Henry James O'Brien Bedford-Jones (1887–1949) was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 historical

Historical fiction

Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...

, adventure fantasy, science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

, crime

Crime fiction

Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalizes crimes, their detection, criminals and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as science fiction or historical fiction, but boundaries can be, and indeed are, blurred...

 and Western

Western (genre)

The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

 writer who became a naturalized United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 citizen in 1908. After being encouraged to try writing by his friend, writer William Wallace Cook, Bedford-Jones began writing dime novels

Dime novel

Dime novel, though it has a specific meaning, has also become a catch-all term for several different forms of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S...

 and pulp magazine

Pulp magazine

Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...

 stories. Bedford-Jones was an enormously prolific writer; the pulp editor Harold Hersey

Harold Hersey

Harold Brainerd Hersey was a pulp editor and publisher, and published several volumes of poetry. His pulp industry observations were published in hardback as Pulpwood Editor .-Early life:...

 once recalled meeting Bedford-Jones in Paris, where he was working on two novels simultaneously, each story on its own separate typewriter. Bedford-Jones cited Alexandre Dumas as his main influence, and wrote a sequel to Dumas' The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, first serialized in March–July 1844. Set in the 17th century, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d'Artagnan after he leaves home to travel to Paris, to join the Musketeers of the Guard...

, D'Artagnan (1928). He wrote over 100 novels, earning the nickname "King of the Pulps". His works appeared in a number of pulp magazines. Bedford-Jones' main publisher was Blue Book

Blue Book (magazine)

Blue Book was a popular 20th-century American magazine with a lengthy 70-year run under various titles from 1905 to 1975.Launched as The Monthly Story Magazine, it was published under that title from May 1905 to August 1906 with a change to The Monthly Story Blue Book Magazine for issues from...

magazine; he also appeared in Adventure

Adventure (magazine)

Adventure magazine was first published in November 1910 as a monthly pulp magazine. Adventure went on become one of the most profitable and critically acclaimed of all the American pulp magazines...

, All-Story Weekly, Argosy

Argosy (magazine)

Argosy was an American pulp magazine, published by Frank Munsey. It is generally considered to be the first American pulp magazine. The magazine began as a general information periodical entitled The Golden Argosy, targeted at the boys adventure market.-Launch of Argosy:In late September 1882,...

, Short Stories

Short Stories (magazine)

-Origin of Short Stories:Short Stories began its existence as a literary periodical, carrying work by Rudyard Kipling,Emile Zola, Bret Harte, Ivan Turgenev and Anna Katharine Green. The magazine advertised...

, Top-Notch Magazine

Top-Notch Magazine

Top-Notch Magazine was an American pulp magazine of adventure fiction that existed between 1910 and 1937. It was published by Street & Smith....

, The Magic Carpet, Golden Fleece, Ace-High Magazine, People's Story Magazine, Hutchinson's Adventure-Story Magazine, Detective Fiction Weekly, Western Story Magazine, and Weird Tales

Weird Tales

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....

.

In addition to writing fiction, Bedford-Jones also worked as a journalist for the Boston Globe, and wrote poetry.
Bedford-Jones was a friend of Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner

Erle Stanley Gardner was an American lawyer and author of detective stories, best known for the Perry Mason series, he also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J...

 and Vincent Starrett

Vincent Starrett

Charles Vincent Emerson Starrett , known as Vincent Starrett, was an American writer and newspaperman.- Biography :...

.

Works

partial list

• Blood Royal (1914)
• The Seal of John Solomon (1915)
• Gentleman of Solomon (1915)
• Solomon's Carpet (1915)
• Solomon's Quest (1915)
• John Solomon (1916)
• John Solomon, Retired (1917)
• Sword Flame (1918)
• Arizona Argonauts (1920)
• Pirates' Gold (1920)
• The Shadow (1922)
• John Solomon, Supercargo (1924)
• The Seal of Solomon (1924)
• Splendour of the Gods (1924)
• The Star Woman (1924)
• John Solomon, Incognito (1925)
• The Shawl of Solomon (1925)
• Solomon's Carpet (1926)
• Solomon's Quest (1926)
• D'Artagnan (1928)
• The Wizard of Atlas (1928)
• The Temple of the Ten
  The Temple of the Ten
  The Temple of the Ten is a fantasy novel by H. Bedford-Jones and W. C. Robertson. It was first published in book form in 1973 by Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc. in an edition of 1,000 copies. The novel originally appeared in the magazine Adventure in 1921....
  
  (with W. C. Robertson, 1973)
• The Golden Goshawk (2009)
• The Master of Dragons (2011)

External links

• ebooks of works by H Bedford-Jones at Project Gutenberg Australia
• A large collection of Bedford-Jones's manuscripts resides at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin