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Brass Knuckles: The Oliver Quade Human Encyclopedia Stories
A collection of pulp author Frank Gruber's Oliver Quade Human Encyclopedia mystery stories
383 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1966
31 people want to read
About the author
Frank Gruber
150 books19 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Frank Gruber was an enormously prolific author of pulp fiction. A stalwart contributor to Black Mask magazine, he also wrote novels, producing as many as four a year during the 1940s. His best-known character was Oliver Quade, “the Human Encyclopedia,” whose adventures were collected in Brass Knuckles (1966), and will soon be republished in ebook format as Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,featuring brand-new material, from MysteriousPress.com, Open Road Integrated Media, and Black Mask magazine.
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Frank Gruber was an enormously prolific author of pulp fiction. A stalwart contributor to Black Mask magazine, he also wrote novels, producing as many as four a year during the 1940s. His best-known character was Oliver Quade, “the Human Encyclopedia,” whose adventures were collected in Brass Knuckles (1966), and will soon be republished in ebook format as Oliver Quade, the Human Encyclopedia,featuring brand-new material, from MysteriousPress.com, Open Road Integrated Media, and Black Mask magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 12, 2016
A great collection of pulp stories featuring Oliver Quade, The Human Encyclopedia. He read all of the encyclopedias that he sells, and knows nearly everything under the sun. This enables him to solve mysteries too complicated for the police. Great stuff from Black Mask magazine.
September 20, 2017
Frank Gruber was a workhorse of a writer and had a tremendous output under various pseudonyms during his career. While I have mainly enjoyed his pulp westerns, I’ve always wanted to try some of his mystery / detective series: this is a large collection that will provide you a lot in entertainment value. While some of the stories are dated with the dialogue between the characters, it didn’t detract from my entertainment value – I just wish this were available in the Kindle format vs. a back-issue hardback book!
August 23, 2011
Oliver Quade bills himself as The Human Encyclopedia. He's read a twenty-five volume edition cover to cover four times, as well as other publications of the type. Along with his partner, Charlie Boston, he sells one of them, THE COMPENDIUM OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, a one volume condensed version, two thousand pages, for a mere $2.95.
He has a magnificent voice and the two will set up anywhere, him launching into his spiel and daring anyone to ask him a question that he can't answer. he claims to be an expert on everything. What he has as an eidetic memory(they didn't call it that way back then).
He also has a propensity for turning up around murders. The two book salesman travel all over the country, always shy of money, as Oliver hawks his book and usually does well when he has the chance.
Except they aren't flush very often. Charlie likes to bet the horses and Oliver likes to live and eat well.
And he likes to solve mysteries, willing to leave his spiel at a moment's notice at the hint of foul play. He enjoys matching wits with killers.
These stories originally appeared in BLACK MASK Magazine during the thirties.
What I really enjoyed was the forward, a long piece called THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE PULP STORY, in which Gruber delved into his history of writing for the pulps. It was a precursor to his later book, THE PULP JUNGLE, which goes into more detail of his careers and some of the more prominent writers of the time he was friends with.
He has a magnificent voice and the two will set up anywhere, him launching into his spiel and daring anyone to ask him a question that he can't answer. he claims to be an expert on everything. What he has as an eidetic memory(they didn't call it that way back then).
He also has a propensity for turning up around murders. The two book salesman travel all over the country, always shy of money, as Oliver hawks his book and usually does well when he has the chance.
Except they aren't flush very often. Charlie likes to bet the horses and Oliver likes to live and eat well.
And he likes to solve mysteries, willing to leave his spiel at a moment's notice at the hint of foul play. He enjoys matching wits with killers.
These stories originally appeared in BLACK MASK Magazine during the thirties.
What I really enjoyed was the forward, a long piece called THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE PULP STORY, in which Gruber delved into his history of writing for the pulps. It was a precursor to his later book, THE PULP JUNGLE, which goes into more detail of his careers and some of the more prominent writers of the time he was friends with.
January 6, 2012
A hard book to review. Essentially an autobiography of Gruber's career as a writer, this is fun to read and tells you what you want to know about a minor unimportant a writer, and that is the problem. Unless you are a Gruber fan, this mostly well-told tale means nothing to anyone but you and Gruber. I maintain an interest in pulp writers, and so aside from Gruber’s oversized ego I found book immensely enjoyable, but I can’t imagine why anyone else would read it.
Note: this was my second reading.
Note: this was my second reading.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews