On Tue, 22 May 2001, George Upper wrote:
> Daly pretty much just made something up.
> He just invented a character that survived in the
supposed
> no-man's-land between the law and the criminals
(this
> is a huge theme in Daly's work).
I'd like to disagree with this. I readily acknowledge that
Daly made the private eye pretty much what he is now (or, at
least, was up to late 1960's), but I wouldn't say he just
made something up. He couldn't have come up with a totally
original idea.
Take, for example, Gordon Young's stories about Everhard, a
very tough guy, very private eye-like (not exactly a private
eye, but very close), who plays sap for no one, etc. etc. And
Young's Everhard stories were published in Adventure magazine
in 1920 and 1921, over a year before Race Williams appeared
in Black Mask in 1922! It would surprise me very much if Daly
had never read the pulp magazines of his day! (Jess, do you
know anything more about Young and Everhard?)
I think that Race Williams was just a continuation of earlier
pulp magazine creations. Besides Everhard, there were also
some other private eye characters, with more elegance and not
so hardboiled (for example Frederick C. Davis's Dementer Van
Winkle (stupid name, that one!)), but with enough street
credibility to pose as modern private eyes.
Juri
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