Caveman fiction shows up now and then in the pulps, as in this issue of TOP-NOTCH with a cover by Gayle Hoskins illustrating the lead novel, "Man of the Dawn" by Charles Willard Diffin. Now, I can't tell you much about Diffin except that he wrote quite a bit for the early ASTOUNDING and published sporadically in other pulps including TOP-NOTCH during the first half of the Thirties. I can tell you, however, that this issue contains "Sword of Shahrazar", a Kirby O'Donnell yarn by Robert E. Howard, which is its main claim to fame these days. It also includes stories by Carl Jacobi, William Merriam Rouse, Harold F. Cruickshank (known to me from many Western pulps), and a few authors I'm not familiar with. I don't own a copy of this issue, so the Howard story is the only one I've read, but the Diffin yarn sounds interesting and Jacobi was always worth reading.
2 comments:
Pulpdom has published several "cave man" stories, in fact #70 (2012)was devoted to PALEOFICTION, where over a dozen "cave man" books and pulp stories were reviewed, with illustrations. In Pulpdom Online #10 a famous rare "cave man" short is reprinted from 1919, with wonderful b&w drawings by Zed Burian. Your post seems oblivious to all that. What's up JR?
This post was just a brief comment about this particular issue. I'm aware of your work and respect it, Caz, no slight intended.
Post a Comment