ROBERT ARTHUR, ALFRED HITCHCOCK AND THE THREE INVESTIGATORS

Back in the day, we Monster Kids had lots of other "literature" to occupy their minds besides having our brains rotted away reading monster magazines and comic books; boys had THE HARDY BOYS and TOM SWIFT and girls had NANCY DREW and both had THE HAPPY HOLLISTERS. While I plowed my way through a good share of the Hardy's (there's even a current book club for them HERE), it was always stories of the spooky kind that I gravitated toward and always delighted in that harmless little shiver they gave me.

Cover art by Rudy Nappi.

In grade school, the Scholastic Book Services supplied me with a few of their ghost story anthologies and other scary books that were "parent approved". One of my favorites was THE ARROW BOOK OF GHOST STORIES , edited by Nora Kramer* and illustrated by George Wilde, which I read multiple times.

Cover illustration by George Wilde.

When I latched onto a copy of ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S HAUNTED HOUSEFUL (Random House, 1961) I was in spook heaven. I can't tell you how many times I pored over every one of the stories. By that time, I even began to recognize some of the authors; Walter R. Brooks' story, "Jimmy Takes Vanishing Lessons", for instance, was dramatized and narrated by John Allen on the LP, ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S GHOST STORIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE (Golden, 1960).

Cover illustration by Fred Banbery.

One of the authors that cropped up several times in the next collection, ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S GHOSTLY GALLERY (Random House, 1962), was named Robert Arthur. Even I could tell his tales were aimed at younger readers but that didn't diminish the fright factor, at least for this young reader!

Cover illustration by Fred Banbery.

I didn't know until later that Arthur was the man behind many of these "Alfred Hitchcock" projects (Hitchcock only licensed his name -- how's that for popular?), including editing and introducing (as Alfred Hitchcock) a number of the Random House/Dell Hitchcock mystery and horror paperback anthologies.

Cover illustration by Fred Banbery.

Robert Arthur, Jr. (November 10, 1909 – May 2, 1969) was born at Fort Mills, Corregidor Island, the Philippines, where his father was stationed in the military. He grew up an "Army brat" and when he was older, decided against following in his father's footsteps and instead enrolled at William and Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia in 1926. He later transferred to the University of Michigan where he graduated with a B.A. in English with Distinction. He was then hired as an editor for one of Frank Munsey's publications and went back to the University of Michigan to get his M.A. in Journalism in 1932.

After graduating, Arthur moved to Greenwich Village, New York. Like many other writers with good educations during that period, he had to make a living, and, for the next decade, wrote fiction detective, mystery and science-fiction for pulp magazines. While he didn't write any horror stories for WEIRD TALES, he did write for a long list of others, including AMAZING STORIES, THE SHADOW, THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE, ARGOSY, BLACK MASK and UNKNOWN WORLDS. During the same time, he was an editor and writer at Dell and worked on their true crime, western and movie magazines. He also founded the first pocket book-sized all-fiction publication, POCKET DETECTIVE MAGAZINE for Street & Smith.

In 1940 he formed a partnership with David Kogan and together they created THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER radio show that ran from 1944-1953 until they were blackballed by Senator McCarthy's notorious hunt for communist subversives -- Arthur and Kogan were guilty by association by being members of The Radio Writer's Guild. Before the fiasco ended it, Arthur had written over 500 scripts for his show as well as several others.

After a divorce and looking for a fresh start, Arthur moved to Hollywood in 1959 where he wrote scripts for THE TWILIGHT ZONE and was a writer and story editor for the ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS TV show. Three years later, he moved back east to New Jersey. Knowing that he worked for Hitchcock, Random House offered him a job editing a series of Alfred Hitchcock mystery/suspense/horror anthologies as well as the series for young readers.

Besides his work on the Alfred Hitchcock books, Arthur began another series for young readers called THE THREE INVESTIGATORS originally using Alfred Hitchcock's name, then later dropped. Arthur wrote ten of the first eleven books. After he passed away, the series continued to be written by other authors until the 1990's and a total of 42 books.

THE THREE INVESTIGATORS proved quite popular and recently Arthur's daughter and her husband reprinted her father's ten books as 60th Anniversary editions, privately-printed by Hollow Tree Press. They are the first editions in English published in 25 years.

Robert Arthur, Jr. passed away on 2 May 1969 at the age of 59. As shown here, he was a very prolific writer in numerous professions and more than likely made a better-than-average living for himself and his families (he was married three times). Like other pulp authors such as Carl Jacobi, Arthur is underrated, and if anybody deserves a book collection of stories, it's him.

For complete bio of Robert Arthur written by his daughter, click HERE.

In the first adventure of Robert Arthur’s classic mystery series, it's 1964 in the town of Rocky Beach, California. Working out of their newly established Headquarters – an old trailer hidden behind carefully arranged junk in the Jones Salvage Yard – and driven around southern California in a gold-plated vintage Rolls Royce they've won the use of in a contest, Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews decide to get publicity for their fledgling detective firm by finding a real haunted house for the renowned film director Reginald Clarke.

But although the highly rational Jupiter starts with the belief that there is no such thing as a ghost, a spook, a phantom, or a spirit, Terror Castle – the old mansion supposedly troubled by the ghost of the late Stephen Terrill, the silent horror film star called the Man with a Million Faces – may prove him wrong!

By turns exciting, spine-tingling, and humorous, The Secret of Terror Castle promises to please not only the existing fan base of The Three Investigators series but a whole new generation of readers who will find in its pages three very different boys whose imagination, courage, and intelligence can remind us that curiosity, perseverance, and rational inquiry are just as vital as friendship and cooperation.

At the end of each Three Investigators book published by Hollow Tree Press are notes written by Robert Arthur's daughter and son-in-law, exploring three subjects connected to the story – in this case, Silent Movies, Salvage Yards, and Rolls Royces – and young readers may want to use the notes as guidelines for further investigation. After all, the motto of The Three Investigators is "We Investigate Anything," and their trademark is “???” – three question marks, taken together.

On the 60th anniversary of the creation of The Three Investigators series, the first-ever English-language e-book editions of Robert Arthur’s novels, as well as the first new English-language print editions in over twenty-five years, stand ready to delight a whole new audience. Be sure to seek out all ten titles!

The newly published reprints of the Robert Arthur THE THREE INVESTIGATORS books are available from Hollow Tree Press at Amazon.

*A NOTE ON NORA KRAMER

This is her obit from THE NEW YORK TIMES, 6 July 1984:

Nora Kramer, author, editor and authority on juvenile books, died on Wednesday at her home in Manhattan. She was 88 years old.

Mrs. Kramer wrote and edited more than 30 books, including ''Nora Kramer's Storybook for Fives and Sixes'' and ''The Cozy Hours Storybook,'' in collaboration with Josette Frank. She was founder and director of the Book Plan, a personalized book selection service for young people, which she began under the name of Eleanor Brent.

Mrs. Kramer was a longtime member of the Children's Book Committee of the Child Study Association of America; she was editor in chief of the Book Woman, the publication of the Women's National Book Association, and she was chairman of Books Across the Sea of the English Speaking Union. She was also an award-winning sculptress.

This story by Robert Arthur was written in the 1950's an published in ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S 13 MORE STORIES THEY WOULDN'T LET ME DO ON TV: