Arthur O. Friel

Arthur O. Friel (1885-1959) was an American writer and explorer whose adventure fiction grew out of his own travels in the South American jungle. Born in Detroit, he made his name in the pulp magazine Adventure, where his serialized stories were later collected into hardcover novels by Harper and Brothers. His best-known work is the McKay, Ryan and Knowlton series, following three American adventurers who carve out a hidden kingdom in the South American interior amid lost civilizations and jungle peril, beginning with The Pathless Trail (1922) and continuing through Tiger River (1923), The King of No Man's Land (1924), and Mountains of Mystery (1925). Friel occasionally strayed into speculative territory, as in the story "In the Year 2000," though the bulk of his output belongs to the jungle-adventure tradition rather than science fiction proper. He died in Concord, New Hampshire, in 1959.