“What is generally missed,” Mr. Hubbard once remarked, “is that my writing financed research.” And although more broadly known for what finally came from that research, his novels and stories will never be forgotten. Having published a full 15 million words between 1929 and 1941, the name L. Ron Hubbard had been virtually synonymous with popular fiction through the 1930s—or as friend and fellow author Frederik Pohl had proclaimed, “The instant Ron’s stories appeared on the newsstands, they became part of every fan’s cultural heritage.” And given the volume of his work through these years—more than two hundred stories and novels spanning all popular genres: mystery, Western, adventure, fantasy, science fiction and even romance—that cultural heritage was indeed rich.

Appropriately, Mr. Hubbard’s primary outlet through these years was the Pulps. Named for the pulpwood stock on which they were printed, the Pulps were easily the most popular literary publication of their day. In fact, with some 30 million regular readers—a quarter of the American population—their impact was quite unique until the advent of television. But if the Pulps were first and foremost a popular vehicle, they were by no means without literary value. Among others to launch their careers in the likes of Argosy, Astounding Science Fiction, Black Mask and Five-Novels Monthly were Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Robert Heinlein. It was not for nothing, then, that Mr. Hubbard would proudly look back to these “dear old days,” to tell of the evenings spent with the great Dash Hammett, Edgar “Tarzan” Burroughs and Mr. Pulp himself, Arthur J. Burks. But if Mr. Hubbard would not particularly speak of his own status, it was no less legendary.

As a matter of fact, recalled Pohl, “Nobody was doing the sort of thing he did any better...colorful, exciting, continually challenging.” Case in point: L. Ron Hubbard’s first full-length novel, Buckskin Brigades. Acclaimed as one of the first popular works to offer an accurate view of the Blackfoot Indians, Buckskin Brigades was all that Pohl described and more. A “decidedly rare type of romance,” declared the New York Times, the novel constituted one of the first real reversals of what had been a fairly ethnocentric cliché: the Native American as a murderous savage. Rather, as Council Members of the Blackfeet Nation were to declare, “Never have our morals and ethics been presented with such clarity.” Additionally marking Buckskin Brigades as unique is the fact that it rose to the bestseller lists some forty years after original publication.