H. Bedford-Jones
H. Bedford-Jones, born Henry James O'Brien Bedford-Jones in Napanee, Ontario, on April 29, 1887, was a prolific Canadian author known for his extensive contributions to pulp fiction. He began his writing career after moving to the United States, where he became involved with notable literary figures and found success in the dime-store novel genre. Bedford-Jones is particularly remembered for his adventure novels, featuring characters like the comic Cockney explorer John Solomon, who embarked on fantastical journeys and discovered lost civilizations. Over his forty-year writing career, he produced more than ninety novels and over twelve hundred short stories, often under various pen names and while navigating the challenges of personal life, including multiple marriages and legal disputes regarding custody of his children. His unique storytelling often blended historical contexts with imaginative elements, earning him the title "the King of the Wood Pulps" from fellow author Erle Stanley Gardner. Despite his popularity during his lifetime, Bedford-Jones's work has only recently begun to receive the critical recognition it deserves, highlighting his significant impact on early 20th-century American literature. He passed away on May 6, 1949, leaving behind a rich legacy in the world of fiction.
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Subject Terms
H. Bedford-Jones
Writer
- Born: April 29, 1887
- Birthplace: Napanee, Ontario, Canada
- Died: May 6, 1949
Biography
Born in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, on April 29, 1887, Henry James O’Brien Bedford-Jones was of Anglo-Irish descent. His father was a clergyman, and Bedford-Jones’s later life and work would be informed by his religious faith. In his second year of college, Bedford-Jones dropped out to find work. His facility with language, as manifested by his early success in producing verse for Sunday-school magazines, coupled with a typing speed that became legendary among his contemporaries, led Bedford-Jones to seek employment that would capitalize on his talents. He left his native Canada to move to Chicago to work as a stenographer/typist for the Chicago Western Railroad and then to Conway, Michigan, to work as a reporter on a weekly newspaper.
Not long after his relocation to Michigan, Bedford-Jones met William Wallace Cook, and his future path was soon set. A major figure in the genre of the dime-store novel, Cook took the younger man under his wing, and Bedford-Jones was introduced to the New York publishers of some of the most important pulp fiction magazines of the period.
With his writing career successfully launched, Bedford-Jones proposed marriage to Helen Swing Williamson in 1914, and their union produced three children, two daughters and a son. The couple divorced in 1925, and Bedford-Jones eventually married Mary McNally Bernardin.
During the early years of his career, Bedford-Jones wrote a number of adventure novels featuring his most memorable character, the comic Cockney explorer John Solomon, who very often discovers lost civilizations in improbable places, such as the descendants of Norman crusaders living in a forgotten city at the bottom of a volcano on the Arabian peninsula in The Seal of Solomon (1925). Bedford-Jones himself led a globe-trotting life during the late 1920’s, when he worked as a European correspondent for The Boston Globe.
Finally, in the 1930’s, Bedford-Jones settled in California. During this period, his three children from his first marriage left their mother’s custody and came to live with him; high drama and five years of legal wrangling ensued after his first wife accused him of kidnapping. In the 1940’s, his productivity slowed because of a series of heart attacks and a diagnosis of diabetes, and he died on May 6, 1949, of heart disease.
In the forty years that he worked as a professional writer, using a variety of pen names, Bedford-Jones produced more than ninety novels and more than twelve hundred short stories. Written to order usually on tight deadlines, most of these narratives combine historical settings with fantastical elements and occasional science-fiction gadgetry. One of his greatest admirers, Erle Stanley Gardner, the author of the Perry Mason mysteries, called Bedford-Jones “the King of the Wood Pulps,” and it is no exaggeration to claim that he was one of the most popular and highly paid American writers of the first half of the twentieth century, thanks largely to his work for pulp fiction publishers and mass-market magazines. However, the ephemeral nature of the popular media for which he toiled explains why he is only recently and very belatedly gaining some bibliographic and critical attention.