Douglas Newton, 1884-1951

[Pulpmeister]

Douglas Newton, 1884-1951

Wilfrid Bernard M Newton was a British author, journalist and editor; the writer of several novels, some nonfiction, and hundreds of short stories as Douglas Newton, W Douglas Newton and Wilfrid Douglas Newton. He was very popular in the 20s and 30s and 40s, but on his death his works slid into oblivion, as is so often the case.

His best remembered character is Savaran, an improbable adventurer whose stamping ground was between-the-Wars Africa. A number of the Savaran stories were collected in book form as "I, Savaran!", 1938. A longish novelette, "Savaran and the Great Sand", was also published in book form (aka "The Devil Comes Aboard"), 1939.

("Savaran" is one of the spelling variants of "Aswaran", an elite cavalry force in Sassanid Persia).

Savaran is never given any other name, and the only clue to his origin is that in one story he fills in an document stating that he was a born in USA and his occupation was Field Marshal, both implied by the author to be untrue! At any event, he capers across Africa: here escaping from a prison, there enlisting in the Foreign Legion, elsewhere conquering a desert tribe single handed and proclaiming himself king, and even finding a lost civilisation of amazons in the Sahara.

Apart from the tongue-in-cheek Savaran tales, Newton had several series of stories appearing in popular magazines, such as Blue Book, Red Book, Windsor, Hutchinson's and the like. The nearest thing to a Newton bibilography is the "Index to the Fiction Magazines" online. The only Wikipedia entry is a French one. He was active from about 1910 to the 1940s.

I have started preparing Newton fiction ready for January 1, 2022 (when his work goes into the Public Domain in L+70 countries) including most of the stories in "I, Savaran!", and the long novelette "Savaran and the Great Sand." I have also found a lot of his other short stories appeared in Australian newspapers and magazines, and have started combing some of them out. They will appear in due course in my "Past Master" anthologies or perhaps as a Douglas Newton omnibus. "I, Savaran!" and "Savaran and the Great Sand" will probably appear as stand-alone ebooks.

A few of his novels were also published as serials in Australian papers but I haven't investigated them yet.

[Pulpmeister]

Additional info: one source credits Newton with over 1,000 short stories!

[Cyber Sleuth]

I am really looking forward to these, however you decide to publish them. I just discovered the Savaran stories and have found a few, so I look forward to reading what you have. I hope you tag the stories with sources since they seem to have differences depending on who publishes them. I even found one printed in the Chicago Tribune.

[Pulpmeister]

I now have a collection entitled "The Eighth Buddha and Other Stories" ready to go on Jan 1, 2022. There are probably a further six or eight or even more "Savaran" stories floating about, but I can't snaffle them up easily from my limited sources. "The Eighth Buddha" contains 26 stories.

[Cyber Sleuth]

Great! Sounds like a great new year.