The Eel is a pulp fiction

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...

 character, a gentleman thief of "courageous action and questionable morals," created by Hugh B. Cave

Hugh B. Cave

Hugh Barnett Cave was a prolific writer of pulp fiction who also excelled in other genres.-Life:Born in Chester, England, Hugh B. Cave moved during his childhood with his family to Boston, Massachusetts, following the outbreak of World War I...

, writing under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Justin Case. Short stories

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 about The Eel originally appeared from 1936 to 1942 in the Spicy magazines issued by Culture Publications.

In the first of the series, "Eel Trap," the author introduces the character thus:

I like my name, The Eel. People have been calling me that ever since I began working on the theory, years ago, that the world owed me a living and damned if I wouldn't collect it. Matter of fact, the gentry of the law who tagged me with the name now like it a whole lot less than I do. Eel

Eel

Eels are an order of fish, which consists of four suborders, 20 families, 111 genera and approximately 800 species. Most eels are predators...

s tend to be slippery, no?

Cave would later explain, in his foreword to Escapades of the Eel, that it was his admiration of author Damon Runyon

Damon Runyon

Alfred Damon Runyon was an American newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the...

 that led him to write the adventures using "the same present-tense, first-person narrative

Narrative

A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

style that marked so many of his great yarns."

Stories

1. "Eel Trap" (in Spicy Adventure Stories, June 1936)
2. "The Evil Flame" (in Spicy Mystery Stories, August 1936)
3. "Dark Temple of Torment" (in Spicy Adventure Stories, January 1937)
4. "River of Blood" (in Spicy Adventure Stories, April 1937)
5. "Cavern of the Damned" (in Spicy Mystery Stories, May 1937)
6. "Eel Poison" (in Spicy Detective Stories, August 1937)
7. "Death Wears No Robe" (in Spicy Detective Stories, October 1937)
8. "The Eel Slips Through" (in Spicy Detective Stories, December 1937)
9. "Eel Bait" (in Spicy Adventure Stories, February 1938)
10. "Prisoner of Tituan" (in Spicy Adventure Stories, April 1938)
11. "The Widow Wears Scarlet" (in Spicy Detective Stories, October 1940)
12. "Annie Any More" (in Spicy Detective Stories, March 1941)
13. "The Second Slug" (in Spicy Detective Stories, July 1941)
14. "A Pile of Publicity" (in Spicy Detective Stories, January 1942)
15. "Eel's Eve" (in Spicy Detective Stories, April 1942)
16. "Eel's bum" (in Detective Stories, May 1942)

Reprints

All 15 Eel tales were later reprinted in a compilation, Escapades of the Eel, published by Tattered Pages Press of Chicago, in 1977 (ISBN 1-884449-06-9). The complete Eel Reprint History can be found online.