150 Years of The Woman in White

The weird menace pulps might be said to owe a debt to Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White -- along with the Gothic novel -- as what has been described as the first Sensation Novel. - Read this article

The Gnome Press

This excellent overview of a long-gone but fondly remembered publisher can be found in issue 47 of Earl's excellent online fanzine, eI. - Read this article

Jules Verne’s United States and The Will of an Eccentric

Over the recent decades, Verne’s literary portrait of the United States has been gradually filled in, first with Walter James Miller’s The Annotated Jules Verne: From the Earth the Moon (1978), then with the first publication of “The Humbug” as part of The Jules Verne Encyclopedia (1996), and in 2006 with the publication of the original text of The Meteor Hunt. Yet one more book, however, while known to Verne aficionados since it was published in England, has never appeared in the United States -- The Will of an Eccentric. - Read this article

“The Fist and the Sword,” by Fulton Grant, Blue Book August 1936

For some reason I’ve had stuck in my head for years that Fulton T. Grant was one of H. Bedford-Jones’ many pseudonyms. - Read this article

The D'Artagnan Romances: Twenty Years After by Dumas

I described Dumas’ The Three Musketeers as a romp. The sequel, which began its serialized appearance in 1845 -- the year following its precursor’s publication -- starts out much more somberly. Taking up, as its title suggests, two decades after the first volume, this tale opens with our heroes having gone their separate ways. D’Artagnan, the witty, apparently irrepressible youthful leader of the earlier band, has turned bitter, his witticisms now cynical asides. - Read this article

“The Cardinal Smiles,” by H. Bedford-Jones, Blue Book August 1936

We continue our Swashbuckling theme with a look at a story by a swashbuckling fictioneer, H. Bedford-Jones. - Read this article

A Foundation for Pulp Fictioneering: Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Like the 1973 film, this novel is a romp. The camaraderie of the four heroes, and their contrasting characteristics -- that sometimes put their intentions at odds until adversity rears its head -- lays the groundwork for a multitude of teams that follow: Doc Savage’s scrappy adventurers, the Shadow’s slew of agents, the Challengers of the Unknown, the Fantastic Four, the X-Files, even Luke and Han and Chewie and a couple of robots, and so on. Dumas includes lots of action, with a dose of historical events (which aren’t necessarily accurate in their historic details), plus humor and court intrigue. And swordplay! - Read this article

"The Sinister Ray" by Lester Dent

Gadgets, colorful characters with catchy names, and a lack of conjunctions mark Lester Dent’s work on the Doc Savage series in its early supersaga years. The same can be true in some of his pre-Doc work. - Read this article

The Hero in Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days

Heroes, as we know them from pulp and other popular fiction, comic books, action movies, and TV shows, do amazing things: rescue maidens, battle dragons and monsters and alien civilizations attempting to enslave Earth, find treasure, discover lost civilizations, and light out for the territories to explore unknown lands, seas, planets, or simply The Unknown. - Read this article

Tom Lovell, Pulp Artist

Thanks to the efforts of Anthony Tollin and Will Murray, more pulp fans today are more familiar with the artwork Tom Lovell created for the pulp magazines. - Read this article