- Jimmie Dale
in 1917. He was a wealthy playboy by day, but at night put on a costume and became The Gray Seal, who enters businesses or homes and cracks safes, always leaving a dianond shaped, gray paper "seal" behind to mark his conquest, but never taking anything. He was just doing it for "the sheer deviltry of it" at first, but when a woman catches him she blackmails him to war on certain crime organizations.
Dale's adventures first appeared in
People's Magazine and then were collected into novels: "The Adventures of Jimmie Dale " (1917), "The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale " (1919), "Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue " (1922), "Jimmie Dale and the Blue Envelope Murder " (1930), and "Jimmie Dale and the Missing Hour " (1935), with the serializations generally appearing the year before the novel version was published. In 2007, the first two books featuring Jimmie Dale/The Gray Seal were re-released as an e-book entitled "Return of The Gray Seal. " He also appeared in a movie serial, "Jimmie Dale Alias the Gray Seal," in 1917. [http://www.serialsquadron.com/reference/bydate/index.htm]Jimmie Dale/The Gray Seal is often credited with popularizing and evolving that would greatly influence later pulp and comic book heroes. The foppish playboy by-day-crimefighter-by-night routine had a precursor in
The Scarlet Pimpernel , but it was Jimmie Dale that brought the idea into a contemporary setting and added the idea of a costume and mask for his secret identity, serving as a possible influence for characters likeZorro andThe Shadow . He also established the concept of a hero's secret hideout or lair, The Sanctuary, a precersor of theBatcave or theFortress of Solitude .(This entry incorporates some material from Jess Nevins Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes)
See also
*
List of film serials External links
* [http://www.geocities.com/jjnevins/pulpsg.html#Gray Jimmie Dale entry in the Encyclopedia of Pulp heroes]
* [http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12624 Sony Reader e-book version of "Return of The Gray Seal"]
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=1218 Gutenberg text of "The Adventures of Jimmie Dale"]
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=9440 Gutenberg text of "The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale"]
* [http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC01816160&id=SCpQNIVTGtEC&dq=%22Jimmie+Dale%22&as_brr=1 "The Adventures of Jimmie Dale" on Google Books]
* [http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC06865759&id=MnzXcMPjsQgC&dq=%22Jimmie+Dale%22&as_brr=1 "Jimmie Dale and the Phantom Clue" on Google Books]
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