American Storytellers

The Father of the American Western is… (not who you’d guess!)

Filed under: Literature, 19th Century Fiction, Westerns — jack @ 10:51 pm

James Fenimore Cooper became the first world famous American author and the first professional American novelist writing over 32 stories starting in 1820 until his death in 1850.

Born in New Jersey in 1789, raised at a frontier outpost, he later attended Yale University briefly, and completed a three year stint in the U.S. Navy.

His first major success came with his second novel, The Spy, a historical romance set during the American Revolution.

But it would be his character Natty Bumppo in the Leather Stocking series of books that became hugely popular, both here and aboard in part to the exciting action, vivid depiction of the beautiful American wilderness, and the hero Natty Bumppo also known as Hawkeye or Leatherstocking.

Last of the Mohicans is remembered as his best work and deals with topics including religion and pre-destination, inter-racial relationships, and the removal of Native Americans from the Eastern U.S.

Cooper also created a number of Sea Adventure stories that were well received during his day. His political writings however were quite controversial, creating enemies with various critics and the press, leading to numerous libel lawsuits.

Cooper became our first professional author making a living as a writer out of necessity in supporting his and his extended family.

Cooper’s legacy includes:

America’s first internationally known Author
America’s first professional novelist
Natty Bumppo Series begins the Western Hero genre

A Partial Bibliography

Historical Romance:
Precaution (1820)
The Spy (1821)

Leather Stocking Tales starring Natty (Hawkeye) Bumppo

The Pioneers (1823)
Last of the Mohicans (1826)
The Prairie (1827)
The Pathfinder (1840)
The Dearslayer (1841)

Sea Adventures

The Pilot (1824)
The Red Rover (1827)
The Wing-And-Wing (1842)
The Two Admirals (1842)
Afloat and Ashore (18440
Miles Wallingford (1844)
The Sea Lions (1849)

Politics and Nonfiction

Notions of America (1828)
A Letter to My Countrymen (1834)
History of the Navy of the USA (1839)

The Littlepage Manuscripts

Satanstoe (1845)
The Chainbearer (1845)
The Red-Skins

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The Paperback Explosion of the 1950s

Filed under: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror Fiction, Detective, Thriller / Suspense — jack @ 10:32 pm

Starting in 1938, the book publishing industry, following the lead of the cheaply printed pulp magazines, introduced the inexpensive, paper cover based book that we know as the paperback. Up til then, novel length fiction was published in either hardcover books intended to be permanent editions in libraries or as full length stories published in one complete magazine edition or serialized across multiple issues.

During the War Years, paper shortages and rationing made the paperback even more ecconmical. Once the war was over and the American economy recovered, the paperback format was well entrenched with the American reading public.

During the 1950s, the paperback exploded in popularity in part due to the huge backlog of reading material that was initially published during the pulp fiction era. Magazines that rarely reprinted material published great fiction which came and went in a blink of an eye. The top stories may have made it to hardcover, but even those editions never reached much of the reading public.

The popularity of the paperback also changed the economic conditions of publishing affording the opportunity to more writers to base a living off this profession. With writers not forced to be paid by the word, quantity was replaced with quality and a wave of excellent stories, characters and authors emerged.

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Hardboiled Heroes

Filed under: Pulp Fiction, Detective, Thriller / Suspense — jack @ 10:24 pm

Officially, Carroll John Daly was the father of this genre with his story “The False Burton Combs” published in the December, 1922 issue of Black Mask magazine. Daly transplanted the wild west, gunslinger hero into the urban landscape and added a cynical, hard-nosed attitude towards the establishment, the criminals, and life in general. In later stories during the 1920s, Daly would evolve the basics of this genre with his main tough guy, private eye Race Williams.

While Daly may have started the genre, Dashiell Hammett is credited as the writer who perfected the hardboiled style. Hammett used his experiences as a Pinkerton Detective, the code of ethics from that training, and the character profiles from that experience to incorporate a whole new level of authenticity and realism.

From 1929 through 1934, Hammett produced five main works: The Dain Curse, Red Harvest, The Glass Key, The Thin Man and the infamous private eye Sam Spade in the story of the Maltese Falcon, considered by many to be the best hard boiled detective story ever published. 1934 marked the last of Hammett’s writing career with Hollywood catapulting Hammett and his characters into legendary status.

Meanwhile, Carroll John Daly continued his writing career throughout the 1930s earning significant popularity with pulp fiction readers not only with his character Race Williams and girlfriend “The Flame,” but with hard boiled Vee Brown and Satan Hall. Moving first from Black Mask to Dime Detective, Daly made the jump to novels but failed to make the leap to Hollywood or radio with his career basically winding down by 1940.

If Hammett perfected the genre with a cold, unsentimental, utterly realistic and authentic style, Raymond Chandler raised the hard boiled detective story from the “lowly” ranks of pulp fiction to a literary art form. Initially writing for the pulps, Chandler honed his style from 1933 to 1938 developing his character Philip Marlowe and the main setting, Depression era Los Angeles.

Starting in 1938, Chandler shifted to novel form and over the next several years created several works of lasting impact including: The Big Sleep, Farewell My Lovely, The High Window, and The Lady in the Lake. These stories lifted the hard boiled detective into the world of literature where he focused less on action and more on character development and social issues. He softened the hero a bit and added a new dimension of compassion.

However… In 1947, our hard boiled hero returned to his killing, gun slinging roots courtesy of author Mickey Spillane and his tough guy private eye Mike Hammer in I, The Jury. Spillane created a nation-wide sensation, in part due to his ground-breaking use of graphic violence and sex but also in part to his crisp, clean style of writing. Recognized somewhere between the levels of low pulp fiction and high brow literature, the massive popularity of Spillane became one of the major catalysts for the paperback boom of the 1950s.

