenating an old chest of draws and when I removed the draws to my delight I found a 1945 Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine hidden under away! (there was also an Ipswich 1974 UEFA cup programme and a 1962 Commando picture story magazine!)I was intrigued by the Detective Story Mag and searched for some info, I found your site and am now even more intrigued.
Thank you for this interesting information, I shall now enjoy reading the stories with a some knowledge behind the existence of the magazine.
July 3rd, 2012 at 11:18 pm
Some of the comments above discuss the rarity of DETECTIVE STORY back issues. But even in 2012, it is still possible to stumble across extensive runs of the magazine.
A bookstore on abebooks.com listed most of the issues in the teens and twenties, all professionally bound and in nice condition. At only $40 per bound volume the entire set was gone in a very short time. A friend got many of the rare issues from the teens and I even found a couple issues I still need in the bound volumes I received.
I have an originally cover painting from DETECTIVE STORY and I’ve been looking for the magazine for decades. There it was and I managed to get it. There must be alot of “closet” collectors of DETECTIVE STORY.
December 13th, 2012 at 1:11 pm
Anyone here have any idea as to whether the early issues of this magazine have entered the public domain yet? If one wanted to reproduce an illustration from a 1927 story, how would one find out who to ask for permission (if one DOES need to ask)?
January 27th, 2013 at 6:10 am
Hello,
Has anyone got round to compiling an index of these magazines contents’?
Thank you, your columns are an interesting read.
Adrian Banfield
England
January 27th, 2013 at 10:54 am
Adrian
Yes, the magazine has been completely indexed.
A partial list is online at http://www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/0start.htm
A complete index on CD can be purchased here:
CRIME, MYSTERY, & GANGSTER FICTION MAGAZINE INDEX: 1915-2010
https://secure.locusmag.com/Magazine/CDRomAd.html
Most highly recommended!
February 17th, 2013 at 6:45 pm
Is anyone an expert on the Thubway Tham stories? With over a hundred stories about the dip, which are the best stories to look out for?
Thank you.
Adrian Banfield
York
February 18th, 2013 at 12:22 am
I’ve read a few Thubway Tham stories but his lisp always defeats me. However some readers do like the series of which there were well over a hundred stories, mostly in DETECTIVE STORY but also in THRILLING DETECTIVE and other magazines.
I can recommend two collections of Thubway Tham stories:
ADVENTURES OF THUBWAY THAM and TALES OF THUBWAY THAM. Both books are available on amazon.com for only $11.00 to $15.00.
January 26th, 2020 at 7:31 pm
Thanks for this informative article. I’m trying to locate a copy of the March, 1944 issue of Street & Smith’s Detective Story Magazine.
Does anyone have a copy for sale?
Please let me know if you do.
dakolodenko atgmail
September 28th, 2023 at 2:17 pm
The problem with this magazine and many others is that no one has ever done a story guide with critical comments and an evaluation or rating for them. The way that episode guides have appeared in magazines and books for TV shows, or movies in film guides. Who knows how many major or minor gems rest between those covers. It’s a read pity.