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Author Description <b>John Locke</b> is a historian of the American pulp fiction magazines of the first half of the Twentieth Century. He has paid particular attention to the phenomenon of pulp fiction as a writers’ paradise in the boom years of the twenties, to its sudden downfall after the Crash of ’29 into a writers’ ghetto where writers were forced to pound out “speed art” on their typewriters at a penny a word in order to make a living. One of the central characters that evolved in the pulps is the hardboiled detective, in magazines like <i>Black Mask</i> and <i>Dime Detective</i>; the central character behind the scenes of the 1930s pulps is the hardboiled writer, a Manhattan denizen thriving on booze and cigarettes, using a typewriter like it was a machine gun, and slowly going nuts. Locke has explored the pulp writing phenomenon in three key works: <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1886937834" rel="nofollow noopener">Pulp Fictioneers</a> </i> (2004), <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/0978683625" rel="nofollow noopener">Pulpwood Days: Volume 1: Editors You Want To Know</a> </i> (2007), and <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/193503121X" rel="nofollow noopener">Pulpwood Days: Volume 2: Lives of the Pulp Writers</a> </i> (2013).<br /><br />Locke’s Off-Trail Publications specializes in books which combine vintage pulp fiction reprints with related histories of the era, the authors and the magazines. <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031007" rel="nofollow noopener">Gang Pulp</a> </i> is a pioneering look at the violent gangster fiction that came into vogue during the last years of Prohibition. Single author gangster collections include: <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031171" rel="nofollow noopener">If She Only Had a Machine Gun</a> </i>, by Richard Credicott (2011); <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/193503118X" rel="nofollow noopener">Queen of the Gangsters: Volume 1: Broadwalk Empire</a> </i>, by Margie Harris (2011); and <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031015" rel="nofollow noopener">The Gangland Sagas of Big Nose Serrano</a> </i>, by Anatole Feldman, introductions by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/350112.Will_Murray" title="Will Murray" rel="nofollow noopener">Will Murray</a>, Volumes 1-3 (2008-09). <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031112" rel="nofollow noopener">City of Numbered Men: The Best of Prison Stories</a> </i> (2010) explores the brief reign of hardboiled prison fiction, and includes a 14,000-word profile of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5611950.Hersey__Harold" title="Hersey, Harold" rel="nofollow noopener">Harold Hersey</a>, the most colorful publisher of the pulp era.<br /><br />Adventure fiction collections include two volumes from Africa explorer Charles Beadle: <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/0978683617" rel="nofollow noopener">The City of Baal</a> </i> (2007), and <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031198" rel="nofollow noopener">The Land of Ophir</a> </i> (2012); the exquisite <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/0978683684" rel="nofollow noopener">Amazon Stories, Volume 1</a> </i> (2008) and <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031066" rel="nofollow noopener">Volume 2</a> </i> (2009), by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/910561.Arthur_O__Friel" title="Arthur O. Friel" rel="nofollow noopener">Arthur O. Friel</a>; <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031155" rel="nofollow noopener">Outdoor Stories</a> </i>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1906902.J__Allan_Dunn" title="J. Allan Dunn" rel="nofollow noopener">J. Allan Dunn</a> (2011); and <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031104" rel="nofollow noopener">The Golden Anaconda</a> </i>, by Elmer Brown Mason (2009).<br /><br />Weird detective collections include the popular <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/0978683609" rel="nofollow noopener">Weird Detective Adventures of Wade Hammond</a> </i>, by Paul Chadwick, Volumes 1-4 (2006-09); <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031082" rel="nofollow noopener">Grottos of Chinatown</a> </i>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/539808.Arthur_J__Burks" title="Arthur J. Burks" rel="nofollow noopener">Arthur J. Burks</a> (2009); and <i> <a href="http://amzn.com/1935031120" rel="nofollow noopener">The Magician Detective and Other Weird Mysteries</a> </i>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/277521.Fulton_Oursler" title="Fulton Oursler" rel="nofollow noopener">Fulton Oursler</a> (2010).<br />

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