The Curse of Capistrano (Illustrated)

First published in 1919 as a serial in the "All-Story Weekly" pulp magazine, this story was originally titled The Curse of Capistrano and was the first appearance of the "Zorro" character, the dashing masked vigilante fighting against the oppression of the King's officials in "Old California," while hiding his real identity as Don Diego Vega behind a foppish facade. When it became the basis for the 1920 Douglas Fairbanks film "The Mark of Zorro" and was republished as a novel to coincide with the film, it was re-titled as The Mark of Zorro. Numerous "Zorro" stories, books and films followed, some following Johnston McCulley's original characterizations more closely than others and all, including McCulley's own later stories, essentially disregarding the ending of the original story without explanation. Born in Ottawa, Illinois on February 2, 1883, Johnston McCulley was a prolific writer who published extensively in the pulp magazines of the day under a variety of pen names. He created a number of popular masked, costumed "vigilante" characters and "gentleman villains" with secret identities, and his work was a major influence on subsequent pulp characters. In particular, "The Shadow" was inspired in part by McCulley's work, in turn serving as a major inspiration for "Batman", and the modern "super hero" of American comic book fame owes much to McCulley. Among his many creations were "The Green Ghost," "The Crimson Clown," "Black Star" and "The Spider," all of which had elements, such as secret identities, sidekicks, imaginative gadgets and weapons, that became mainstays of later characters in the genre. McCulley died on November 3, 1958 in Los Angeles, reportedly "after a series of operations," the end of a prolific career, and a life shrouded in mystery, that produced "Zorro," one of the most widely known fictional characters in the world.