If you missed the last one…
This post is brought to you by Strange Adventures by G. W. Thomas, a collection of monster-hunter tales set in the wilds of Canada as well as the Alps and other frontiers. While GW loves a good monster, he has been influenced by such Pulps as Adventure and North-West Romances in placing his stories in days long gone and places hard to find. He did a similar thing in the companion volume, Strange Detectives.
I have a few things to address from the last post. First off, many of the authors I listed last time were the guys before the Pulps, selling to the Slicks and other magazines before the Pulp era really got going. This time I’m not going back as far as Sir Charles G. D. Roberts but in the thick of the Great Depression when the Pulps flourished.
Secondly, at the end I added a bit about Jack London, who I had originally left out of the post. I now know better why that happened. Jack London wrote two classic dog books, The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906). When I was talking about Roberts and his animal stories, these were naturalistic tales that didn’t really feature humans much at all. They were like a glimpse into nature’s denizens’ private lives. The London tales always feature humans, and are really about how men and dogs interact. The Pulps feature both of these types of tales. And many others as well, like the humorous animal story, which is a human interaction story but with much less seriousness than Jack London. There is also the Kipling-esque tale, not the borderline Fantasy of Mowgli but “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi” (also from The Jungle Book, 1894) and “The White Seal” (The National Review, August 1893). In these two, Kipling is much closer to Roberts and his nature glimpses.
The Pulps did not have any “just animal stories” magazines that I am aware of. (Maybe for children?) The stories I am featuring appeared mainly in four magazines: Adventure, Short Stories, North-West Romances and Boys’ Life. Boys’ Life wasn’t a Pulp exactly, but the magazine of the Boy Scouts but published plenty of Pulp writers doing what they did elsewhere though with a YA focus. Some of the other magazines include Western Pulps, where the animals would be of the frontier/North American or Canadian variety, also-ran Adventure Pulps like Top-Notch and Thrilling Adventures, and in one case, Blue Book, which was almost a Slick. Animal stories appeared in many places, making the Pulps seem like a competitor to magazines like Field & Stream at times.
Dog Stories
Let’s look at Jack London first. Along with his two novels he wrote a number of short stories featuring the Klondike and dogs. “Batard” (The Cosmopolitan June 1902) renamed “Diable—A Dog”, “Brown Wolf” (Everybody’s Magazine August 1906), ” Love of Life, (Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine December 1905), and “That Spot” (1908) are a some notable ones.
The Pulps followed London’s lead and gave us:
“King the Husky” (Adventure, June 20, 1925) by John Beames
“One-Man Dog” (Blue Book, February 1927)
“Lead Dog” (Adventure, July 15, 1935) by Robert E. Pinkerton
“The No-Game Hunter” (Short Stories, September 10, 1935) by S. Omar Barker
“Half Wolf” (Thrilling Adventures, February 1943) by Murray Leinster is one of a number of dog stories Will F. Jenkins did under this pseudonym. Better known for Science Fiction, Leinster wrote about nice dogs in”Maxie” (Short Stories, April 10, 1940) and about scientifically altered dogs in “Skag With the Queer Head” (Marvel Science Fiction, August 1951). For more, go here.
“Wolf Dog” (Short Stories, February 25, 1948) by Allan Vaughan Elston
Predators & Dangers
After dogs, other kinds of animals like bears, cougars, wolverines and wolves get the most attention. These dangerous killers make for more dramatic tales. You could write about a porcupine (and some have) but it’s not the same.
“Silvertip Settles It!” (Western Story, June 6, 1925) by Austin Hall features a bear who appeared fourteen times in the magazine. Hall was famous as the co-author of The Blind Spot (1921) with Homer Eon Flint. He wrote a sequel but drifted away from fantastic storytelling.
“This—Great Snakes!” (Western Story Magazine, October 12, 1929) by Clinton Dangerfield
“Wolf Cry” (Thrilling Adventures, April 1933) by Perley Poore Sheehan
“Carca, the Untouchable” (West, February 1, 1935) by George Cory Franklin
“The Law of Claw and Fang” (Big-Book Western, December 1945) by William A. Rush
“Wolves Can Be Tough” (North-West Romances, Fall 1946) by C. V. Tench is quasi-non-fiction, with tales of wolves in Alberta.
“Blacktip” (Short Stories, July 10, 1947) by Jim Chapman. Chapman was another animal specialist, only writing nature stories.
“Oo-Lik, the Polar Bear’ (North-West Romances, Fall 1948) by Burton R. Peck
“Killer Tiger of Kelan” (Adventure, October 1949) by Wilmon Menard is a “fact story” as the Pulps competed with the non-fiction mags like Field & Stream. Eventually most of the Pulps like Adventure and Argosy wold become “men’s magazines” with their own brand of fiction/non-fiction. That transition started here.
“The White Wolf” (Triple Western, August 1950) (reprinted from 1926) by Max Brand
“Brood Call” (Short Stories, November 1952) (reprinted from 1922) by T. Von Ziekursch
“The Silvertip Mystery” (Real Western Stories, April 1952) by Harold F. Cruickshank
Other Animals
“King of the Pod” (Top-Notch, November 15, 1917) by J. Allan Dunn in a Kipling mode.
“The Way of Traps” (Top-Notch, February 1, 1922) by Harold de Polo
“King of the Crags” (Popular Magazine, January 1, 1930) by Mary Shannon
“Leader of the Kloomp” (Argosy, November 2, 1935) by Anthony M. Rud. Rud was a writer/editor who worked in all genres, including Horror over at Weird Tales.
“Scapegoat” (All-American Fiction, November 1937) by Karl Detzer
“Wilderness Partnership” (Short Stories, September 25, 1938) by Frank Richardson Pierce
“Johnny Stripes” (Short Stories, December 10, 1946) by Cliff Maxwell
“Skagway’s Seal” (North-West Romances, Winter 1947-48) by Les Savage Jr.
“Scar Horn” (Western Action, November 1949) by Homer F. Borst
Boys’ Life
Boys’ Life began in 1911 and tried to appeal to the adventurous spirit of scouting. The fiction during the Pulp era is action-oriented with great artwork. Irving J. Crump would edit the magazine for several years. he would publish his caveman fiction here.
“Nanook” (Boys’ Life, January 1932) by Don Cameron Shafer
“Lion Luck” (Boys’ Life, July 1936) by T. T. Flynn
“Big Foot Comes Back” (Boys’ Life, March 1938) by Irving J. Crump
Conclusion
Once again I have wander from from SF/F/H and I can’t help it. Animal stories are part of my back list. They have influenced me as a writer even though I don’t write dog books. You couldn’t grow up in Canada and not at least be aware of the genre of animal adventure tales. My biggest interest, as always, is to see writers like Murray Leinster, Anthony M. Rud, Austin Hall, even Jack London, who wrote SF, and how they approached other types of writing.
Just a little note here about the artwork to the left and at the top. These were done by Canadian artist, Arthur Heming (1870-1940) who also wrote animal stories. His work is iconic in the Northern and animal genres.
Space Opera from RAGE m a c h i n e
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