Frederick Robert Buckley

F. R. Buckley (1896–1976) was an English writer. He wrote more than 200 short stories for pulp magazines between 1918 and 1953.

Early and personal life He was born Frederick Robert Buckley on 20 December 1896 in Colton, Staffordshire, England and died in 1976. He was the son of R. J. Buckley (1847–1938) and Mary Wakelin. His father was music critic for the Birmingham Gazette from 1886 to 1926. Frederick attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and Birmingham University, studying journalism.

In 1915, Buckley went to the United States on the SS St Louis and worked as Chief reviewer and later Editor for the Motion Picture Mail, a Saturday magazine supplement of the New York Evening Mail. Buckley then moved to become New York Managing Editor of the Exhibitors Herald.

In 1916, Buckley married American actress Helen Curry, sister of fellow pulp fiction author Tom Curry. He returned to England in 1932 after his first wife's suicide.

Silent film era

Starting in 1917, he worked in silent film in Brooklyn for the Vitagraph Studios where he was primarily a screenwriter and occasionally an actor. A Night in New Arabia, The Last of the Troubadours and The Lovers' Knot. He appeared in principal roles in The Undercurrent and The Unknown Quantity. for $20.00.

O. Henry Award In 1922, Buckley won the O. Henry Award for his short story Gold-Mounted Guns published in Red Book Magazine, March 1922. His story Habit, honorably mentioned in the O'Henry Memorial Volume for 1923. and published in the 30 April 1923 issue of Adventure was adapted for the 18 July 1948 episode of the CBS radio program Escape.

Slicks, Pulps and Novels Buckley's fiction also appeared in Collier's, Liberty, McClure's, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and The Saturday Evening Post. He was also extensively published in many pulp magazines including Adventure, Hutchinson's Adventure-story Magazine, Argosy, The Blue Book Magazine, Short Stories , The Story-Teller and Western Story Magazine. The Luigi Caradosso stories were enormously popular with Adventure's readers. When Adventure published a new Caradosso story in the May 1940 issue (after a six-year hiatus), the editor Howard Bloomfield noted that many readers had written in to request that the magazine "Bring back Captain Caradosso." In the mid 1950s, Buckley worked as a portrait painter in Paris.

Historic Homes

Connecticut State Register Buckley's former home (1920-1932) in Norwalk, Connecticut is listed in both the Norwalk Historic Resource Inventory and with the Connecticut State Historic Preservation Office on the Connecticut State Register of Historic Places.

National Heritage List for England

From the 1960s to the time of his death in 1976, Buckley lived in a reportedly haunted (though not very enthusiastically, according to Buckley ) listed building on the National Heritage List for England in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, which is known as The Exorcist's house.