As I have mentioned before, I have been picking up a few
copies of the detective pulps published by Columbia
Publications and edited by Robert Lowndes. All of my issues
date from the 1950s.
Here are the contents (along with my comments) of four issues
of Columbia Publications pulps. The numbers at the beginning
of a line are page numbers:
Famous Detective Stories (Vol 12, No. 3 February 1952)
(25cents 130 pages) 8*Dead Freight* Hunt Collins (Cover
"Feature Novel" w/series character Guthrie Lamb) 27*I Want
You Killer!*Richard Brister ss 34*Hot Ice Housewarming*Seven
Anderton ("A Ware & Pender Novel") 58*Bid For The Devil's
Throne*Daniel R. Gilgannon nt 74*The Deadly Daily*Aaron Holm
ss 81*Beware of the Cashew Tree*David MacGregor ("An Archie
McCann Novelet") 98*Case of the Frightened Child*Patrick
Laing ss 104*A Head For Murder*Daniel Pitt nt
As we've discussed, the Hunt Collins "novel" (actually
estimated at about 17,000 words) is an interesting private
eye story featuring Guthrie Lamb who roams New York City
carrying a .45 automatic and driving a 1942 Ford with a 1948
engine. Elsewhere in the issue there is a "Coming Next Issue"
blurb for another Guthrie Lamb novelet "The Body Beautiful."
This would put it in the May 1952 issue. Steve Lewis has let
us know that the Ed McBain novel GLADLY THE CROSS-EYED BEAR
features an aging private eye by that name who helps Mathew
Hope.
Famous Detective Stories (Vol. 13 No. 1 February 1953, 25
cents 130 pages) 6*Spotlight On Crime: A Department For
Mystery Readers* by Harold Gluck; Item one "Ali Baba of the
Andes" by Juan Pastor 10*Dollars For Dupes*Seven Anderton
(Feature Ware & Pender "Novel") 37*Figures Don't
Die*T.S.Stribling (Feature Dr. Poggioli novelet) 49*The
Chair's First Victim*G.A.Cevasco (Special Fact Feature)
52*House By The River*Carroll John Daly nt 75*Case Of The
Honest Thieves*Thomas Thursday ss 86*Blondes Don't Care About
Murder*John Rogers ss 90*Get-Away Deluxe*Frank Kane ss
93*Eat, Drink--And Be Killed*Philip St. John ss
102*Extenuating Circumstances*Walter Kanitz ss 112*The Hex
Cat Murder*William F.Schwartz (True Crime Story) 117*Your
Face Before Me*John Foster ss
The billed star of this issue is T.S. Stribling, the only
name listed on the cover. I wonder if this was a reflection
of Lowndes taste more than a judgement by him of the sales
value of the authors. Carroll John Daly was, perhaps, as
"retro" as Stribling but so much more suited to the rest of
the issue and, perhaps, to the audience. Don't get me wrong I
am a huge Stribling fan. It seems likely to me that this
story had been rejected by Ellery Queen prior to submission.
EQ had become the source of new Poggioli stories since the
mid-1940s. Stribling ended up publishing three stories in
Lowndes-edited magazines but when "The Saint" appeared in
1953 that magazine became a regular publisher of Stribling
stories.
By way of background, Stribling had several careers. One was
as an author of
"Off-Trail" stories published in Adventure Magazine that was
the home of the original Dr. Poggioli stories, which were
very popular. Doubleday published a collection and then there
was silence for ten years before Stribling returned to it
with a series of stories in Ellery Queen. Separate from that
history, Stribling was a pioneer in realistic Southern
fiction winning a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for THE STORE, which
was the middle novel of a trilogy about the South. I am a
huge fan of Stribling who dealt realistically with racial
differences before Faulkner (who read and kept all of
Stribling's novels).
Kane we know as the creator of P.I. Johnny Liddell. Philip
St. John is Lester Del Ray of SF fame. Seven Anderton I
suspected was a house name as it appears often in the Lowndes
western as well as mystery pulps. Turns out he had stories in
Argosy in the late 1920s and early 1930s and had an
adventuresome life including a stint with Pancho Villa before
turning to writing.
Gluck was in many issues of pulp and digest mystery and
western mags with both nonfiction and fiction. A 1959 "Future
Science Fiction Stories" had an article with his by-line that
gave him a Ph.D.
Famous Detective Stories(Vol. 14 No. 4 December 1954, 25
cents 98 pages) In addition to Robert W. Lowndes listed as
editor, the staff includes Milton Luros, art director, Marie
Antoinette Park, associate editor and Cliff Campbell,
associate editor. Park must have been the subject of an
office joke.
6*Spotlight on Crime*Harold Gluck (Nonfiction regular
feature, this entry entitled "He cured His Friend With
Poison!") 10*Murder Yet To Come*Carroll John Daly nt 31*Tell
It To The Devil*Hal R. Moore ss 34*Stain of Guilt*Wade B.
Rubottom ss (Ford Wyatt story) 48*Fingerprint
Facts*J.J.Mathews (Special Feature) 50*Mind Your Own
Business*Glen Monroe nt
The Columbia mags were one of the last regular fiction
markets for Carroll John Daly who sold them at least ten
stories with a few appearing under the by-line John D.
Carroll. I don't know if any featured Race Williams but one
of my issues promotes the return of his old hero Satan Hall
in a new story entitled "Avenging Angel" in the February 1954
issue of "Famous."
A Harold Gluck Ph.D had an article "Space Law" in the October
1959 issue of
"Future." From the late 1940s throughout the 1950s, Gluck was
a regular contributor of both fact and fiction to pulp and
digest western and mystery magazines. Many of his stories
were in Lowndes edited magazines.
Smashing Detective Stories ( Vol 3 No. 1 March 1954) (25
cents, 98 pages) 6*Spotlight on Crime*James A. Youell
(Nonfiction: "Illusions About Death, Sudden and Otherwise By
Asst. Police Chief James A. Youell, Miami, Florida") 10*The
Iron Claw*Daniel R. Gilgannon nt 41*The Children's Gun*John
D. Carroll ss 52*Trial by Trigger*T.W. Raines ss 61*The Muted
Horn*Richard Brister ss 68*Justice Guides a Bullet*Seven
Anderton ss 79*Kindly Die Quickly*Will O. Grove ss 84*The
Extra Passenger*Harold Gluck ss
The amusing pseudonym "Will O. Grove" belongs to Richard
Brister.
Richard Moore
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