FOOTNOTES
johnny cake: corn bread baked on a griddle.tarheel:: thick syrup made of molasses and maple syrup.
$20.67: The price of an ounce of gold circa 1935.
five-lunged: five-cylindered.
wheels: reference to wheels of gambling machines, i.e., the roulette wheel.
top-kicker: first sergeant; drill sergeant.
Robin Hood of The Range: Eventually retitled “When Gilhooly Was in Flower,” and appearing in the August 1938 issue of Romantic Range.
Bodin is no longer handling my stories. In the autumn of 1937, under wholly amicable circumstances, LRH left the Bodin stable to represent himself. Although he would never advertise the reasons for his departure, we know the agent had long lacked the wherewithal to routinely market subsidiary rights in Hollywood and abroad.
FANGS OF THE TIGER: Owing to William Kostka’s foreshortened stay at Detective Fiction Weekly (actually under four weeks), he was not to publish “Fangs of the Tiger.” The hard-boiled pages of Detective Yarns, however, was soon to see a similarly intriguing LRH mystery, “Killer Ape.”
Costume novel: a historical novel with authentic characters, scenes and descriptions.
Great Northern: the Great Northern Railroad.
Yaffri hill-country: reference to a mountainous region in northern Africa.
Colonel Prentiss Ingraham: as a scout who traveled in the company of Buffalo Bill, he wrote stories recounting adventures on the American frontier.
chicken paper: a journal of poultry farming.
pull any leather: a rider of a bucking horse in a rodeo is not allowed to “pull leather,” i.e., to grab the saddle horn (of leather) to steady himself.
L: short for elevated railway system.
Forrest: Forrest Ackerman, science fiction editor and agent.
my gilded-gingerbread style of writing. Although an extended search reveals no further LRH–Moore correspondence, we know their friendship had been lengthy – moreover, and notwithstanding her “gilded-gingerbread style,” Ms. Moore went on to enjoy a profitable career as both an author of science fiction and a regular contributor to the 1960s hit television series, 77 Sunset Strip.
Hauptmann: Bruno Richard Hauptmann, convicted of kidnapping Charles Lindbergh’s twenty-month-old son.
Valentine: Although no record of Commissioner Valentine’s address appears in the pages of the American Fiction Guild Bulletin, more than one author of detective mysteries was soon turning up with lists of questions for New York Police Department officers.
pip: short for pippin, a highly admired or very admirable person or thing.
A & J: AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST, a writer trade magazine.
Wilder: Thornton Wilder (1897–1975), American novelist and playwright.
Madam Mitchell: Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949), American author who wrote GONE WITH THE WIND.
Ladrone: also known as the Mariana Islands, in the Pacific, which includes Guam.
Mein Herr Egdvedt: Mr. Egdvedt, C. L., president of Boeing Aircraft Company, 1933–1939.
Satevepost: popular American national magazine, Saturday Evening Post.
Matt: Hubert “Matty” Mathieu, Greenwich Village artist, painter and close friend of LRH.
Johnny: John W. Campbell, Jr.
maritime Jonah: In maritime circles, the statement “maritime Jonah” is used to describe a man who brings ill fortune to a ship.
Florence: Florence McChesney, editor of Five Novels Monthly.
Prof. Mudge: the main character in LRH’s “The Dangerous Dimension.”
McGlincy: a character in LRH’s BUCKSKIN BRIGADES.
Daudet: Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897), French novelist.
Zola: Emile Zola (1840-1902), French novelist.
PHANTASMAGORIA: published as FEAR in Unknown magazine, July 1940.
Cosmo: short for Cosmopolitan magazine.
Havana: In addition to author Fletcher Pratt’s “Havana Night,” extra-literary affairs included the flying of experimental kites with Saturday Evening Post illustrator Hubert “Matty” Mathieu, BB gun tournaments with the likes of Norvell “The Spider” Page, and ice-skating evenings at Rockefeller Center with any number of others from the hard-driven ranks of the pulp-fiction team.
Burr: Jack Burr, editor of Western Story magazine.
Sprague: L. Sprague de Camp, writer.
sho: an exclamation expressing contempt, impatience or disapproval.
49: Reference to the upcoming 1949 celebration of the California centennial.
DFW: Detective Fiction Weekly magazine.
Black Mask: a detective magazine.
Startling: a science fiction magazine.
knowing about it: As LRH surmised, his third in the Ole Doc Methuselah series, “Her Majesty’s Aberration,” had been briefly misplaced in the mail. The work eventually appeared, however, in the March 1948 issue of Astounding Science Fiction.
“Man: the Endangered Species”: working title of BATTLEFIELD EARTH: A SAGA OF THE YEAR 3000.