The Oakdale Affair is a short contemporary mystery novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was written in 1917 under the working title of "Bridge and the Oskaloosa Kid," and is a partial sequel to The Mucker (1914/1916), Bridge, the protagonist, having been a secondary character in the earlier work.
The THING moved down the hallway to the closed door. The dragging chain marked each foot of its advance. If it made other sounds they were drowned by the clanking of the links over the time roughened flooring. Within the room the five were frozen into utter silence, and beyond the door an equal quiet prevailed for a long minute; then a great force made the door creak and a weird scratching sounded high up upon the old fashioned panelling. Bridge heard a smothered gasp from the boy beside him, followed instantly by a flash of flame and the crack of a small caliber automatic; The Oskaloosa Kid had fired through the door. Edgar Rice Burroughs created one of the most iconic figures in American pop culture, Tarzan of the Apes, and it is impossible to overstate his influence on entire genres of popular literature in the decades after his enormously winning pulp novels stormed the public's imagination. The sequel to The Mucker, considered Burroughs' finest novel, The Oakdale Affair follows the continuing adventures of Mucker hero Billy Byrne's best friend, Bridge, in a tale of kidnapping, jewel thievery, and other nefarious acts in the devastated social and economic landscape of post-World War I America. Originally appearing as a serial in 1918, it did not appear first in book form until 1937.
The house on the hill showed lights only upon the first floor-in the spacious reception hall, the dining room, and those more or less mysterious purlieus thereof from which emanate disagreeable odors and agreeable foods. From behind a low bush across the wide lawn a pair of eyes transferred to an alert brain these simple perceptions from which the brain deduced with Sherlockian accuracy and Raffleian purpose that the family of the president of The First National Bank of-Oh, let's call it Oakdale-was at dinner, that the servants were below stairs and the second floor deserted. The owner of the eyes had but recently descended from the quarters of the chauffeur above the garage which he had entered as a thief in the night and quitted apparelled in a perfectly good suit of clothes belonging to the gentlemanly chauffeur and a soft, checked cap which was now pulled well down over a pair of large brown eyes in which a rather strained expression might have suggested to an alienist a certain neophytism which even the stern set of well shaped lips could not effectually belie. Apparently this was a youth steeling himself against a natural repugnance to the dangerous profession he had espoused; and when, a moment later, he stepped out into the moonlight and crossed the lawn toward the house, the slender, graceful lines which the ill-fitting clothes could not entirely conceal carried the conviction of youth if not of innocence.
Burroughs calls up successful motifs from earlier works and recombines them in a roller-coaster fashion. The work starts as a social critique of the inner city, Chicago, but quickly moves to sea. A lost city of Japanese samurai can be found on a tiny Pacific island, and this serves as the action-filled turf of Billy Byrne, a Chicago street thug. He experiences a mutiny among pirates, encounters a lost race of Samurai head-hunter degenerates, must compete with another man for the love of beautiful Barbara, and travels to Mexico where Burroughs combines social history and the traditional Western.
In creating some of the most enduring characters in 20th century literature, Burroughs (1875-1950) left a complex bibliographic record of editions, and a long chain of fascinated collectors. The present reference work details all United States versions of all his works published through 1995. Each listing begins with a description of the first magazine appearance of the story (with full publication data); the first hardcover is then examined in detail, with publisher, date, a complete description of the book's cover and jacket, print run, price, number of pages, and characteristics that separate it from following editions. Similar information is then provided from all subsequent editions.
So, just how was Tarzan created? Eager to know the inside story about the legendary John Carter and the amazing cities and peoples of Barsoom? Perhaps your taste is more suited to David Innes and the fantastic lost world at the Earth?s core? Or maybe wrong-way Napier and the bizarre civilizations of cloud-enshrouded Venus are more to your liking? These pages contain all that you will ever want to know about the wondrous worlds and unforgettable characters penned by the master storyteller Edgar Rice Burroughs. ø Richard A. Lupoff, the respected critic and writer who helped spark a Burroughs revival in the 1960s, reveals fascinating details about the stories written by the creator of Tarzan. Featured here are outlines of all of Burroughs?s major novels, with descriptions of how they were each written and their respective sources of inspiration. This Bison Books edition includes a new foreword by fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, a new introduction by the author, a final chapter by Phillip R. Burger, as well as corrected text and an updated bibliography.
The War Chief by Edgar Rice Burroughs A white baby named Andy MacDuff is captured in a raid by the great Apache chief, Geronimo, adopted by the Indian leader, and raised by his youngest wife. The boy grows up such an expert hunter that he kills a black bear when he is only ten years old, and receives the name Shoz-Dijiji, the Black Bear. As he grows to young manhood he becomes an expert fighter, and falls in love with a beautiful Indian maiden named Ish-kay-nay. This is the original Argosy-Allstory Weekly pulp magazine text published in 1927. We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.
A mother and daughter find what they share in their bones in this compelling novel from the bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and The Backyard Bird Chronicles. Ruth Young and her widowed mother have always had a difficult relationship. But when she discovers writings that vividly describe her mother’s tumultuous life growing up in China, Ruth discovers a side of LuLing that she never knew existed. Transported to a backwoods village known as Immortal Heart, Ruth learns of secrets passed along by a mute nursemaid, Precious Auntie; of a cave where dragon bones are mined; of the crumbling ravine known as the End of the World; and of the curse that LuLing believes she released through betrayal. Within the calligraphied pages awaits the truth about a mother's heart, secrets she cannot tell her daughter, yet hopes she will never forget... Conjuring the pain of broken dreams and the power of myths, The Bonesetter’s Daughter is an excavation of the human spirit: the past, its deepest wounds, its most profound hopes.