Old King Brady
Created by Francis Worcester Doughty (1850-1917)

"The usual secret passage, Chinese style, lay behind."
-- from "The Bradys' Chinese Clew"

An early dime novel detective whose decidedly hokey but often entertaining adventures ran from about 1885 until 1912, and who possessed, like many Great Detective heroes of the time, more than a few almost superhuman abilities.

But OLD KING BRADY was no airily effete Europeanl ike Poe's C. Auguste Dupin or some flighty, eccentric Brit like Doyle's Holmes -- nope, Brady was a rough, tough, dogged and determined American who always got his man, and who owed at least as much to the cowboy heroes of the time as those imported master sleuths.

And the setting were undeniably American as well, even if they weren't the Wild West. In fact, twenty-five years before anyone had ever heard of the hard-boiled school or Black Mask Magazine, Doughty was giving readers a gritty, realistic version of the urban mean streets and a first tentative view of the American City as the "great wrong place."

Brady made his debut in the November 14, 1885 issue of the New York Detective Library and appeared there in at least eighty-five subsequent stories under the house pseudonym of "A New-York City Detective," often aided in his investigations by his son, Young King Brady. Their later adventures were published Secret Service, another weekly dime novel.

STORIES

  • "The Foot in the Frog, or, Old and Young King Brady and the Mystery of the Owl Train" (1899)
  • "The Missing Engineer, or, Old and Young King Brady and The Lightning Express" (1899)
  • "Miss Mystery, The Girl From Chicago, or, Old and Young King Brady on a Dark Trail" (1899)
  • "The Maniac Doctor, or, Old And Young King Brady In Peril" (1899)
  • "The Girl From Boston, or, Old And Young King Brady On A Peculiar Case" (1899)
  • "Hop Lee, The Chinese Slave Dealer, or, Old And Young King Brady And The Opium Fiends" (1899)
  • "Old And Young King Bradys' Battle, or, Bound To Win Their Case" (1899)
  • "The Bradys And The Bond King, or, Working On A Wall Street Case" (1904)
  • "The Bradys On Badman's Island; Or, Trapping The Texas Terror" (1904)
  • "The Brady's Tombstone Terror, or, After The Arizona Mine Wreckers" (1905)
  • "The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler, or, Working for the Custom House" (July 27, 1900, Secret Service)
  • "Bradys Beyond Their Depth, or, The Great Swamp Mystery" (November 16, 1900, Secret Service)
  • "The Bradys' Chinese Clew, or, The Secret Dens of Pell Street" (August 19, 1910, Secret Service)
  • "Bradys After a Chinese Princess, or, The Yellow Fiends Of 'Frisco" (September 1, 1911, Secret Service)
  • "The Bradys on Badman's Island, or, Trapping the Texas Terror"
  • "The Bradys and the Mine Fakirs, or, Doing a Turn in Tombstone"
  • "The Brady's Tombstone Terror, or, After the Arizona Mine Wreckers"
  • "The Bradys' Hard Struggle, or, The Search for the Missing Fngers"
  • "The Bradys and Blackfoot Bill, or, The ï Trail of the Tonopah Terror"
  • "The Bradys and Handsome Hal, or, Duping the Duke of Dakota"
  • "The Bradys and the Lost Ranche, or, The Strange Case in Texas"
  • "The Bradys in Texas, or, The Great Ranch Mystery"
  • "The Bradys on Blizzard Island, or, Tracking the Gold Thieves of Cape Nome"

    Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
    ÿ