Several books of interest to Howard fans published by Black Dog Books will soon be available, as well as a few older items not mentioned thus far on TC.

Volume four of the Talbot Mundy Library, The Letter of his Orders, collecting three short novels (The Guzzler’s Grand Prix, Hookum Hai and the titular one) from Adventure magazine, will soon be published.

Volume three, In a Righteous Cause: Talbot Mundy in Adventure, 1913, is available. The blurb, courtesy of Black Dog Books:

This volume brings together for the first time all of the short stories and rare articles by Talbot Mundy that appeared in the pages of Adventure magazine during 1913. Presented are the classic “For the Salt Which He Had Eaten,” plus “The Tempering of Harry Blunt,” “In a Righteous Cause,” and seven other stories and non-fiction pieces. Also included is a new historical introduction by Mundy biographer Peter Berresford Ellis.

Volume one, A Transaction in Diamonds: Talbot Mundy in the Pulps, 1911, is now in production. It will collect all the stories and articles published by Mundy during his first year as a professional writer, with an introduction by Brian Taves, author of the biography Talbot Mundy — Philosopher of Adventure. Robert E. Howard read a lot of Talbot Mundy. He was also fond of Harold Lamb’s prose.

BDB has two volumes currently available,  Marching Sands and The Skull of Shirzad Mir. The latter book collects five swashbuckling tales of Abdul Dost, the Moslem swordsman, who teams with Sir Ralph Weyand against the evil Uzbek lord, Jani Beg. “The Skull of Shirzad Mir,” “Said Afzel’s Elephant,” “Prophecy of the Blind” and “Rose Face” are short yarns, while Ameer of the Sea is a novel.

Marching Sands was a four-part serial when first published in Argosy.

Robert Gray, ex-Army officer turned soldier of fortune, is hired by the American Exploration Society to find the Wusun, a fabled lost race. In a race against time, taking the path traveled by Marco Polo centuries before Gray uncovers a religious plot to keep the Wusun hidden — a plot which if revealed would rewrite the course of Eastern religious history forever.

Another Black Dog book which looks promising (now in production) is The Best from Adventure, Volume 1 — The Pre-Hoffman Years. It will include twenty of the best tales from the first 15 issues, including “rarely or never-before reprinted works by Talbot Mundy, Damon Runyon, Rafael Sabatini, William Hope Hodgson, R. Austin Freeman, James Francis Dwyer, Frank L. Packard and others.”

DEUCE SAYS: It’s sheer happenstance that this blog entry by Miguel followed the one I just posted about the El Borak book, but very fitting. Mundy and Lamb’s fiction is about as close to Howard’s “desert adventures” as you’re going to find. REH deeply admired both authors and was obviously influenced by their works. Another author that Howard thought highly of was Rafael Sabatini. I’m glad to see that BDB is getting some more of Sabatini’s swashbuckling tales (of which he was a master) back in print. Adventure magazine was where REH learned (by absorption, imitation and assimilation) to craft the break-neck, bloody tales that he is so well known for today. I’m also pleased to see that BDB enlisted the services of two fine Mundy scholars such as Ellis and Taves to pen the introductions.