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The Best of Adventure #2 Audiobook
Selected by Doug Elllis
A Secret Society
by Talbot Mundy
Read by Milton Bagby. Liner Notes by Doug Ellis
The pulp magazine, Adventure, first appeared in 1910 and soon became renowned for its fiction from the top authors of the day, later being dubbed by Time magazine, the “No. 1 Pulp.” With The Best of Adventure series from Radio Archives, listeners are able to listen to these classic stories for the first time.
We kicked things off with “The Curved Sword” by Harold Lamb, one of Adventure’s most popular authors. Our second offering is “A Secret Society.” Talbot Mundy was the one Adventure author whose popularity exceeded even that of Lamb, and his character James Schuyler Grim — better known as Jimgrim – is one of his most enduring heroes. An American who initially is a British Secret Service Agent, Jimgrim and his band of fellow adventurers fought their way across the Middle East, India, Tibet and other foreign climes in 19 thrilling tales published in Adventure between 1921 and 1931.
Talbot Mundy spent half of 1920 in the Middle East, based in Jerusalem but travelling to Damascus and other areas as well. It was there that he obtained the background information that he would use in Jimgrim’s early adventures — which he stated were based on facts – starting with “The Adventure of El-Karak” which appeared in Adventure late in 1921. Indeed, Mundy claimed that Jimgrim was based on a man he knew in the Middle East, who had followed Lawrence of Arabia. “A Secret Society” finds Jimgrim leaving the British Secret Service to pursue a new, even more dangerous line of work. With his usual companions — Jeff Ramsden, Jeremy Ross and the Rajput, Narayan Singh – Jimgrim teams up with millionaire Meldrum Strange to form an organization to take on international criminals. Their adventures kick off here, as they fight a sinister Egyptian secret society whose web of blackmail and murder spans the globe! Read by voice actor Milton Bagby.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Doug Ellis has been a pulp collector and researcher for over 30 years, with over 15,000 pulps in his collection. He co-founded and co-organizes the Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention, held every year in the Chicago area. For many years his Tattered Pages Press published the acclaimed pulp fanzine Pulp Vault, as well as other books on the pulps. He was one of the authors of The Adventure House Guide to Pulps, and has edited several pulp anthologies, including the “Best of Adventure” and “Adventure Library” series from Black Dog Books. His book, Uncovered: The Hidden Art Of The Girlie Pulps, an in-depth study of the spicy pulps and their art, was named ForeWord Magazine’s 2003 Popular Culture Book of the Year. In 1996 he received the Lamont Award, for contributions to pulp fandom. The two photos on the wall are original Adventure covers by Hubert Rogers
Milton Bagby is a veteran radio announcer and voiceover specialist who first turned to audiobooks in 2010. Since then, Milton has worked on over two dozen audiobook projects as a narrator or producer. Drawing upon years of stage acting and the occasional bit part in films, Milton uses his experience to create characters that stand out in the ear of the listener.
“I am very much aware that a perfect stranger is going to invest eight or ten hours listening to me tell a story. I do my best to give the listener an experience in which the characters in that story come alive and sound real.”
When not behind a microphone, Milton is a writer. In addition to the well-received Rick Burkhart crime novels, Milton writes a line of 1950s style pulp stories, and is the author of dozens of magazine articles and two non-fiction books. Milton and his wife live in Nashville.
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