Lester Dent=20 Museum

La Plata, MO is Doc Savage,=20 USA

August 26, 2006

Lester = Dent

Lester Dent (1904-1959) was born in La Plata, Missouri. As = an adult=20 he was an imposing physical specimen, at 6'2" and over 200 pounds, who = cut a=20 dashing figure and lived a vigorous, exciting, globe-trotting life just = as=20 adventurous as the characters he was famous for creating. He often = sported a=20 moustache and sometimes a beard. Lester Dent was married to Norma Dent, = who also=20 helped him in his writing career acting at times as his secretary.

Dent did an amazing amount of things in his life, often mastering = something=20 fully and then dropping it completely. In Lester Dent: The Man, His = Craft, and=20 His Market, by M. Martin McCarey-Laird, his wife, Norma, is reported as = saying=20 that "...he was like this with every adventure in which he involved = himself;=20 when he had exhausted his interest, he moved on to something else." But = his one=20 life long interest seemed to be writing. After trying his hand at = writing when=20 working as a telegraph operator in Oklahoma, Lester Dent struck gold = with the=20 sales of some stories and moved to New York City. He began a very = successful=20 writing career and became for a while, with the Doc Savage series, the = most=20 popular and best selling author of the Pulp Era. After his death, some=20 newspapers called Dent the second most prolific author in the world = (though this=20 was before Isaac Asimov). Nevertheless, his output and creativity energy = was=20 prodigous. In the Doc Savage series alone, he produced 165 full-length = novels=20 (of at least 55,000 words each), one each month for about 17 years, all = while=20 living, traveling, exploring, building, and writing various other works = as=20 well.

Lester Dent is most famous for writing the Doc Savage series = (1933-1949),=20 under the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson. Doc Savage is one of the most = influential=20 characters in modern American culture, having spawned generations of = imitations=20 in literature, comics, cartoons, TV, and film, such as Superman, Batman, = James=20 Bond, Johnny Quest, Indiana Jones, and Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt, just = to name a=20 very few.

As Lee Server noted in The Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers, = "Many a=20 writer found wish fulfillment in their larger-than-life fictional = protagonists,=20 but many who knew Lester Dent thought he really did seem a lot like the = amazing=20 Doc. Dent was a huge man.... Like Savage, Dent possessed vast and arcane = knowledge and was a master of assorted technical skills. He was a pilot, = electrician, radio operator, plumber, and architect. ... And like Doc = Savage,=20 Lester Dent loved exploring the deserts, sailing tropic waters, and = diving for=20 sunken treasure (for three years he sailed the Caribbean on his yacht = Albatross,=20 diving for treasure by day, his wife would recall, and sitting on the = deck=20 writing Doc Savage stories all night)."

Dent was a gadgeteer and throughout his life he worked with and tried = innovations in most forms of technology, from telegraph, radio, = televison, to=20 cameras, film, planes, electricity, etc. This is one of the many reasons = he was=20 hired to write the Doc Savage stories, though he was a young = inexperienced=20 writer of 28 at the time. Dent had the creativity to churn out = inventions by the=20 ton, but also the technical savvy to make them believeable and probable, = if not=20 functional. Philip Jose Farmer, in his semi-biographical study Doc = Savage: His=20 Apocalyptic Life, says, "As a prognosticator, Dent's record beat that of = Jules=20 Verne. The list of gadgets that first appeared in print in the Doc = Savage=20 stories and only came into existence long years later is a long = one."

Lester Dent was not limited to the Doc Savage series. He also wrote=20 nonfiction, novels, short stories in almost every genre (adventure, = action,=20 mystery, western, detective), and scripts for comics, radio, and = television.

Lester Dent suffered a massive stroke in 1959, and after three weeks = in a=20 hospital, died on March 11, 1959.

-- Logo and Entry by Thomas=20 Fortenberry

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bronze docsavage laplata lesterdent missouri

Posted by Chuck Welch on August 26, 2006 10:19 = PM=20 | Permalink=20

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