From 1947 through 1953, Spillane and Mike Hammer in My Gun is Quick, Vengence is Mine! and Kiss Me Deadly continued the evolution of the private eye adding passion, heart and emotion while returning the action.

Mike Hammer, like Marlowe and Spade before him, became a legend on the silver screen, with numerous movies and television roles over the years. His fame left only Daly’s Race Williams to miss the mark in terms of becoming a celluloid hero.

In a fan letter to Carroll John Daly, Mickey Spillane wrote:

“Right now I’m sitting on the top of the heap with my Mike Hammer series, (…) when they ask me who I model my writing after. Maybe you know already. Mike and the Race Williams of the middle thirties could be twins. Yours was the first and only style of writing that ever influenced me in any way. Race was the model for Mike; and I can’t say more in this case than imitation being the most sincere form of flattery. The public in accepting my books were in reality accepting the kind of work you have done.”

Daly started it all with Race Williams. Hammett defined the genre with perfect stories and an unmatched air of authenticity. Chandler raised it to a literary level, delving into new themes and character development. And Spillane brought it back to its carnal roots of action and attitude due in large part to Spillane’s main influence being Daly and Race bringing us full circle.

More Hard Boiled Detective at the Vintage Library.

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The Early Dawn of Science Fiction

Filed under: Science Fiction — jack @ 10:09 pm

Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, (1889) is the first popular American Science Fiction tale when a 19th Century accidental time traveller heads back to 6th Century Camelot and uses science and knowledge to attempt to first survive then to better society.

Fast forward to 1912 with pulp magazine All-Story magazine serializing the novel “Under the Moons of Mars” by Norman Bean aka Edgar Rice Burroughs which introduces hero John Carter and his adventures on Mars.

Next, jump to 1926 and Hugo Gernsback, the father of Science Fiction, when he founded the first pulp fiction magazine to focus entirely on future fiction with Amazing Stories. In 1929, Gernsback started Wonder Stories to further expand the reach of his style of story.

In 1930, John W. Campbell began a writing and editing career which ushered in the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Founder of Astounding Stories, his magazine and editorial style helped or encouraged an entire generation of writers including A.E. van Vogt, Jack Williamson, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein and Theodore Sturgeon.

More Golden Age Science Fiction at the Vintage Library.

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19th Century Dime Novels

Filed under: 19th Century Fiction — jack @ 10:01 pm

Prior to 1800, the world of publishing required a highly trained craftsman to produce limited runs of sometimes poor quality copies. In 1800, over in England, the first all-iron printing press was created, greatly improving quality. Shortly after, in 1811, Frederick Koenig invented the steam powered printing press and put it to use in 1814 to begin regular printing of the London Times. The rotary steam press as well as the cylinder press and other inventions allowed for newspapers to dramatically increase their print runs, lower their costs and began a century of rapid improvements in the field of printing and publishing.

During the early to mid 1800’s most Americans did not have access to expensive hard back books or even to public libraries. With the writings of James Fennimore Cooper capturing the adventures of the pioneers and the start of the wild west, most Americans turned first to newspapers and then to “story papers” for their fix for adventure stories.

With the emergence of the telegraph system, the newspapers now had the ability to gather news off the “wire” from around the country and share it with their readers.

As the newspapers became more and more competitive they had to find more and more creative ways to capture interest. Illustrations, comic strips and sensationalist journalism quickly sparked interest and made circulation jump. Storytelling and fiction soon found its place in this new publishing media.

In 1860, Beadle and Adams started publishing a novel length story in a newspaper style edition once every two weeks for 10 cents per copy. The Dime Novel format, focusing on stories about the wild west, quickly became a huge hit especially with the soldiers on both sides during the Civil War.

Priced at either 5 or 10 cents under the masthead of Beadle’s Popular Library, Beadle’s New York Dime Library or Beadle’s Pocket Library, American’s received a regular dose of wild west fiction.

By 1880, a number more publishers were on the scene including Street & Smith with titles including the Diamond Dick Library. Wild Bill, Kit Carson, Nick Carter and other heroes would give way to adventure stories featuring pirates and treasure hunters in far off lands.

Authors such as Colonel Prentiss Ingraham, Wm. West Wilder, Ned Buntline, and provided stories to feed the collective imagination of America.

During this time, over in Englad, the dime novel counterpart was referred to as the Penny Dreadful. And in both cases, newspapers often serialized the more prominent authors and stories leaving the more sensational stories to be picked up by the dime novels or penny dreadfuls with their limited budgets.

By the early 1900’s, the dime novels had shifted over to color covers and were laying the ground work for what would soon become the pulp fiction revolution.

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Best Forgotten Baseball Story is…

Filed under: Author's Best, Sports Stories — jack @ 10:11 am

Getting Blue by Peter Gethers

Fantastic story about Alex Justin, a baseball player in pursuit of the perfect play. This story follows Justin’s career on and off the field from the 1950s minor leagues through his major league career ultimately playing for the New York Yankees in the World Series.

“Alex Justin is destined to make one of the most memorable plays in baseball history. Initiated into baseball, life and sex during a 1950’s summer in the minor leagues, he hears about the wonder of “getting blue,” the magic moment of perfection. Alex finds success, a wild life in California, personal tragedy… and his own perfect moment. But when the glory days end too quickly, Alex becomes a man with another quest — a second chance to do it all again.”

Peter Gethers is an author, editor and screen writer.

Amazon Books: Getting Blue by Peter Gethers

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American Storytellers

September 2, 2006

The Father of the American Western is… (not who you’d guess!)

The Paperback Explosion of the 1950s

Hardboiled Heroes

The Early Dawn of Science Fiction

19th Century Dime Novels

August 31, 2006

Best Forgotten Baseball Story is…