As per our Heathen modus operandi, we’ve updated most hyphened words to reflect their modern counterparts: to-day is now today, to-night is now tonight, and so on.

We’ve also corrected myriad spelling and punctuation errors that existed in the text, which exist to varying degrees in both the original five-part Adventure serial and the Bobbs-Merrill book, which we compared against each other to ensure we were making the proper corrections—and when comparing our edition to other versions currently available at the time of this writing, we appear to be the only publisher, so far, who has corrected all of these issues, which, we hope, will make for a most pleasant read.

Also, in addition to our 256 footnotes, we have kept 36 of the original footnotes that appeared in both the Adventure serial and the Bobbs-Merrill book and have set them out using asterisks, like this.* We say “most” because some of the original footnotes were repeated with duplicated information since the serial spanned five issues, so we have condensed those so that they only appear once.

Interestingly, Brian Taves notes in his Mundy biography, “In an innovation, Bobbs-Merrill provided each chapter with a small illustration of a scene of India at its beginning,” which we have honored by keeping, as we believe they lend the text an inviting atmosphere of its exotic setting. And if this truly was the first book to feature such an innovation, then how could we not include them?

All of this to say that we Heathens have labored for many months to make this not just another edition of The Nine Unknown, but the absolute best edition currently available.

We think our work will speak for itself.

To read our full thoughts, check out It’s Indiana Jones meets Ocean’s Eleven . . .

You can also read Mundy’s thoughts on the craft of writing here: Writers on Writing: Talbot Mundy

1. “I cut throats with an outward thrust!”
2. “Produce but the gold, thou Portuguese!”
3. Light and Longer Weapons!
4. “Here’s your Portuguese!”
5. “The Nine’s spies are everywhere!”
6. “They fled before me!”
7. “Shakespearean homeopathic remedy!”
8. “He is very dead!”
9. “Silence is silent.”
10. “Can’t hatch a chicken from a glass egg.”
11. “Allah! Do I live, and see such sons?”
12. “I am dead, but the silver cord is not yet cut.”
13. “I felt the tingle of the magic and fell unresisting.”
14. “We’ve got your chief!”
15. “Abandon can’t and cant all ye who enter here!”
16. “Sahibs, that is a true speech!”
17. “There will be no witnesses—say that and stick to it!”
18. “He has whatever she had!”
19. “Once when they who keep the secrets—”
20. “Nevertheless, I will take my sword with me!”
21. “My house is clean again!”

“The Nine Unknown is an occult thriller for fans of the Indiana Jones movies, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, Rudyard Kipling’s Kim and, of course, Mundy’s other supernaturally inflected adventure classics.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

“Talbot Mundy was one of the bestselling writers of adventure fiction of his day.” —Peter Berresford Ellis, The Last Adventurer

“The story of the Nine Unknown Men was popularized for the first time in 1923 by Talbot Mundy. His book is half fiction, half scientific inquiry.” —Louis Pauwels & Jacques Bergier, The Morning of the Magicians

“One of the kings of the pulps was Talbot Mundy.” —Famous Pulp Classics

“Jimgrim joins forces with a group of multi-talented comrades to battle the secret forces of the occult in India . . . filled with excellent examples of oriental magic, mysticism, and machination.” —Roger C. Schlobin, The Literature of Fantasy

“Excellent ethnic characterizations . . . Original subject matter, rapid movement. One of the most successful attempts to weld adventure onto the occult novel.” —Everett F. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction

“Mundy is in many respects superior to Rider Haggard, although he never achieved the latter’s popularity. He has a better sense of character, his plots are much tighter, and his style is smoother.” —Fanz Rottensteiner, The Fantasy Book

“. . . richly entertaining and imaginative adventure fiction . . .” —Lee Server, Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers

“In retrospect, Mundy can be seen as the most influential and enduring, if not the bestselling, writer of Eastern adventure of his day.” —Brian Taves, Talbot Mundy, Philosopher of Adventure

“Talbot Mundy was one of the great fantasy adventure writers of a time when the art of writing a firmly built long magazine story was at its zenith.” —Mary Gnaedinger, Famous Fantastic Mysteries

The Nine Unknown