Materials Toward a Bibliography of the Works of Talbot Mundy | Page 5

stories. This may be due in some part to the fact that Mundy used the same characters over and over again, in novels in which each played the lead and as sub-characters in other novels. One keeps meeting old friends.
This leads to one difficulty in reading Mundy, however. If one is going to meet these characters, it is much more enjoyable to watch them develop from birth, so to speak--and not vice versa, like coming into a theatre in the middle of the picture. But, a reading sequence is a real difficulty. Each story is complete in itself, but the characters are re-shuffled into various combinations and any one of them may, and does, strike off into a novel of his own, only to reappear at a later date in some combination with other such characters. It is confusing, to say the least. To add to the confusion, all or nearly all of Mundy's stories first appeared in magazines, largely in Adventure, but later in Argosy. As his popularity grew, his older stories were republished in book form, as well as each of his new novels, so that the date of publication of his books means nothing as far as reading chronology is concerned.
Before going any further, it may be interesting to digress a bit, and consider some of his earlier stories in Adventure Magazine, and more particularly as they apply to his books. No attempt is being made to give a complete listing of his magazine stories here. Adventure Magazine began publication in November 1910, but the earliest issue that I have for reference is that of August 1911. This contains a short story by Mundy, "The Phantom Battery." By this time he was publishing five to eight short stories per year. These early stories were mostly about the British Army and the most important was his "The Soul of A Regiment," (February 1913) a tale of native troops in the ill-fated first expedition against the Dervishes in Egypt, with a surprise, terrific, ending. This story was published as a book, "The Soul of A Regiment," (Alex Dulfer, San Francisco, 1925) and was anthologized by Arthur Sullivant Hoffman in "Adventure's Beet Stories--1926" (Doran, New York, 1926). It was reprinted in Adventure Magazine in April 1917 and followed next month be a sequel, "The Damned Old Nigger." Three of his early novelettes (1913), "Hookum Hai," "For the Salt He Had Eaten," and "Machassan Ah," will be found in the book "Told in the East," (Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, 1920). The first two concern the Sepoy Revolt and the third is a humorous story of the British Navy. All are good tales. The characters in the latter appear also in "An Arabian Night" (Adventure, November 1913). The first of his Indian hillman type stories is probably the short novel "The Letter of His Orders" (Adventure, September 1913). His first serial, "For the Peace of India" (Adventure, February to April 1914) was published in the book "Rung Ho" (Scribners, New York, 1914) and is another good story of the Sepoy Rebellion. In January and July 1914, appeared two stories about the Princess Yasmini, a character that he used extensively in later novels--as the lead, with King, with Ranjoor Singh, and in the Jimgrim-Ramsden saga. The first of his sagas (Dick Anthony of Arran) was never published in book form. This series included eight novelettes and short novels, enough to fill four or five books, and appeared in successive issues of Adventure Magazine, beginning August 1914. These were very good adventure tales of a Scotch gentleman fighting for Iran against Old Russia, but are rather dated now. Following this, most of his novels appeared first in a magazine and were then immediately published in book form.
This brings us to the "Jimgrim-Ramsden Saga," the greatest of them all. If the early (and later) development of the associated characters is added, it continues through twenty-one books (twenty-two novels), and fifteen books (sixteen novels) for the actual Jimgrim-Ramsden stories. This is not counting some eighteen novelettes and novels found in magazines only.
This Saga, in the main, is the story of James Schuyler Grim, (Jimgrim) a remarkable characterization, beginning as an American "Lawrence in Arabia" and evolving into a human but unapproachable high priest of the occult. There is Jeff Ramsden, the strong man and his closest friend, who with the Australian, Jeremy Ross, make up the triumvirate of Grim, Ross, and Ramsden, with their henchman Narayan Singh, the indomitable Sikh. (Who cuts throats with an outward thrust.) Later the multimillionaire, Meldrum Strange, hires them to fight evil. Then, Athelbert King, a hero of novels in his own right, joins up, making a quartet. Other characters from Mundy's novels appear--the seductive and dangerous Princess Yasmini; Cotswold Ommony, the forester of India; the Babu, Chullunder Ghose; the Gunga Sahib, and