Saturday, February 20, 2010

A complete DAFFY DILL story by Richard Sale!

I'm not sure when the Daffy Dill series began or when it ended. The two dozen stories I have range from 1935 to 1943, with almost half of them appearing in 1939. "A Dirge for Pagliaccio" is one of those 1939 stories. Daffy was one of DFW's biggest draws, and usually got the cover illo. I'm guessing this tale didn't because at ten pages it's one of the few short stories. Most Daffy Dill yarns were novelettes running 20 to 30 pages.

As far as I know, only three Daffy stories have been reprinted. If you haven't seen them already, I direct you to “A Nose for News” in The Hardboiled Dicks, “Double Trouble” in Hardboiled Dames and “Three Wise Men of Babylon in The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps.

So here, for the first time in 70 years, is "A Dirge for Pagliaccio". I invite you to click on each page to SUPERSIZE it for easy reading. But be warned! Like Dan Turner - Hollywood Detective, Daffy can be habit forming.

 
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For more on Daffy, see my earlier post on the story Dancing Rats.
And for more on Sale, see yesterday's review of his first novel, Not Too Narrow... Not Too Deep.
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4 comments:

  1. RittsterFebruary 19, 2010 at 10:45 PM

    Sweeeeeet.

    Thanks, D!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Richard RobinsonFebruary 20, 2010 at 9:57 AM

    more, More, MORE! Man I wish someone would collect all these and publish them!

    Thanks Evan!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Monte HerridgeFebruary 20, 2010 at 1:32 PM

    I collect Detective Fiction Weekly, and I am also a fan of the Daffy Dill series. I have found 51 stories running from 1934-1943, and there may be more. Look at Richard Sale's other series in DFW - about Candid Jones, which ran from 1937-1941. He also wrote a few other short series of stories for DFW.

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  4. Evan LewisFebruary 20, 2010 at 2:37 PM

    51! Wow. When this series is finally collected, it will be a multi-volume set.

    Yeah, the Candid Jones stories are good, too. His narration is just not as daffy. I'm guessing there were a lot fewer of them.

    ReplyDelete