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Forgotten Heroes of Pulp Fiction: Jim Maitland

Forgotten Heroes of Pulp Fiction: Jim Maitland

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JimMaitlandisland of terror hcWorld War I veteran, H. C. McNeile (better known by his nom de plume of “Sapper”) was a bestselling author of the last century whose works are quickly fading into obscurity.

His most famous creation, Bulldog Drummond is best remembered for the old-time movie and radio series rather than the nearly twenty novels where the character first appeared. “Sapper” also wrote numerous stories and books about a Holmes-like consulting detective, Ronald Standish as well as two books about Jim Maitland, the monocle-wearing two-fisted defender of honor who personified the ideals of the British Empire while traveling abroad.

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Forgotten Pulp Villains: Hanoi Shan and Professor Colonna

Forgotten Pulp Villains: Hanoi Shan and Professor Colonna

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The Crimes of Hanoi Shan-smallFor twenty years now, George Vanderburgh’s Battered Silicon Dispatch Box has been publishing quality hardcover and trade paperback reprints of titles one might never otherwise discover. Their books rarely appear on Amazon or eBay, so the devoted bibliophile who ventures to www.batteredbox.com is among the few to find such treasures.

Initially focusing on Sherlockian pastiches and scholarly efforts as well as reprinting long unavailable titles from Arkham House and Mycroft & Moran, BSDB has broadened their catalog to include other more obscure treasures.

Their two most recent titles are The Crimes of Hanoi Shan by H. Ashton-Wolfe and The Last of the Borgias by Fred M. White. Both books were edited by acclaimed pulp historian Rick Lai whose own works were spotlighted in last week’s column.

Hanoi Shan first came to my attention roughly 15 years ago when I stumbled across Win Scott Eckert’s Chronology of Fu Manchu online. There I found references to two early Fu Manchu appearances prior to Rohmer’s first novel that were written by someone called H. Ashton-Wolfe. The library proved of no assistance in tracking these stories down and the only antique booksellers who listed Ashton-Wolfe’s works wanted a small fortune for them. I was at a loss as to why Fu Manchu was known as Hanoi Shan, but the key seemed to be held in a fabled publication called The Rohmer Review which I had first found cited in a survey of Rohmer’s work by Will Murray.

There was also reference to some esoteric works by Philip Jose Farmer that I had actually seen alongside used Edgar Rice Burroughs titles at a local bookstore which had subsequently burned down. This Wold Newton business seemed to be the key to much of the fiction I was enamored of, but the trouble was I couldn’t get very far without Farmer’s works to unravel the mystery.

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Jack Ripcord and the Evolution of Pulp

Jack Ripcord and the Evolution of Pulp

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may72013trysnakebiteMost mainstream readers who were familiar with the phrase “pulp fiction” prior to Quentin Tarantino’s critically and commercially acclaimed film associated it with hard-boiled detective fiction. While this association only captured part of the eclectic spectrum of genres represented in pulp magazines in the first half of the last century, it must be noted that the documented evolution of the western gunfighter into the hardboiled detective hero was crucial to the proliferation of twentieth century popular culture.

Dashiell Hammett’s seminal hardboiled thriller Red Harvest could just as easily have been transferred from a mining town to a western setting. This flexibility is what allowed the story to be adapted so effectively decades after the fact by Akira Kurosawa as Yojimbo and by Sergio Leone as A Fistful of Dollars with equally trendsetting results.

Most people today best understand the ethos of pulp fiction from the 1981 blockbuster hit Raiders of the Lost Ark. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg perfectly encapsulated the archetypal pulp hero in the form of Indiana Jones, an original character who revived the cheap thrills and spills of pulp magazines and Saturday matinee serials and transformed them into box office gold.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Four

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Four

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51GMetCspFL__SY346_1134691Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu was first serialized in Collier’s from April 1 to June 3, 1939. It was published in book form later that year by Cassel in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The last quarter of the book picks up with Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Bart Kerrigan having witnessed Dr. Fu Manchu’s meeting with German dictator Rudolf Adlon. Der Fuhrer received his final warning from the Si-Fan and was given one hour to leave Venice or else he would face assassination.

