The anniversaries of the birth and death of Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur both fell within the last few weeks. As most DMR Books readers should know, Brodeur made his DMR debut in Viking Adventures. General busy-ness and whatnot prevented me from scribing a post in honor of Brodeur on either of the proper dates. I’d decided to wait until next September.

Enter DMR’s Dread Editor, Dave Ritzlin.

I told Dave about the aborted Brodeur post and he said he'd like to see me write one sooner than later. He also intimated that a few more Slim Jims might be added to my daily fodder here in my cubicle beneath DMR Manor. An offer I couldn't refuse, obviously.

Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur was born in Franklin, Massachusetts. His father was a Harvard man and young Arthur followed in the paternal footsteps, also attending Harvard, where he earned Bachelor's, Master's and Doctoral degrees in 1909, 1911, and 1916. His primary focus concerned the sweet science of philology. Brodeur published his highly-regarded translation of Snorri Sturluson's The Prose Edda in 1916. It can be found online here.

Brodeur met his lifelong friend and future literary collaborator, Farnham Bishop, at Harvard. Arthur encountered his future wife, Ophelia Noland, by way of Bishop. In 1916--the same year AGB earned his doctorate--the two men had their debut novel, In the Grip of the Minotaur, published in Adventure. The novel is one I need to review in-depth. For now, I'll say that it was ground-breaking as the first in a long line of tales equating Minoan Crete with Atlantis. In addition, it is a ripping yarn of the Old School.

1916 was also the year when Brodeur became an instructor of English and Germanic philology at UC Berkeley, where he was well-liked by his students. In 1921, Arthur was invited to study at Uppsala University, Sweden. He then returned to Berkeley, where he was made a full professor in 1930.

I should backtrack a bit and note that Brodeur wrote numerous tales for the pulps in the 1920s, often in collaboration with Farnham Bishop, but not always. Those would include the adventures of Faidit and Cercamon, along with the novel, The Altar of the Legion. Morgan Holmes is on record as stating that the Faidit and Cercamon tales could easily be converted into untold yarns of REH's Aquilonia. Without a doubt, Robert E. Howard would've read the tales of Brodeur and Bishop in Adventure, providing yet another strand of inspiration for his Hyborian Age.

Brodeur retired from Berkeley in 1951. In 1959, he published what has been called his 'crowning work': The Art of Beowulf. As the University of California said in 1975, 'The Art of Beowulf is one of the books that any student of the poem must read.'

Brodeur lived a full life, at least in the academic and literary sense. He obviously had an affinity for the 'Northern Thing', writing and teaching about it throughout his career. There is still a fair amount of Brodeur’s fiction that hasn’t been reprinted these last few decades. Hopefully, it all sees the light of day sooner than later.

Raise a mead-horn to his shade, sword-brothers.