The Black Knight

Introduction

Introduction

by Cora Buhlert

Nowadays, pulp fiction writer Richard Blakemore (1900 — 1994) is best remembered for creating the Silencer, a masked vigilante in the style of the Shadow or the Spider, during the hero pulp boom of the 1930s.

Furthermore, Richard Blakemore is also remembered, because he may or may not have been the real life Silencer, who stalked the streets of Depression era New York City, fighting crime, protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty just like his pulp counterpart.

The mystery surrounding the Silencer has long overshadowed Richard Blakemore’s other works. For like most pulp writers, Blakemore was extremely prolific and wrote dozens of stories in a variety of genres for Jakob Levonsky’s pulp publishing empire. Blakemore’s work spans the full range of the pulps, from crime stories via westerns, war and adventure stories via romance to science fiction and fantasy. Indeed, the sheer amount of stories Richard Blakemore wrote during the 1930s refutes the theory that he was the Silencer, for when would he have found the time?

Of the many non-Silencer stories Richard Blakemore wrote, the most interesting are his forays into the genre now known as sword and sorcery.

Richard Blakemore was an acknowledged fan of Weird Tales and particularly admired the works of Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and C.L. Moore. And so, when Jakob Levonsky started up his own Weird Tales competitor called Tales of the Bizarre, Blakemore immediately jumped at the chance to write for the magazine and created Thurvok, a warrior hero in the mould of Conan, Kull and Bran Mak Morn.

Thurvok first appeared in the story “The Valley of the Man Vultures” in the first issue of Tales of the Bizarre in 1936 and quickly became a regular feature of the magazine. Pegasus Pulp Publishing has recently brought the adventures of Thurvok and his companions back into print.

However, the Thurvok series is not the only contribution that Richard Blakemore made to the budding sword and sorcery genre. For in the July 1937 issue of Tales of the Bizarre, Richard Blakemore introduced a new character called Kurval in the novelette “King’s Justice”.

Kurval is a somewhat older and wiser character than Thurvok and his friends. He is described as a barbarian from beyond the sea who has seized the throne of the kingdom of Azakoria after slaying the previous king.

Whereas the Thurvok stories are characterised by banter, adventures, swordplay and battles with monsters, the Kurval tales are more serious and mostly deal with Kurval’s struggles to be a good and just king, even as he finds himself faced with subjects who don’t respect him as well as with would-be plotters and assassins.

When asked why he chose to create a new sword and sorcery hero in Kurval and didn’t just go the Conan route and make Thurvok into a king, Richard Blakemore answered, “I had an idea for a story — the story that eventually became ‘King’s Justice’ — that simply didn’t fit into the framework of the Thurvok series. For Thurvok is quite happy being a wandering sellsword, thank you very much, and Meldom, much as I like him, should not be placed in any position of authority. And so I created a new character. Initially, I intended for Kurval to appear only in that one story. But I liked him and so I continued to use him for stories which didn’t fit Thurvok and friends.”

The first four Kurval stories were all novelettes, but “The Black Knight” is a novella and the longest Kurval story to date. It is also a pivotal story for the series as a whole. Not only does the reader finally learn about Kurval’s parentage and upbringing, but “The Black Knight” also introduces Lady Adeliz, a character who will go on to play an important role in the series.

In general, the Kurval stories are darker and more serious than the rather light-hearted Thurvok stories. “The Black Knight” is even darker than the rest of the series, for key to the mystery Kurval has to deal with is a truly horrific crime committed by one of his predecessors. The themes of justice and mercy, which run through the entire Kurval series are also once again addressed in this story.

“The Black Knight” is also notable for the fact that it contains a s*x scene that is remarkably frank by the standards of the pulp era. And indeed, this scene was cut for the original publication in the December 1937 of Tales of the Bizarre and has been restored from the original manuscript for this edition. It is telling that a scene of s****l violence, described in flashback, did make it into the original publication.

Richard Blakemore was an acknowledged admirer of C.L. Moore and “The Black Knight” is influenced by her Jirel of Joiry stories, as Blakemore himself openly admitted.

Pegasus Pulp Publishing is proud to present to you the adventures of Kurval, King of Azakoria, for the first time in print since 1930s. So buckle up and prepare to accompany Kurval as he is faces…

…the Black Knight.