Short stories and serial novels by Donald Hamilton

Most of Donald Hamilton's short fiction and several of his novels were published in weekly magazines during the 1940's and 1950's. This list identifies the magazines. Why bother, some might ask? The serialized novels were all published in hardcover and/or paperback, and reprinted several times. They aren't difficult to find. Hamilton's better known short stories have been collected in several anthologies. Isn't that good enough? Well, no. Hamilton passed away November 2006 and he was much more than the creator of Matt Helm. I'd like to remember him for all of his work. Four of his short stories have never been reprinted. Some of the magazines have spectacular color illustrations. I had to find and share them.

The elusive uncollected short stories and several others have been scanned in color and assembled with PDF wrappers. Many of the PDF files are large (up to 5 megabytes) and may take awhile to download on a typical home broadband internet connection. There isn't any text to extract from the PDF files. Each page is just an image of a page from the original magazine, complete with illustrations, ads, and occasional ragged edges.

My thanks to Robert Skinner, who suggested I contact Ray Peters, and to Ray, who maintains a publishing chronology of Hamilton's fiction, for his help identifying missing stories and providing photocopies to read. Thanks also go to Mike Leggett and David Keller for providing several articles and book cover scans.

While assembling this list, I reviewed the paperback editions I own and it occurred to me that I hadn't seen very many of the other editions of Hamilton's books. So I began looking for cover images. If you like, you can browse:

• first edition book covers
• fiction magazine covers
• suspense, western, and non-fiction book covers
• Matt Helm book covers
• hardcover book covers
• cheesecake book covers
• suspense and western movie posters
• Matt Helm movie posters
• televison, movie and soundtrack covers
• images of Donald Hamilton
• images of Matt Helm

If you're looking for more to read online, you can also find Hamilton's first novel, Date With Darkness, available as a compressed text file in the book section of Don Benish's Donald Hamilton Worship Page.

If you know where I can find copies of articles written by Donald Hamilton, if you know about any missing articles on writing, if you have book cover scans or movie poster images, or anything else interesting that should be added to this site, please email Mark Martinez, stcomix at mac dot com. Thanks.

Last modified: 11 Oct 2008

Story Title	Magazine Title	Issue Date	Notes
Stranger's Return	Collier's	1946-06-01	Uncollected short story. Hamilton's first published fiction. This issue contains a photo and brief biographical sketch of Hamilton.
Magnolia	Collier's	1946-11-23	Uncollected short story.
The Black Cross	The American Magazine	1947-09	Novela collected in Murder Twice Told, 1950 (hardcover) and 1952 (paperback).
The Steel Mirror, 1 of 8	The Saturday Evening Post	1948-08-21	Serial novel published as The Steel Mirror, 1948 (hardcover) and 1950 (paperback). Filmed as Five Steps to Danger with a pressbook and several posters, 1957. This issue contains a biographical sketch of Hamilton.
The Steel Mirror, 2 of 8	The Saturday Evening Post	1948-08-28	-
The Steel Mirror, 3 of 8	The Saturday Evening Post	1948-09-04	-
The Steel Mirror, 4 of 8	The Saturday Evening Post	1948-09-11	-
The Steel Mirror, 5 of 8	The Saturday Evening Post	1948-09-18	-
The Steel Mirror, 6 of 8	The Saturday Evening Post	1948-09-25	-
The Steel Mirror, 7 of 8	The Saturday Evening Post	1948-10-02	-
The Steel Mirror, 8 of 8	The Saturday Evening Post	1948-10-09	-
Deadfall, 1 of 3	Collier's	1949-09-03	Serial novela collected in Murder Twice Told. Adapted as a live teleplay, Dead Fall, and broadcast 23 Jan 1951, during the third season of Suspense. Available from Amazon.
Deadfall, 2 of 3	Collier's	1949-09-10	-
Deadfall, 3 of 3	Collier's	1949-09-17	-
Mask for Danger, 1 of 5	Collier's	1951-06-16	Serial novel published as Night Walker, 1954. Currently in print from Hard Case Crime and available from Amazon.
Mask for Danger, 2 of 5	Collier's	1951-06-23	-
Mask for Danger, 3 of 5	Collier's	1951-06-30	-
Mask for Danger, 4 of 5	Collier's	1951-07-07	-
Mask for Danger, 5 of 5	Collier's	1951-07-14	-
Throwback	Manhunt	1953-08	Uncollected short story.
Smoky Valley, 1 of 4	Collier's	1953-12-11	Serial novel published as Smoky Valley, 1954. Filmed as The Violent Men with several posters, 1955. The film is available from Amazon.
Smoky Valley, 2 of 4	Collier's	1953-12-25	-
Smoky Valley, 3 of 4	Collier's	1954-01-08	-
Smoky Valley, 4 of 4	Collier's	1954-01-22	-
Too Soon Dead	Bluebook	1955-05	Uncollected novela.
Mad River, 1 of 3	Collier's	1956-01-06	Serial novel published as Mad River, 1957.
Mad River, 2 of 3	Collier's	1956-01-20	-
Mad River, 3 of 3	Collier's	1956-02-03	-
Ambush at Blanco Canyon, 1 of 4	The Saturday Evening Post	1957-02-02	Serial novel published as The Big Country, filmed as The Big Country with several posters, a soundtrack, and a comic, 1958. The film is available from Amazon. This issue contains a photo and brief biographical sketch of Hamilton.
Ambush at Blanco Canyon, 2 of 4	The Saturday Evening Post	1957-02-09	-
Ambush at Blanco Canyon, 3 of 4	The Saturday Evening Post	1957-02-16	-
Ambush at Blanco Canyon, 4 of 4	The Saturday Evening Post	1957-02-23	-
The Mile Gun	Sports Afield	1958-09	Short story collected in On Guns and Hunting, 1970.
The Last Gunman	The Saturday Evening Post	1959-05-02	Short story collected in Spurs West, S. Omar Barker (ed.), 1960, and in The Gunfighters, Bill Pronzini and Martin H. Greenberg (ed.), 1987.
The Guns of William Longley	-	1967	Short story published in Iron Men and Silver Stars, Donald Hamilton (ed.), 1967. Won the 1967 Western Writers of America Spur Award for best short material. Reprinted in many anthologies over the years. Also contains an essay, The great tradition, originally published in 1956. Bill Longley was an outlaw with a ruthless reputation. Available in an audio book.

Hamilton also wrote many magazine articles, including a few about his work and writing. Some are listed at the UCLA archive of his papers. Most of his articles are about hunting and boating. Here are a few.

Hamilton has been the subject of interviews and articles about his work. Here are a few.

Here are some pressbooks for films made from Hamilton's novels.