Arthur O. Friel

Arthur Olney Friel (1887–1959) was one of the most popular writers for the adventure pulps. Friel, a 1909 Yale University graduate, had been South American editor for the Associated Press which led him into his subject matter. In 1922, he became a real-life explorer when he took a six-month trip down Venezuela's Orinoco River and its tributary, the Ventuari River. His travel account was published in 1924 as The River of Seven Stars.

After returning from the Venezuela trip, many of Friel's stories were set in that environment. He remained a popular writer in Adventure throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Most of his longer works were republished in hardback. In the 1930s, he started appearing more regularly in the adventure pulp Short Stories with stories set in Venezuela.

He was a member of the American Geographical Society.

In a 1934 letter, Robert E. Howard described Friel as "one of my favorite authors".

He died in New Hampshire in 1959, the state where he had grown up.

Friel began appearing in Adventure magazine in 1919 with stories set in the Amazon jungle featuring the characters Pedro Andrada and Lourenço Moraes, two seringueiros (rubber-industry workers) who undergo harrowing experiences in the impenetrable jungle surrounding the Javary River, an Amazon tributary which forms part of the border between Brazil and Peru. The "Pedro and Lourenço" stories include:

and the novellas The Jararaca (December 30, 1921) and Black Hawk (March 10, 1922). (NOTE: "The Snake", "The Sloth", "The Jaguar", "The Jabiru", "Clay John" and "The Peccaries" are stories in which Lourenço appears by himself.) The events of Black Hawk take place immediately after those in The Jararaca, and the character of "Thomas Gordon Mack", an American explorer, is a major character in both novellas. Some of the Pedro and Laurenco stories feature minor science fiction elements, such as lost civilizations and ape-human hybrids.

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