Life

Arthur Douglas Howden Smith was born in New York. He began writing by contributing fiction to
the pulp magazines; his main market was 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...

.

For the magazine, Smith wrote sea stories

Sea story

-Description:The enclosed setting of life aboard a ship allows an author to portray a social world in miniature, with characters cut off from the outside world and forced to interact in cramped and stressful conditions....

 about the adventures of Captain McConaughy,. There were also historical swashbucklers about a Viking

Viking

The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

, Swain, living in the Medieval Orkneys and engaged in a terrible feud with the witch Frakork and her blood-thirsty grandson Olvir Rosta - which Smith bases on historical information provided by the Orkneyinga saga

Orkneyinga saga

The Orkneyinga saga is a historical narrative of the history of the Orkney Islands, from their capture by the Norwegian king in the ninth century onwards until about 1200...

.

Smith's most famous series were the "Grey Maiden" stories. This revolved around a curse

Curse

A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...

d sword created during the reign of Pharaoh Thutmose III

Thutmose III

Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his stepmother, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh...

 and its subsequent appearances through world history.
Smith also wrote "The Doom Trail" (1921) and its sequel "Beyond the Sunset", the adventures of Harry Ormerod, an 18th century English exile, in the frontier

Frontier

A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...

 of Colonial North America at the Iroqois contry where a fierce struggle is waged with French agents out of Canada for control of the fur trade.

In Porto Bello Gold (1924), a prequel to Treasure Island

Treasure Island

Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...

 - written with the permission of Robert Louis Stevenson's

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

 executor, Lloyd Osbourne - Harry Ormerod's son Robert goes to sea in the company of such famous pirates as Captain Flint

Captain Flint

Captain J. Flint was the fictional captain of a pirate ship, the Walrus, in the novel Treasure Island of the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson...

, Long John Silver

Long John Silver

Long John Silver is a fictional character and the primary antagonist of the novel Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Silver is also known by the nicknames "Barbecue" and the "Sea-Cook".- Profile :...

 and Billy Bones

Billy Bones

Billy Bones or Captain William Bones is a fictional character, a pirate in the first section of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island....

 and takes part in capturing the treasure which would be recovered in Stevenson's book.

The Ormerod Family sage was continued further in "The Manifest Destiny" where Robert Ormerod's great-grandson takes part in the expeditions of the 19th century adventurer William Walker

William Walker

William Walker may refer to:* William Walker , sometime chief of the Wyandot Nation in Ohio and Kansas* William Walker * William Walker , an early governor of British Guiana...

.

Smith wrote several books on American history, including a biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt

Cornelius Vanderbilt , also known by the sobriquet Commodore, was an American entrepreneur who built his wealth in shipping and railroads. He was also the patriarch of the Vanderbilt family and one of the richest Americans in history...

, Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of American Achievement (1927).

External Link

• http://books.google.co.il/books?id=lx6CBLT2uPIC&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=%22Howden+smith%22+%2B+%22doom+trail%22+%2B+%22Corlaer%22&source=bl&ots=cPuJsE2F95&sig=iPxlaGCi5Gipou6TJ9kCBG1_W6Q&hl=en&ei=nBDUTo6UMonYsgbo3OHGDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Howden%20smith%22%20%2B%20%22doom%20trail%22%20%2B%20%22Corlaer%22&f=falseReference in "Pulp Classics: The Lure of Adventure" by By Robert Kenneth Jones]