Arthur Douglas Howden Smith (1887–1945) was an American historian and novelist.[1]
Smith was born in New York. In 1907, at the suggestion of writerAlbert Sonnichsen, he got in touch with theInternal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (VMRO), traveled to theBalkans, and spent two months illegally in the region ofNevrokop, easternMacedonia, with an armed band of the Organization.[2] His experiences he recounted in 1908 in the bookFighting the Turk in the Balkans, describing the revolutionary struggle in Macedonia. On returning to the United States, Smith became a reporter for the newspaper theNew York Evening Post.[3]
Smith began writing by contributing fiction to pulp magazines; his main market wasAdventure.[4] Smith also wrote fiction forBlue Book.[5]
ForAdventure, Smith wrotesea stories about the adventures of Captain McConaughy.[6] There were also historical swashbucklers about aViking, Swain,[7] living in MedievalOrkney and engaged in a terrible feud with the witch Frakork and her blood-thirsty grandson Olvir Rosta – which Smith based on historical information provided by theOrkneyinga saga. The Swain saga has since been reprinted in four volumes by DMR Books.
Smith's most famous series were the "Grey Maiden" stories. This revolved around acursed sword created during the reign of PharaohThutmose III and its subsequent appearances through world history.[1][8] This has since been reprinted by Steeger Books.
Smith also wroteThe Doom Trail (1921) and its sequelBeyond the Sunset, the adventures of Harry Ormerod, an 18th-century English exile, in thefrontier of Colonial North America at theIroqois country where a fierce struggle is waged with French agents out of Canada for control of the fur trade.[3] They were published in book form after running inAdventure.
Smith was a great admirer ofRobert Louis Stevenson.[3] InPorto Bello Gold (1924), a prequel toTreasure Island – written with the permission ofRobert Louis Stevenson's executor, Lloyd Osbourne – Harry Ormerod's son Robert goes to sea in the company of such famous pirates asCaptain Flint,Long John Silver andBilly Bones and takes part in capturing the treasure which would be recovered in Stevenson's book.[9] Smith also wrote a sequel to Stevenson'sKidnapped,Alan Breck Again.[3]
The Ormerod Family saga was continued further inThe Manifest Destiny where Robert Ormerod's great-grandson takes part in the expeditions of the 19th century adventurerWilliam Walker.
Smith wrote several books on American history, including a biography ofCornelius Vanderbilt,Commodore Vanderbilt: An Epic of American Achievement (1927).[10]
