Combine the best adventure writer of the 20th century, a lavishly and beautifully illustrated edition of some rare tales of one of his greatest fictional heroes, and a thoroughly researched introduction by Brian Taves, currently writing a literary study on Mundy, and you have a book that no fan of adventure literature can be without. Jimgrim and the Devil at Ludd collects the novellas "The 'Iblis' at Ludd" and "The Seventeen Thieves of El-Kalil" set in Palestine and first published in Adventure in January and February 1922.

Much of what made H. Rider Haggard's African tales of the great white hunter Allan Quatermain, or Arthur O. Friel's tales of Amazonian adventure was that both had spent a significant period of time in these regions. Similarly, Mundy had spent close to six months in Palestine in 1920, including trips to Damascus, Syria, to interview King Feisul (who granted him permission to use him as a character in one of his books), to Hebron (a.k.a. El-Kalil) to visit the tomb of Abraham, and to Cairo and the pyramids. While in Palestine, he was also involved in relief efforts, served as editor of the Jerusalem News, and was involved in local diplomacy. It is this first-hand knowledge of the people, sites, and the political situation that allowed Mundy to produce such wonderfully true-to-life stories set in the Middle East, of which 11 appeared in Adventure in 1921 and 1922.

Mundy's forte wasn't simply good research; Mundy was a born storyteller. Besides his predilection for creating tall tales around his early life as a scoundrel, Mundy could create larger than life heroes. Unlike creations like Robert E. Howard's "Conan" or Edgar Rice Burroughs' "John Carter of Mars," Mundy's heroes, while courageous and plenty brawny when the situation required it, were capable of bluffing, playing one enemy versus another, and exploiting the character flaws of foes, and the fortes of his associates -- traits largely absent in other adventure heroes of the time. Also, like Mundy himself, his characters pondered the meaning of life, of destiny, a spiritual development that would mold their characters and set them apart from the typical pulp heroes.

In the two short novels in Jimgrim and the Devil at Ludd, Jimgrim, an American expatriate working for the British forces in Palestine is sort of freelance spy/diplomat/detective sent in to problem areas to resolve things. In "The 'Iblis' at Ludd" Jimgrim fights corruption in the British command structure, and a strange apparently leprous Dervish leader and his band of thieves. Jimgrim uncovers and defuses a plot to steal arms and munitions from the British and incriminate innocent Zionists. The theme of the exotic and hypnotic dance of the Dervish leader, is one that Mundy used more than once; in particular it served Grogham, the ill-fated hero of Mundy's "The Soul of the Regiment" (1912), to keep himself and his men alive among the natives of Egypt and the Sudan. In "The Seventeen Thieves of El- Kalil," Jimgrim is sent to Hebron to defuse a situation where the Moslem population, led by a family of thieves, is intent on slaughtering the Jewish population. It takes all of Jimgrim's savvy to play off the different factions until help can arrive from Jerusalem. If I had one warning about the stories for today's readers it is that while Mundy could hardly be accused of racism, his characters' views do reflect 1920s attitudes about the ethnic/religious groups of the region.

Besides Mundy's great stories, Jimgrim and the Devil at Ludd is graced with 4 lovely colour plates (a signed plate is included in the deluxe edition), and line-drawn end papers by Mark Wheatley, as well as 4 black and white plates and a number of chapter headers by Frank Cho. Cho's line drawings are very much in the style of the pulp magazines of Mundy's era, though he has wisely not attempted to duplicate the unique style of Joseph Clement Coll, the illustrator of many of Mundy's early novels. The introduction "From Jerusalem to Jimgrim: Talbot Mundy in the Middle East" by Brian Taves reveals a lot of new information about Mundy's stay in Palestine and presents several rare photographs of Mundy along with Sally Ames, who was later to be his 4th wife.

Insight Studios is planning to reprint 29 volumes of Mundy stories and novels, many never before published in book form. If I had one caveat about this, it is that, for marketing purposes, several works previously published in book form will be retitled for the series (creating the potential for a great deal of bibliographic confusion). However, if all the publications in the series live up to the quality of Jimgrim and the Devil at Ludd we can pardon the publishers this slight offense.

If you still don't believe that Talbot Mundy was the greatest adventure writer of the 20th century and aren't convinced that you should run out and buy Jimgrim and the Devil at Ludd, sample his classic novels King of the Khyber Rifles and Om: The Secret of Abhor Valley on the web. If after reading them, you still aren't convinced, you should opt out of reading adventure literature as a whole; it obviously isn't for you.

Georges Dodds is a research scientist in vegetable crop physiology, who for close to 25 years has read and collected close to 2000 titles of predominantly pre-1950 science-fiction and fantasy, both in English and French. He writes columns on early imaginative literature for WARP, the newsletter/fanzine of the Montreal Science Fiction and Fantasy Association.