Ball Tales: A Study of Baseball, Basketball and Football Fiction of the 1930s through 1960s

by Michelle Nolan

Overview

This history of American sports fiction traces depictions of baseball, basketball and football in works for all age levels from early dime novels through the 1960s. Chapters cover dime novel heroes Frank and Dick Merriwell; the explosion of sports novels before World War II and its influence on the authors who later wrote for baby boom readers; how sports novels persisted during the Great Depression; the rise and decline of sports pulps; why sports comics failed; postwar heroes Chip Hilton and Bronc Burnett; the lack of sports fiction for females; Duane Decker's Blue Sox books; and the classic John R. Tunis novels. Appendices list sports pulp titles and comic books featuring sports fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786439850
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	03/02/2010
Series:	Sport & Leisure/Baseball
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	287
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michelle Nolan has been a newspaper and magazine feature writer for more than 50 years. She received an Inkpot Award for her work as a comics and pop cultural historian and entrepreneur. She has written more than 12,000 published articles in newspapers and magazines along with contributions to dozens of books. She lives in Bellingham, Washington.

Table of Contents

Preface 1

Introduction 3

1 What Came Before: There Was Never Another Hero Like Frank Merriwell 7

2 The Great Pulp Sports Rally During the Depression 19

3 When College Football Was King on Film 33

4 A Smattering of Adult Sports Fiction 41

5 The Man Who Beat Merriwell 62

6 Sports Fiction Strikes Out in the Comic Books 94

7 The Longest-Running Heroes Chip Hilton Bronc Burnett 119

8 Duane Decker's Unique Blue Sox Series 145

9 The Sports Series Also-Rans 164

10 The Best of the Best John Tunis 172

11 The Prolific Sports Fiction Authors 192

12 Making Sports History: The Girls of Central High 213

13 Sports Short Stories for Young and Old 243

14 The Departure of Drama in Sports Films 254

Appendix A Sports Pulp Magazines 263

Appendix B Sports Heroes in Comic Books 1939-1967 265

Bibliography 267

Index 273

Editorial Reviews

excellent...recommended”—Choice.

From the Publisher

excellent...recommended

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