Smith and Kerrigan make their way through the villa and come upon the lotus room with the trap floor once more. Inside the room is Ardatha, with a set of keys, on a mission of mercy to save them from their fates. She leads both men out of the house, giving Smith a key to lock the door behind him, but refuses to flee with them.

Sir Denis quickly raises the Venetian police to raid the villa, in the hopes of rescuing Rudolf Adlon, who disappeared the previous night and has still not returned. The raid fails, as the villa is deserted except for the steward, who denies all knowledge of any Asian visitors and informs them the villa is the property of James Brownlow Wilton, an American newspaper tycoon, munitions manufacturer, and Nazi sympathizer (and a fairly transparent analogue of William Randolph Hearst). Mr. Wilton has just left his villa for his yacht, Silver Heels.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Three

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Three

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poster_05Sadrums_of_fu_manchu_posterx Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu was first serialized in Collier’s from April 1 to June 3, 1939. It was published in book form later that year by Cassel in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The third quarter of the book picks up with Ardatha having risked her life to warn Bart Kerrigan to leave Venice immediately. The beautiful Eurasian climbs through the startled Englishman’s window in his canal-side hotel room and pleads with him to cease interfering in the Si-Fan’s plans to assassinate German dictator Rudolf Adlon.

While Kerrigan’s mind reels at the thought that Ardatha shares the same feelings for him as he does for her, the two are interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside. They fall silent, fearing she has been followed, but when the footsteps pass, the two fall into one another’s arms and make passionate love in their desperation.

After Ardatha departs into the night, Kerrigan first fears for her safety and then is overcome with guilt at the thought that she acted the part of a decoy who kept him from his duty of watching over Sir Denis. He rushes to his friend’s room and finds Smith has disappeared. Kerrigan is forced to realize that while he made love with Ardatha, Sir Denis fell into the hands of the Si-Fan and their efforts to protect Rudolf Adlon from assassination have been compromised as a result.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Two

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part Two

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drums2dofm-cover-front-300Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu was first serialized in Collier’s from April 1 to June 3, 1939. It was published in book form later that year by Cassel in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The second quarter of the book picks up with a weary Sir Denis Nayland Smith contemplating whether he is too old to continue warring with Dr. Fu Manchu and the Si-Fan. Their conflict has stretched for nearly thirty years and the Si-Fan is growing in strength, while Nayland Smith is growing old.

Chief Inspector Gallaho of Scotland Yard brings news that galvanizes Smith back into action. Dr. Martin Jasper, research director of Caxton armament factory, has received his final notice from the Si-Fan. Smith, Bart Kerrigan, and Gallaho immediately depart for Jasper’s Suffolk estate, Great Oaks. Naturally, they arrive too late. The staff of the great house is in an uproar as their master has barricaded himself in his laboratory and is believed to be dead.

Breaking through the barricade, they discover the latest victim of the Green Death is not Dr. Jasper, but his Japanese employer, Mr. Osaki. While interviewing the staff, Smith learns Dr. Jasper had a frequent Eurasian visitor – a woman whose description does not match Ardatha, to Kerrigan’s relief, but rather Fah lo Suee, the now deceased daughter of Fu Manchu.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part One

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu, Part One

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imagesCA33UWU0imagesCAUEKJGUSax Rohmer’s The Drums of Fu Manchu was first serialized in Collier’s from April 1 to June 3, 1939. It was published in book form later that year by Cassel in the UK and Doubleday in the US. The book marked a welcome return to the first person narrative voice in the tradition of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries and constituted a return to the series’ roots with a close re-creation of the very first Fu Manchu episode, “The Zayat Kiss” in the opening chapters of the new novel.

