THE LOST CITY by Joseph Badger

THE ORIGINAL JUNGLE MYSTERY STORY

paperback book

THE BOOK THAT CREATED THE LEGEND

Illustrated.  This story involves a professor, an adventure, Indians, jungle, mysterious gods, and plain good story telling.  Joseph Badger's ideas have been copied by many modern movies and books..  Adult, children, and easy reading.

Joseph Edward Badger, Jr., was born October 10, 1848, in Payson,
Illinois. His father, Joseph E. Badger, Sr., came from a Massachusetts
family of seafaring people, and his mother, Rachel Sarah Van Vorhees,
from a Dutch family living in Pennsylvania. The family ended up near St.
Joseph, Kansas, just up the Missouri River from St. Joseph, and it was
here that Joseph learned to swim and skate.
Bellemont served as a starting point for freight outfits crossing the
plains. Among the first to make the overland trip to California, after the
discovery of gold there, were his father and two uncles, one of whom
disappeared in that state. Joe's father originally ran a stove and hardware
store in Bellemont, and the family lived upstairs. During the Pike's Peak
excitement in 1859 Joe ran away from home, taking his pony, his dog, and
a muzzle-loading shot gun, and joined a freight outfit going to Denver.
Although only eleven years of age, he acted as hunter for the train. It is
said that one day, surrounded by five Indians, and slightly wounded by
two shots in the leg, he himself shot his first Indian.
Upon his return to Bellemont, some six months later, Joe went back to
school part time, but he preferred hunting and camping.
Joe was a student in Bryant's Business College in St. Joseph, Missouri,
and very shortly thereafter began contributing sketches to the New York
Weekly. His first long story f was Dime Novel No. 203, "The Masked
Guide," published May 10, 1870; and thereafter, for a long time, he
furnished them with a story every month or so.
After the market for his stories subsided, he ran into many kinds of
trouble, owning a cigar store, sustaining a bad head injury from a fall
which caused him to have severe headaches, and then buying an interest
in a billiard hall. A failing business and poor health caused an end to his
life.