In the next couple of weeks, over on The Adventure Gamer, I will be playing Seastalker. I mentioned this earlier in my review of a Hardy Boys mystery, and I am presently working my way through stories featuring Tom Swift, Jr. and Nancy Drew. All of these young-adult novels were written by Jim Lawrence, but you would never know it from their covers. Jim was a dedicated ghostwriter, creating fiction that he would never get credit for. Nonetheless, I have become quite interested in his history and have started to pull together a bibliography of his books based on various sources that I found online. This is most likely not a complete list. This is made more complicated by the fact that there are at least three authors named Jim (or James) Lawrence, including one artist who worked in comics. Trying to separate out which Mr. Lawrence wrote what has been quite a challenge!
That’s where you come in. Do you know of any additional works by Jim Lawrence? Do you have details of specific radio play scripts that he wrote? If so, please drop me a note below. For everyone else, here is the list that I have gathered so far:
Books by Jim Lawrence (aka James Duncan Lawrence)
Title | Series | Number | Year | Notes |
Tom Swift and his Atomic Earth Blaster | Tom Swift | 5 | 1954 | |
Tom Swift and his Outpost in Space | Tom Swift | 6 | 1955 | |
Tom Swift and his Diving Seacopter | Tom Swift | 7 | 1956 | |
Tom Swift on the Phantom Satellite | Tom Swift | 9 | 1956 | |
The Ghost At Skeleton Rock | Hardy Boys | 37 | 1957 | |
Tom Swift and his Ultrasonic Cycloplane | Tom Swift | 10 | 1957 | |
Tom Swift and his Deep-Sea Hydrodome | Tom Swift | 11 | 1958 | |
Tom Swift in the Race to the Moon | Tom Swift | 12 | 1958 | |
Tom Swift and his Space Solatron | Tom Swift | 13 | 1958 | |
The Mystery At Devil’s Paw | Hardy Boys | 38 | 1959 |
With Andrew Svenson
|
Tom Swift and his Electronic Retroscope | Tom Swift | 14 | 1959 | |
The Mystery Of The Chinese Junk | Hardy Boys | 39 | 1960 | |
Tom Swift and his Spectromarine Selector | Tom Swift | 15 | 1960 | |
Tom Swift and the Cosmic Astronauts | Tom Swift | 16 | 1960 | |
Tom Swift and the Visitor from Planet X | Tom Swift | 17 | 1961 | |
Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung | Tom Swift | 18 | 1961 | |
Tom Swift and his Triphibian Atomicar | Tom Swift | 19 | 1962 | |
Tom Swift and his Megascope Space Prober | Tom Swift | 20 | 1962 | |
Tom Swift and the Asteroid Pirates | Tom Swift | 21 | 1963 | |
Tom Swift and his Repelatron Skyway | Tom Swift | 22 | 1963 | |
The Disappearing Floor (1964 Edition only) | Hardy Boys | 19 | 1964 | |
Tom Swift and his Aquatomic Tracker | Tom Swift | 23 | 1964 | |
Tom Swift and his 3-D Telejector | Tom Swift | 24 | 1964 | |
Tom Swift and his Polar-Ray Dynasphere | Tom Swift | 25 | 1965 | |
Tom Swift and his Sonic Boom Trap | Tom Swift | 26 | 1965 | |
The Secret Warning (1966 Edition) | Hardy Boys | 17 | 1966 | |
Tom Swift and his Subocean Geotron | Tom Swift | 27 | 1966 | |
Tom Swift and the Mystery Comet | Tom Swift | 28 | 1966 | |
X Marks the Spy | Christopher Cool | 1 | 1967 | |
Mission: Moonfire | Christopher Cool | 2 | 1967 | |
Department of Danger | Christopher Cool | 3 | 1967 | |
Ace of Shadows | