Argosy - July 11th, 1936 "Sleepy McGee"
Book price: $15 - $35 - $75 This is Hubbard's first appearance in Argosy. This is also the first story in Ron's Hell Job Series. Right: Alternate cover with 15 cent price. I assume that this was printed in the United States and distributed in Canada. On the contents page it states that the printing was in the United States. However, Canadian pulps from this publisher sold for 15 cents. This is why I think it was printed for Canadian distribution. |
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Argosy - July 18th, 1936 "Don't Rush Me"
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60 Right: Alternate cover with 15 cent price. I assume that this was printed in the United States and distributed in Canada. On the contents page it states that the printing was in the United States. However, Canadian pulps from this publisher sold for 15 cents. This is why I think it was printed for Canadian distribution. |
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Argosy - October 3rd, 1936 "Mr. Luck"
- King of the Beasts · Theodore Roscoe
- Raid of the China Clipper · H. Bedford-Jones
- A Gent from the Pecos · Robert E. Howard
- Mr. Luck · L. Ron Hubbard
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- Tarzan and the Magic Men · Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Son of Noah · James Stevens
- Ice Water Warrior · Anthony M. Rud
- Bengal Fire · L.G. Blochman
Book price: $16 - $40 - $80
This is a highly collected issue due to it containing: L. Ron Hubbard, Robert E. Howard and a Tarzan story by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Argosy - October 17th, 1936 "Test Pilot"
Book price: $15 - $35 - $75 Right: Alternate cover with 15 cent price. I assume that this was printed in the United States and distributed in Canada. On the contents page it states that the printing was in the United States. However, Canadian pulps from this publisher sold for 15 cents. This is why I think it was printed for Canadian distribution. |
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Argosy - October 24th, 1936 "Deep-Sea Diver"
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60 Right: Alternate cover with 15 cent price. I assume that this was printed in the United States and distributed in Canada. On the contents page it states that the printing was in the United States. However, Canadian pulps from this publisher sold for 15 cents. This is why I think it was printed for Canadian distribution. In the Argonotes section in the back of this issue, there is a letter from Ron.
"In the Argonotes for last week we were discussing the matter of authenticity in story backgrounds. This week, fortunately, we can take a back seat and turn the rest of the argument over to our writers. Quite unasked, several of them have dropped us letters lately telling us what they are up to. A couple of these fit right in with our discussion." "One of Argosy's authors who has been doing a series based on hazardous occupations has been having the time of his life living his stories before he writes them. "Deep-Sea Diver," in this issue, is one of them. There are more to come. Listen to what is promised, and how it is lived, by L. Ron Hubbard." - Editor "These series will either be the making or the ruination of me. Lately I've been following your Argonotes, in which several gentlemen have taken several of us poor writers for a ride. I anticipate a lot of copy for that section with these hazardous occupation stories judging from the diversity of opinions I have received in collecting the material. For instance, two loggers I was taking to last month almost came to blows over the right name for the lad who strings cables in the lumber camps. One claimed it was 'high-rigger,' the other, 'high faller.' According to location, I suppose." "Mining is another thing that varies to beat the devil. All depends upon district, whether coal or metal mining, whether you are a miner or a mining engineer." "Oil wells are the most variable thing in the lot. Every section of the world has a different nomenclature, different methods. I took Texas because I'm familiar with their methods there, but ten to one some roughneck in California is going to pop up with vast objections." "So, I anticipate lots of fun. All along I've realized the score on this and so I have checked and rechecked the data contained in the stories, and I think I've got an airtight answer for every possible squawk." "Something else has amused me considerably. Writers, treating the same subject time after time in fiction, gradually evolve a terminology and a pattern for certain types of stories as you well know. This creates an erroneous belief in readers that they are familiar with a certain subject through reading so much fiction dealing with it. I've had to shed a lot of that for the sake of accuracy and I'm very, very anxious to have my hand called on some of it. Oil well stories, for instance, always seem to have a villain who, in the hight of hate, drops a wrench or something down a well to ruin it. Dropping things into the hole is common. In cable tool drilling, so many hours or days are regularly estimated in with the rest of the work for fishing. The tools fall