FOREIGN LEGION ADVENTURES was a short-lived reprint pulp from Munsey. This is the second and final issue. I don't know who did the cover art. Obviously, these stories are all Foreign Legion yarns, and some of the big names in the genre are here: Theodore Roscoe, F. Van Wyck Mason, and J.D. Newsom. There's also a story by Houston Day, a fairly prolific pulpster I'm not familiar with. All the stories in this issue originally appeared in various 1930s issues of ARGOSY. I don't know whether ARGOSY or ADVENTURE published more Foreign Legion stories. The number of them in each magazine is probably pretty close. And all the ones I've read have been very good.
I haven't featured an issue of ARGOSY in a while, and this one sports a nice dramatic cover by Paul Stahr, whose covers I nearly always enjoy. As usual, there are some fine writers inside this issue: Erle Stanley Gardner, Max Brand, Fred MacIsaac, J.D. Newsom, Karl Detzer, and the lesser-known Anson Hatch and Howard Ellis Davis. The Brand, MacIsaac, and Detzer stories are all serial installments, but if I had a copy of this one (I don't) I'd be happy to read the novelettes by Gardner and Newsom.
A.G. Peck, an artist I'm not familiar with, painted the evocative cover on this issue of ADVENTURE. As usual, the line-up of authors inside is very strong: Harold Lamb, J. Allan Dunn, Georges Surdez, Hugh Pendexter, J.D. Newsom, Karl W. Detzer, Bill Adams, and Raymond S. Spears. Arthur Sullivant Hoffman was still the editor at this point. ADVENTURE was a great pulp, issue after issue.
As we've discussed before, nothing says "adventure" quite like a pith helmet, and this cover by V.E. Pyles is proof of that. And, of course, the pulp's title is ADVENTURE, so that's a clue, too. As is the line-up of authors inside for a pulp-savvy reader: Arthur O. Friel, J.D. Newsom, Raoul Whitfield, Hugh Pendexter, Stephen Payne, F.R. Buckley, and Leonard H. Nason. The editor during this era was Anthony M. Rud, a well-known adventure pulpster himself. So the readers certainly knew what they would be getting for their quarter, and they probably were well-pleased with it, too.
Have I ever written anything with barnstormers in it? I don't think so. Maybe I should, one of these days. I doubt if I could top George Bruce, though. He was one of the top aviation pulp writers. Elsewhere in this issue of ARGOSY are stories by Judson Philips, Murray Leinster, J.D. Newsom, Anthony M. Rud, and Arthur Hawthorne Carhart, all dependable pulpsters (and Philips and Leinster went on to long, successful careers as novelists, of course).