Wednesday, July 25, 2012

King Corrigan's Treasure - Another great ADVENTURE collection from Black Dog Books

King Corrigan’s Treasure is one more in a long line of lost treasures from Black Dog Books. Publisher Tom Roberts has a real knack for rediscovering forgotten pulp writers and giving them the recognition they deserve - and H. D. Couzens is a great example.

Couzens was a real-life seaman who wrote great sea stories for the mag some folks consider the greatest pulp of them all - Adventure.

King Corrigan’s Treasure features six stories and one novel starring Couzen’s greatest creation, an honorable modern-day pirate named Billy Englehart. Englehart roams the South Seas in search of profit and adventure, usually in the company of his salty pal Jim Carncross. He’s as tough - and as clever - as they come, and doesn’t let little things like laws get in his way, but more often than not he finds himself pitted against a ruthless and dishonorable villain, making him shine by comparison.

Couzens uses several narrative techniques to keep the stories fresh. Some stories are narrated first-person by people who meet or know Billy Englehart. Sometimes he’s one of the point-of-view characters. And sometimes, as in the novel “King Corrigan’s Treasure,” we see him only through the eyes of several other characters. But in every case, Billy is the driving force behind the story. He’s the man with the vision, and the goal, and he never gives up until he gets what he wants.

Though these tales are now a full century old, Couzen’s prose is sharp enough to have been penned yesterday. So thank you, Mr. Black Dog, for another great book! Check out the entire Black Dog Books line HERE.

For this one, I also owe a big thank-you to Mr. Richard Robinson, the man with The Broken Bullhorn. Mr. R was a little quick on the trigger when placing his Black Dog order, and accidentally purchased a second copy of this book. And being a generous guy, he insisted on donating it to the Lewis Library. I love it when that happens. Thanks again, Mr. R!

6 comments:

Deka Black said...

This Adventure collection made me remember a thing: here in Spain, the last year, a publishing house specialized in comics, did something awesome: They published the full Tros saga by talbot mundy!

Evan Lewis said...

Good news, Deka. Tros deserves to be in print.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the nod, Evan. I still haven't read my copy.

shonokin said...

Oooh this sounds interesting! I've just been reading William Hope Hodgson's Captain Gault stories. Sounds relatively similar. Looking forward to checking this out!

shonokin said...

Also, just noticed that another Couzens storie is in Best of Adventure vol 1 "Brethren of the Sea". Which I also notice was at some point a standalone hardback.

And "The Chang Wah Pearl" is in Best of Adventure vol 2.

Evan Lewis said...

After reading this, I'm looking forward to those two Best of Adventure stories.