Robeson, Kenneth

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Robeson, Kenneth

Pulp magazine publisher Street & Smith used the house name Kenneth Robeson on two of their publications. Kenneth Robeson was credited as the author of 179 of the original 181 novels that appeared in Doc Savage Magazine from 1933 to 1949. The first issue carried the byline Kenneth Roberts and, due to a mistake by an editorial assistant, the March 1944 issue carried the byline Lester Dent, the true author of the novel. Dent wrote the majority of the Doc Savage novels, but worked with at least five ghost writers on some 38 of the stories. In 1939, Street & Smith launched Avenger Magazine with novels by Kenneth Robeson, "the creator of Doc Savage." All 24 of the Avenger novels were written by Paul Ernst. In the 1960s and 1970s the name Kenneth Robeson appeared on paperback reprints, and in the 1990s it appeared on seven original Doc Savage novels written by Will Murray; they were based on Dent's notes and story fragments.

—Randy Duncan

Further Reading:

Cannaday, Marilyn. Bigger than Life: The Creator of Doc Savage. Bowling Green, Ohio, Bowling Green State University Press, 1990.

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