Yesterday's Faces #3 : From the Dark Side by Robert Sampson

Rascals, rogues, criminal heroes are staple figures in popular fiction. From the Dark Side, the third volume of the Yesterday's Faces series, presents a fascinating array of these criminal figures, drawn from the pages of the early pulp magazines.

More than forty criminal heroes are examined in this book. They include Masters of Oriental Evil, such as Dr. Fu Manchu, Li Shoon, and Mr. Chang. And such Masterminds of Crime as Fantomas, Black Star, the Spider, and Rafferty. Here plot Red Raven and Barton Edgeworth, tough gangleaders. Those gifted confidence men, Mr. Clackworthy, Elegant Edward, and others, spread their nets. Big-nose Charlie, Thubway Tham, and other street crooks, thieves and thugs ply their trade. Other chapters deal with the costumed criminal tradition, as demonstrated by The Thunderbolt, the Man In Purple, and the Crimson Clown. You will meet honest people turned to crime to avenge personal wrongs--the Avenging Twins, Four Square Jane--and criminals struggling to reform, including those crime geniuses, White Rook, the Gray Phantom, and Blackshirt. Plus a selection of Edgar Wallace's most slippery characters. They are a scintillating group: Blue Jean Billy, girl pirate; The Ringer, a lethal disguise artist; The Picaroon and John Doe, cheerful adventurers; Boston Betty and her criminal fox terrier.

The development of these characters is traced across more than two decades of crime fiction published in Detective Story Magazine, Flynn's, Black Mask, and other magazines. The justifications and conventions that made these stories a special part of popular fiction are examined in detail. The figures from the dark side are fascinating, if dangerous, acquaintances.

Robert Sampson was the author of eight books on the magazines and the characters of the pulp era, including Yesterday's Faces, a six-volume study of series characters and how they evolved through the early pulp magazines. He published more than 100 articles on these magazines and their fiction and contributed essays to such reference works as Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Magazines; and wrote for such periodicals as Clues, The Dime Novel Round-Up, The Mystery Fancier, and The Armchair Detective. His mystery and fantasy fiction appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He received the 1986 Edgar for his short mystery, "Rain in Pinton County."

 

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More from Robert Sampson

Available in Paperback
• Yesterday's Faces #1 : Glory Figures

 

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