The narrator is Fleet Street journalist Bart Kerrigan, a Dr. Petrie substitute who is an old friend of Sir Denis Nayland Smith from his days as a colonial administrator. As in the first book, our narrator is disturbed one night by the unexpected arrival of Nayland Smith, seeking shelter from the Si-Fan agents on his tail. Smith has once again returned to London to save the life of a man marked for death by the Si-Fan.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part Four

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part Four

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President CorgiPresident CassellSax Rohmer’s The Invisible President was originally serialized in Collier’s from February 29 to May 16, 1936. It was published in book form later that year by Cassell in the UK and Doubleday in the US under the title President Fu Manchu. The novel is the first in the series to fictionalize real events with characters based on familiar figures in the US in the 1930s, such as Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin. More than one critic has noted the story may have influenced the classic Cold War conspiracy thriller The Manchurian Candidate.

The key to tracking down Fu Manchu comes from the most unlikely of sources. It is Robbie Adair, Moya’s four-year old son, who mentions to Mark Hepburn about the mad man who lives at the Stratton Building, the high-rise across the street from Robbie’s apartment, who makes sculptures of a bust and hurls them down to the street below. Robbie also mentions “Yellow Uncle” who is kind to him and gave him his own auto for his birthday. Moya dismissed the stories as a little boy’s imagination, but Hepburn realizes the auto is in fact a toy car and “Yellow Uncle” is very real. The mad man Robbie sees is Professor Morgenstahl, a brilliant German scientist believed dead, who is now a slave to the Si-Fan and installed at the Stratton Building. During his free hours each day, he sculpts a bust of Fu Manchu and hurls it to the pavement below in impotent rage.

 

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part Three

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part Three

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President GoldbergDaniel Webster stampSax Rohmer’s The Invisible President was originally serialized in Collier’s from February 29 to May 16, 1936. It was published in book form later that year by Cassell in the UK and Doubleday in the US under the title President Fu Manchu. The novel is the first in the series to fictionalize real events with characters based on familiar figures in the US in the 1930s such as Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin. More than one critic has noted the story may have influenced the classic Cold War conspiracy thriller The Manchurian Candidate.

The presidential debate is the centerpiece of the book and is masterfully played out by Rohmer. Abbot Donegal turns up and is taken into protective custody by the FBI. Dr. Prescott attends the debate at Carnegie Hall and, thanks to his having been drugged by Fu Manchu earlier, makes a complete shambles of countering the progressive candidate, Harvey Bragg. The audience at Carnegie Hall and those listening around the country to the radio broadcast are shocked at how badly the conservative candidate loses the debate.

As the triumphant Bragg tells the press afterwards that he will transform the United States and then the rest of the world, one of his union backers, Paul Salvaletti, clicks off the names of the continents. As he says “Asia,” Herman Grosset’s brainwashed programming clicks into gear. He brandishes a pistol and shoots and kills Harvey Bragg on the spot. Bragg’s security guards turn their weapons on Grosset and shoot him dead seconds later.

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Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part One

Blogging Sax Rohmer’s President Fu Manchu, Part One

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President NewspaperPresident DoubledaySax Rohmer’s The Invisible President was originally serialized in Collier’s from February 29 to May 16, 1936. It was published in book form later that year by Cassell in the UK and Doubleday in the US under the title President Fu Manchu. The novel is the first in the series to fictionalize real events with characters based on familiar figures in the US in the 1930s such as Huey Long and Father Charles Coughlin. More than one critic has noted that the story may have influenced the classic Cold War conspiracy thriller The Manchurian Candidate.

The novel gets underway with Sir Denis Nayland Smith on special assignment with the FBI in a reworking of the Parson Dan episode from the very first Fu Manchu novel over twenty years before. Rohmer is much more comfortable with his second effort at a third person narrative for the series.

The early chapters do an admirable job of introducing Smith and his opposite number, FBI Agent Mark Hepburn, into the life of the highly controversial radio talk show host, Abbot Patrick Donegal. The celebrated Catholic priest had his manuscript on the foreign power threatening the USA stolen from his studio at the Tower of the Holy Thorn during his most recent broadcast. Abbot Donegal can recall nothing of the theft or even the contents of the manuscript he prepared.

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