Recently Read: The American Zig-Zag, Volume Two

 

The second (and I'm hoping not the last) of author Van Reid's short story collections again features whimsical and entertaining tales taking place in various American locales during the 19th century. "The Windmill" features a cantankerous but well-meaning Geology Professor and a trio of unusual women he meets in a countryside. "Mr. Seabury's Grove" is a lovely tale of a young lady and a "hobo" she encounters camping on her family's prodigious grounds. Amidst poems, epigrams and letters, you'll meet characters reprising their roles from the previous volume, including Chicago cop on the beat Thomas Borum O'Toole and Fustianne Mae and her fascinating family in chapters of "The Ongoing Tale" (and I trust it will someday go on). Reid's prose is delightful, wry, observant and revealing, reminiscent of the ways Charles Dickens brought his characters and environments to life. (Some of "The Ongoing Tale" may bring to mind the work of P.G. Wodehouse.) Illustrating the book is the work of nearly a dozen artists (disclaimer: I'm among them), topped off by Jeff Suntala's stunning wraparound cover design. I highly recommend this volume.

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Recently Read: Argosy, February 23, 1918

This issue begins a new serial (the cover story) which, like some of the short stories and the complete "Along Mystery Trail", by Frank Blighton herein, contains too many coincidences or obvious turns-of-plot to be entirely enjoyable. The continuation of the serials "A Kashmir Abduction" and Achmed Abdullah's "The Trail of the Beast", though, were welcome sights. The political intrigues in "The Trail of the Beast" are, unfortunately, still relevant. The ending of Victor Rousseau's "Fruit of the Lamp" was the best of all, continuing a humorous, whimsical situation comedy-fantasy not unlike P.G. Wodehouse's concoctions. 

I enjoyed a letter from a longtime Argosy reader, Theodore Wells. Here's an excerpt: "...Why, I even forgot to eat supper, and I never left the book till I had read it from beginning to end. I really forgot that picture-shows or the like existed when I got to reading The Argosy. From now on I can look to many comfortable hours with The Argosy, and will continue to read it and also the All-Story Weekly until I leave this world."

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