The Dragoman’s Secret

By Otis Adelbert Kline and Karl Wurf

Khallaf the Strong inflicted dire tortures on Hamed the Attar, and would have done him to death had not a beautiful woman intervened. Classic historical fantasy, first published in the Spring 1931 issue of Oriental Stories magazine. Introduction by  Karl Wurf.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Apr 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667699943

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COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION

THE DRAGOMAN’S SECRET, by Otis Adelbert Kline

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2022 by Wildside Press LLC.

Originally published in the Spring, 1931 issue of Oriental Stories.

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

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INTRODUCTION

Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946) worked as an author and literary agent during the pulp era. Much of his fiction first appeared in pulp magazines such as Strange Stories, Argosy, Oriental Stories, and Weird Tales. Kline was an amateur orientalist and a student of Arabic, like his friend and sometime collaborator, E. Hoffmann Price, and he drew on his research for exotic backgrounds for his stoires.

However, in spite of an impressive body of work, Kline is best known these days for an imaginary literary feud with Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs. Kline supposedly gained Burroughs's enmity by producing close imitations of Burroughs’ work, such as The Planet of Peril (1929) and its two sequels—both highly reminiscent of Burroughs’ Martian novels, though set on Venus. Burroughs, according to the story, promptly retaliated by writing his own Venus novels, whereupon Kline responded with an even more direct imitation of Burroughs's work—a pair of adventure novels set on Mars. Kline’s jungle adventure stories, reminiscent of Burroughs’ Tarzan tales, have also been cited as evidence of the conflict.

While both authors did write the works in question, the theory that they did so in contention with each other is supported only circumstantially, reflected most in their thematic resemblance and the publication dates. The feud theory was originally set forth in a fan press article, The Kline-Burroughs War, by Donald A. Wollheim (Science Fiction News, November, 1936), and afterward given wider circulation by Sam Moskowitz in his book Explorers of the Infinite (1963). Richard A. Lupoff thoroughly debunked the feud, however, in his book Edgar Rice Burroughs: Master of Adventure (1965). Among the evidence cited by Lupoff: (1) no comment from either writer acknowledging the feud is documented, and (2) family members of the two authors have no recollection of ever hearing them mention it. Further, Wollheim stated, when questioned on the source of his own information: I made it up!

In the mid-1930s, Kline largely abandoned writing to concentrate on his career as a literary agent (most famously for fellow Weird Tales author Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian). Kline represented Howard from the spring of 1933 till Howard's death in June 1936, and he continued to act as literary agent for Howard’s estate thereafter. It has been suggested that Kline may have completed Howard’s novel Almuric, which he submitted to Weird Tales for posthumous publication in 1939, although this claim is disputed.

The Dragoman’s Secret originally appeared in the Spring, 1931 issue of Oriental Stories magazine, a companion to Weird Tales also edited by Farnsworth Wright. Oriental Stories presented a mix of fantasy and historical adventure with Asian and Middle Eastern themes, with writers drawing on the Arabian Nights and many other sources for exotic material. Not only Kline, but many Weird Tales authors contributed