NEWTON MOORE

       Newton Moore is an agent with the British Secret Service Fund.
       Exactly why the department is called a "fund" is not mentioned but looking up the definition of the word shows that it can mean something "saved or made available for a particular purpose", in this case espionage. It also could mean a "large stock or supply of something" as in a "fund of information". Either explanation would fit and together they make sense as well.
       This intelligence organization works out of the Foreign Office and its personnel have considerable authority throughout the country and have responsibility for many things happening outside the borders. It is directed by the austere Sir Gresham.
       In addition to being the best operative the group has, Moore is a novelist with a good deal of success, his books being known not only in England but also throughout Europe. His ability to pen interesting stories has worked against him, though, as he is said to be a man "cursed with a vivid imagination, and unseen terrors always unmanned him." In fact, in a passage in the first recorded adventure, "he had described himself as a coward, who was a hero in spite of himself. His imagination magnified the unseen danger, but the same fine inventiveness taught him the right moment to strike." As time passes and other missions are told, his "cowardness" is largely forgotten though he does retain a healthy discretion.
       He is a slight man with a retreating hairline leaving a pronounced widow's peak and he routinely wears a pince-nez. He is shown in illustrations in the magazine to have a very narrow pointed chin and a sharp thin nose. Clean shaven, his sideburns reach the top of his earlobes. The actual tales say little about his looks, though.
       The success that Moore has had as a novelist and possibly an inheritance allows him to live rather well. He has a nice set of apartments in London and has a manservant named Painter who is an ex-sergeant in Scotland Yard's CID. The latter does not get involved much, however, in Moore's cloak and dagger escapades.
       Moore boasts he knows "all the little bands of scoundrels who are on this game" as well as "quite au faut with every foreign ruffian in England." His inventiveness comes in handy on several occasions and his gift for planning is well known. "The fox had a dozen ways of escape from the hounds, and fell into their jaws at last. The cat had one avenue and escaped by it. Moore's method must be like that of the cat." it is said in one passage.

       Before I get started, I want to make mention of one line in the last story where Newton Moore comments on his pay to someone in France to keep an eye on a chap named Charet. "$2500 a day is a pretty stiff figure to pay for the privilege of perusing the correspondence of Charet." The author was British. The publication was British. The facsimile that Google made available of the actual issue the story was in is clear enough to see a dollar sign, albeit one with two lines in it. Curious why in that currency when it was paid by a British citizen to a French one, although I did notice that the magazine was published in both the UK and US. More interesting to me, though, was that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate of inflation from 1900 to today would have that $2500 worth $67,500. A day? I want that job.

       Now on to the series itself.
       I was intrigued from the beginning with the notion presented by the author that the protagonist, Newton Moore, was no "man without fear". In the books and dime novels and story pamphlets of the day, so many books about characters in different walks of life getting involved with all sorts of adventures do so with wild abandon. They almost gleefully charge into battle.
       Moore is no fearless champion. He has fear. He suffers from nerves when thinking of what might happen to him should things go wrong and being an author with a vivid imagination, he always can envision the bad stuff.
       And yet! He goes ahead, with trepidation, despite his fears because he also has incredible confidence in himself. And, truth be told, he does enjoy it.

       I give this series a very high score because:
a) it is a pretty good read. Fast and descriptive and interesting at all times. and
b) it is one of the very, very first true series and thus strongly deserving of not being forgotten or ignored.

My Grade: A

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