in, wrenches drop, bits stick, cables break, and wells are never, never abandoned because of it, or is it considered at all serious." "In the oil well story Mike McGraw gnaws upon a lighted cigar while he mixes nitroglycerin. He shoots fulminate caps with a slingshot to explode them. He is, in short, doing everything a man shouldn't do - accordingly to popular opinion. There'll be fireworks in that quarter. Plenty of fireworks. But I've nailed the answers down. Soup, unless confined, will burn slowly when ignited. Smoking while making it is no more dangerous the smoking in a gasoline station - and everybody does that. As for caps, they explode only when they are scratched with steel or when they have been hammered hard. I almost went crazy in Puerto Rico while surveying a metal mine. The native in charge of dynamite was very, very careless, so I thought. One day after he had blown a series along a drift, I told him what I thought about it. He was smoking and carrying 60% dynamite at the same time. To my horror he shoved the lighted end of his cigar against the stick. It burned no faster then a pitchy piece of kindling. He used to shoot dogs with fulminate triple-force caps." "The process of digging up data is interesting when I can get these gentleman to give me a hand. The navy diver is responsible for the data and authenticity of this story. Going down off the end of a dock didn't give me such a good idea of what it was all about after all. Never got so scared before in all my life. Something ghastly about it. And the helmet is enough to deafen you and the cuffs where so tight my hands got blue." "But it was lots of fun!" "When these stories start to come out and when the letters start to come in calling me seven different kinds of liar (which they will), sit easy and grin and shoot them this way. There isn't anything reasonable in the way of criticism I can't answer anent this collected data." "It was either bow to popular fallacy and avoid all technical descriptions, or ride roughshod, make sure I was right and damn the torpedoes. Making the latter choice, I've laid myself wide open several times to crank letters. So be it." - L. Ron Hubbard |
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Argosy - October 31, 1936 "The Big Cats"
- Lords of the Roaring Road · Richard H. Watkins
- The Big Cats · L. Ron Hubbard
- El Caballero · Richard Wormser
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- Annapolis, Ahoy · George Bruce
- Full Circle · Robert Carse
- The Riot at Bucksnort · Robert E. Howard
- Red Chaos by Night · Eustace L. Adams
- Porgies Are Back · Bertrand L. Shurtleff
- The Spearhead Streak · Anthony M. Rud
Book price: $15 - $35 - $75
Argosy - November 7th, 1936 "River Driver"
- The Last Crusade · Martin McCall
- One-Way Ticket · Donald Barr Chidsey
- River Driver · L. Ron Hubbard
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- The Outlaw · Murray Leinster
- El Caballero · Richard Wormser
- Public Toothache No. 1 · Cornell Woolrich
- Annapolis, Ahoy · George Bruce
- The Boss of Wildtown · John Randolph Phillips
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60
Argosy - November 28th, 1936 "The Ethnologist"
Book price: $15 - $35 - $75 Right: Alternate cover with "Now 10 cent" banner. I assume that this was printed in the United States and distributed in Canada. On the contents page it states that the printing was in the United States. However, Canadian pulps from this publisher sold for 15 cents. This is why I think it was printed for Canadian distribution. |
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Argosy - December 5th, 1936 "Mine Inspector"
- Hades · Lester Dent
- Kayo in the Caribbees · Donald Barr Chidsey
- Mine Inspector · L. Ron Hubbard
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- Will o' Wisp · H. Bedford-Jones
- Black Blizzard · Foster-Harris
- Not to the Strong · William Merriam Rouse
- Annapolis, Ahoy · George Bruce
- The Crime Doctor · Herb Lewis
Book price: $15 - $35 - $75
Argosy - December 12th, 1936 "The Shooter"
- Man With the Painted Smile · Eustace L. Adams
- Holocaust · Cornell Woolrich
- Say It with Speed · Richard Howells Watkins
- Hades · Lester Dent
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- The Shooter · L. Ron Hubbard
- Will o' Wisp · H. Bedford-Jones
- Two Pints of Dynamite · James Stevens
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60
Argosy - January 9th, 1937 "Steeplejack"
Book price: $20 - $50 - $100 Right: Alternate cover with "Now 10 cent" banner. I assume that this was printed in the United States and distributed in Canada. On the contents page it states that the printing was in the United States. However, Canadian pulps from this publisher sold for 15 cents. This is why I think it was printed for Canadian distribution. |
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Argosy - January 23rd, 1937 "Flying Trapeze"
- Riding Gun · Bennett Foster
- Wolf’s Prey · Frank Richardson Pierce
- Footprints to Oblivion · Theodore Roscoe
- Still Untamed · Bertrand L. Shurtleff
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- Seven Worlds to Conquer [Part 3 of 6] · Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Flying Trapeze · L. Ron Hubbard
