February 15, 1919. The Saturday Evening Post issue with this cover date featured the short story "Five Thousand Dollar Reward," by Melville Davisson Post. Post (the author, not the magazine) was very popular a hundred years ago, especially for his stories about backwoods sleuth, Uncle Abner. This story, which was picked for the O. Henry collection of the best tales of the year, is about Walker of the Secret Service and his encounter with a hobo who he claimed was the best detective he ever met. You can read the whole story
here Link fixed.
For the record, I am a HUGE post fan! Spent a weekend in the Public Library bumming through back issues of "The American Magazine," reading his clever stories about Col. Braxton, collected in "The Silent Witness." Thank God for the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature!
ReplyDeleteWow, Jeff, I can't remember the last time I heard anyone mention the Reader's Guide, and I'm a librarian who grew up on that stuff. People used to walk up to the Reference Desk and ask for the green books, or Reader's Digest. We knew what they meant.
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