Crime Classics » 13 issues

The Shadow: An Historical Collection.

Reprinting adventures of The Shadow from the 1930s and 1940s; written by Walter B. Gibson under the pseudonym Maxwell Grant. All these pulp novels were originally published by Street And Smith in the bi-weekly The Shadow Magazine. Gibson wrote 282 of the 325 Shadow novels published from 1931 to 1949.

The Shadow is one of the most enduring fictional characters of the 20th century, first appearing as a radio drama in 1930. The phrase “Who Knows What Evil Lurks In The Hearts of Men?…The Shadow Knows!” is still so well known, it’s almost a cliche’. Following the success of the radio show, the character came alive on the printed page through the talent of Walter Gibson, who wrote hundreds of Shadow adventures under the pseudonym Maxwell Grant. Besides writing 282 pulp novels for The Shadow magazine, Gibson also plotted Shadow Comics for seven years and wrote newspaper strips as well.

DC Comics, Marvel, and Dark Horse have all done revivals of the comic, with DC’s gritty 1986 mini-series by Howard Chaykin perhaps the most notable endeavor. This series, however, presents the original adventures from the 30s and 40s, complete and uncut, allowing modern readers to experience the stories as they were first envisioned.