Friday, December 12: Bandersnatches
BEHIND THE MASK
by Steve Steinbock
In my column of last week , I spoke briefly about the difference between pulps and digest magazines. I thought I’d begin this week on the topic of the most famous of the pulps, Black Mask. Launched in 1920 by H. L. Mencken, the magazine claimed “the best stories available of adventure, the best mystery and detective stories, the best romances, the best love stories, and the best stories of the occult.”
In 1926, Joseph T. Shaw – known by all in the industry as “Cap” Shaw – took over editorial duties and transformed Black Mask into the institution for which it’s known, emblematic of the hard-boiled school of crime and detective fiction. The Black Mask Boys, as its regular writers came to be called (and they were all, to my knowledge, of the male persuasion) included the likes of Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Erle Standley Gardner, John D. MacDonald, Carroll John Daly, and Norbert Davis.
Issues of Black Mask can still be found. Many issues, particularly those with Hammett or Chandler stories, can fetch a premium price (several hundred dollars and up). Because of the nature of pulps, these magazines are fragile. I keep all my pulps in plastic bags made specifically for the purpose. If you blow on these things the wrong way, they crumble into dust.
Black Mask ceased publication in 1951, but for a time, continued to publish stories in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine (a tradition that was recently revived).
In 1985, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich began publishing a quarterly anthology called New Black Mask, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Richard Layman. This was a great series of trade paperback collections, mentioned before in Criminal Brief by JLW, which unfortunately only lasted eight issues before attorney Keith Alan Deutsch put a cease and desist order on the publisher, claiming to own all writes to the magazine name and logo.
Deutsch now maintains the Black Mask Magazine website, which features some interesting photos, magazine covers, and PDFs of various pulp stories. It’s worth a visit.
Last year, author Mark Coggins wrote a series of blog articles about New Black Mask, beginning with this one, on The Rap Sheet blog. These columns are well worth reading.
Encounters with Stevenson
Inspired, in part, by JLW’s recent short story, “Shanghaied,” I’ve been on a Robert Louis Stevenson kick. I’ve been busying myself reading his short stories (contained in the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone title New Arabian Nights) as well as some of Stevenson’s essays, letters, and columns. I’d like to think that had he been born a century later, RLS would be a regular visitor – and possibly a contributor – to our blog.
In the back rooms of Criminal Brief Headquarters, Commander JLW and I have been discussing our mutual appreciation of Stevenson. Perhaps James will honor us with a column on the subject. It’s my hope to do the same in the next couple of weeks. Although best known as a writer of high seas adventures and as a collector of nursery rhymes, Stevenson made many important contributions to the field of crime fiction.
Now back to my reading. See you in seven.
Steve, I sold a story to New Black Mask but they ceased publication before it saw the light of day. To my amazement they not only returned the story but included a check for half of what I would have been paid had it been published. I didn’t know anyone in the business did that sort of thing. I sold it somewhere else so it turned out to be one of my more profitable endeavors.
Steve, have you read The Wrong Box? I saw the film but have never got round to the book and wonder if it is any good as a crime novel.
Haven’t read The Wrong Box. That’s a tontine story, right? It’s on my list. I hope to work my way through all of RLS’s shorter fiction, and as much of his essays and letters as I can find.
Martin, I’ve been thinking of you. . .
Ladies and gentlemen, Martin Edwards and Ann Cleeves are the two newest members of The Detection Club, the most prestigious organization of mystery writers on the planet. Congratulations, Martin.
Dick, which story was that? Pretty nice to get paid twice (sort of) for a story.
Thanks, Steve. I strongly suspect the film of The Wrong Box (which I must have seen at least 30 years ago, no wonder my memory is hazy) was nothing like the book.
As for the Detection Club, I remain its least eminent member. But a very proud one.
Had a hard time running down that story but finally found it was BYPASS FOR MURDER that then ran in a Private Eye Writers of America anthology titled “Justice For Hire.”.
That reminds me: Bob Randisi mailed a check to me and I sent it back with a note saying I never wrote a story called “Justice For Hire.” I won’t repeat his comment when he mailed it to me a second time.
Stevenson is one of my favorites! He wrote a book with definate criminal overtones, where a sweet older man has given the run of his house to a guy who is, plainly, a brute. The man’s friends fear for his safety and wonder about what hold the brute has on him. The brute becomes benificiary in the guy’s will. His friends worst fears are seemingly confirmed when the brute is witnessed committing a brutal murder and their friend vanishes. The friends suspect the worst. But far worse than that has happened to Doctor Henry Jekyll…
Jeff, you’re absolutely correct. We’ve become so inured to seeing Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as a horror story or a psychoanalytic thriller. But there’s no question that for the reader in 1886 – and for Stevenson – the book was a crime/mystery story.
Try reading the book without any preconceptions and it becomes obvious.
Speaking of Jekyll and Hyde, tonight I watched the new (and soon to be canceled) TV show “My Own Worst Enemy” starring Christian Slater. Slater plays two men who are actually the same person, and whose names are Edward and Henry!
I caught the Edward and Henry reference in the commercials! About “Strange Case,” it’s a darn shame that the ending is so well-known, on the other hand “Jekyll and Hyde” has become terminology that has entered into not only pop culture but science. (Another of Stevenson’s great endings that isn’t as well known is the short-story “The Bottle Imp.” That’s worth your time too!)
I’ve always wondered if the Henry/Edward dichotomy wasn’t a reference to the Wars of the Roses, which pitched the Edwards of York against the Henrys of Lancaster for the English throne.
Probably just a coincidence.
There are no coincidences.
Great piece, Steve. On the topic of some of the comments, there are at least two other famous literary works that are structured like mystery/detective stories but aren’t thought of that way because by now everybody knows the solution: DRACULA and OEDIPUS REX.