Plans For Collections of Stories Never Before in Book Form
September 20, 2012, BOSTON, MA—Altus Press today announced a publishing agreement with the Estate of James B. Hendryx to reprint the complete set of his long-running series featuring the characters of Halfaday Creek.
“It’s quite an honor to be able to present the stories of Black John Smith and Halfaday Creek to an all-new audience,” Altus Press publisher Matt Moring stated. “For such a popular series, I’m excited by the chance to present these stories with the respect they justly deserve.”
James B. Hendryx (1880-1963) was the author of more than 50 novels and anthologies, and wrote hundreds of stories. And Hendryx wrote what he knew, spending time in Alaska, Canada, and the Wyoming badlands. But he’s best known for his characters set around the outlaw community of Halfaday Creek in the Yukon. Set during the Gold Rush of the late 1890s, Hendryx penned over a hundred stories featuring these characters over the span of 25 years for magazines such as West, Dime Western, New Western, Argosy, and the primary home for the Halfaday Creek series, Short Stories.
Many of the Halfaday Creek stories were edited and reprinted in a series of 13 hardcover books which were released between 1935 and 1951. However, some of these books are quite scarce and difficult to find on the antiquarian book market.
Thanks to the research of Hendryx fans such as Richard Hall, the original sources that comprise these 13 Halfaday Creek hardcovers have been identified, will be reprinted along with the illustrations from their original pulp magazine appearances, and will be augmented with rare material taken from the James B. Hendryx archives currently held by the Leelanau Historical Society in Leland, MI.
In addition to these reprints, enough uncollected stories have been identified to comprise four additional, “new” Halfaday Creek collections. These too will contain material from the Hendryx archives and will match the dress and design of the other Halfaday Creek reprints.
The first wave of releases will include reprints of two older Halfaday Creek titles, Skullduggery on Halfaday Creek (1946) and The Saga of Halfaday Creek (1947), along with the first of the “new” collections, entitled Adventures on Halfaday Creek. A similar release schedule will continue until all of the Halfaday Creek books have returned to print. This first wave will see publication in early 2013.
The Halfaday Creek Library will be be available in softcover, hardcover, and in the various popular e-book formats.
For more information about James B. Hendryx, the Halfaday Creek series, or Altus Press, please visit http://www.jamesbhendryx.com, http://www.halfadaycreek.com, and http://steegerbooks.com.