Arthur O. Friel

Arthur Olney Friel (1887–1959) was one of the most popular writers for the adventure pulps. Friel, a 1909 Yale University graduate, had been South American editor for the Associated Press which led him into his subject matter. In 1922, he became a real-life explorer when he took a six-month trip down Venezuela's Orinoco River and its tributary, the Ventuari River. His travel account was published in 1924 as The River of Seven Stars.[1]

After returning from the Venezuela trip, many of Friel's stories were set in that environment. He remained a popular writer in Adventure throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Most of his longer works were republished in hardback. In the 1930s, he started appearing more regularly in the adventure pulp Short Stories with stories set in Venezuela.

He was a member of the American Geographical Society.[2]

In a 1934 letter, Robert E. Howard described Friel as "one of my favorite authors".[3]

He died in New Hampshire in 1959, the state where he had grown up.

Pedro and Lourenço

Friel began appearing in Adventure magazine in 1919 with stories set in the Amazon jungle featuring the characters Pedro Andrada and Lourenço Moraes, two seringueiros (rubber-industry workers) who undergo harrowing experiences in the impenetrable jungle surrounding the Javary River, an Amazon tributary which forms part of the border between Brazil and Peru. The "Pedro and Lourenço" stories include:

and the novellas The Jararaca (December 30, 1921) and Black Hawk (March 10, 1922). (NOTE: "The Snake", "The Sloth", "The Jaguar", "The Jabiru", "Clay John" and "The Peccaries" are stories in which Lourenço appears by himself.) The events of Black Hawk take place immediately after those in The Jararaca, and the character of "Thomas Gordon Mack", an American explorer, is a major character in both novellas. Some of the Pedro and Laurenco stories feature minor science fiction elements, such as lost civilizations and ape-human hybrids.[2]

The "Pedro and Lourenço" stories have been recently published in collections including Amazon Nights: Classic Adventure Tales from the Pulps, Amazon Stories Volume I and II and Black Hawk and Other Tales of the Amazon: The Adventures of Pedro and Lourenço.

McKay, Ryan and Knowlton

In late 1922, Friel began writing longer works, which were serialized in Adventure. The first ones, featuring a trio of adventurers called McKay, Ryan and Knowlton, and other characters, were The Pathless Trail, Tiger River, The King of No-Man's Land and Mountains of Mystery. A later story in the sequence "In the Year 2000" (Adventure, 1928) was not published in book form; it is a science-fiction novel with racist overtones.[4]

The Pathless Trail, and Tiger River were republished by Centaur Press in November 1969 and May 1971, respectively.

Bibliography

McKay, Ryan and Knowlton

Other books

Collections

An unabridged audiobook of Amazon Nights: Classic Adventure Tales from the Pulps read by Tony Scheinman was released in 2012.

References

  1. ↑ John Locke, "Dispatches From Green Hell," , introduction to Amazon Stories: Volume 1: Pedro & Lourenço (2007), provides the most complete biography.
  2. 1 2 Darrell Schweitzer,"Introduction" to Friel's collection Amazon Nights: Classic Adventure Tales from the Pulps (2005) (p. 7-8) .
  3. ↑ "I was much interested to note that you are acquainted with Arthur O. Friel. He has been one of my favorite authors for years". Howard letter to Carl Jacobi, quoted in Schweitzer, 2005.
  4. ↑ E. F. Bleiler and Richard Bleiler, Science Fiction: The Early Years,Kent State University Press, (1990) (pps. 266-7).

External links

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