- Baby Face · George Bruce
- Last Debt of Dishonor · William E. Barrett
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60
Argosy - February 6th, 1937 "Mountaineer"
- Z is for Zombie · Theodore Roscoe
- Confidence Flight · Carl Rathjen
- Mountaineer · L. Ron Hubbard
- Men Who Make the Argosy · Charles L. Clifford
- Riding Gun · Bennett Foster
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- Pipe All Hands · Robert Carse
- Seven Worlds to Conquer [Part 5 of 6] · Edgar Rice Burroughs
- The Ace of Emeralds · Donald Barr Chidsey
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60
Argosy - March 20th, 1937 "A Lesson in Lightning"
- Pretty Boy · Max Brand
- A Lesson in Lightning · L. Ron Hubbard
- Night Stage · Frank Richardson Pierce
- High Heels - And Henry · W.C. Tuttle
- Face the Music · Freeman Tilden
- The American · George Challis
- Thirteen Stones · Rollin Brown
- Skyway to Peril · Eustace L. Adams
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- Half a Town · William Donald Bray
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60
Argosy - August 21st, 1937 "Nine Lives"
- Call Me Mike · Donald Barr Chidsey
- Trails West · Bennett Foster
- Nine Lives · L. Ron Hubbard
- Without Rules · Garnett Radcliffe
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- Drink of Deep · Arthur Leo Zagat
- A-Yachting We Will Go · Bertrand L. Shurtleff
- Strike · John Hawkins
- Bill o' Sale · Frank Richardson Pierce
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60
There is a letter from Ron while he was writting for film serials in Hollywood CA. Here is what Ron and the Editor had to say:
Timely, we think, is the next letter - from L. Ron Hubbard, represented by a fine novelet in this issue. Mr. Hubbard writes us, part as a fan, part as an author, and part as a sheer, bubbly personality discussing things he wots a good deal of. We had to truncate a good portion of the first half of his letter - all about business, which even we artistic fellows have to get around to on occasion - but the rest we thought much too good to be wasted on any dusty files.
- Editor
I like the new make-up very much. You have considerably increased the appearance of the magazine. I also enjoyed the Argonotes of the June 26th issue. Whoever wrote it did a good job on it.
There was also a comment in there by Ralph Lake. In part, he says, 'This Brand, while a prolific writer, is a genius none the less."
I think Mr. Lake would be greatly amused or perhaps astounded if he knew Max Brand, Fred Faust's or whose have you, literary history.
Just why is it, prey tell, that John Public (and Hollywood) dwell in the dark about a fast production writer? If a man writes one story a year, everybody says 'Ah! He must be an artist!'
No merit to a man who works himself bald and into an early grave putting out repeated bits of the marvelous.
O. Henry's Production speed would put most of us to shame. Dickens wrote like a whirlwind, was practically an H. Bedford-Jones. And so on down the list of those stories we have come to regard as classic. And don't forget Scott! Gadzooks, but that man rolled out the wordage!
The difference, I think, between the 'artist' and the fast-production writer is that the latter has a more nimble brain, is a better writer, has more unconscious technique.
If I write less than fifty thousand a month, my idea-machine practically breaks down, I don't think of anything to write. Of course I'm no Brand or Jones but like most of my brethren, when it has to be rolled, I can roll it - and, strangely, the best stories I ever did were done spontaneously at a composition speed of between two and three thousand words an hour - which includes getting up, walking around the chair, lighting the pipe and wishing they'd turn off the radio next door.
As a matter of fact this is the reason I wanted to write this letter.
Let me make the flat statement that most of the greatest literary lights in the world and certainly those in our present field, wrote and write at a speed which would make a layman faint from shock.
Toss that into Argonotes and listen to the howl.
Enough stalling. I've got to finish this shooting script.
Hollywood, Calif.
- L. Ron Hubbard
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Argosy - November 13th, 1937 "Cargo of Coffins"
- Sandhog · Borden Case
- Cargo of Coffins · L. Ron Hubbard
- Mule Heaven · Charles T. Jackson
- Pacific Passage · Allan Vaughan Elson
- Oft in the Silly Night · Cornell Woolrich
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- Trail's End · Frank Richardson Pierce
- Tiger on Parade · Judson P. Philips
- Women Are Lousy Loggers · Donald Bowman
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60
Argosy - December 18th, 1937 "Orders is Orders"
- Guns, Gentlemen · Cornell Woolrich
- Loot Below · Eustance L. Adams
- With Christmas Comes Itam Piang · Verne Chute
- Orders is Orders · L. Ron Hubbard
- Men of Daring · Stookie Allen
- Genius Jones · Lester Dent
- Golden Wedding · Frank Richardson Pierce
- Sandhog · Borden Chase
Book price: $12 - $30 - $60
Ma Lanning's Boy TerryAccording to a check to LRH from Argosy, they had purchased a story from Ron titled, "Ma Lanning's Boy Terry".
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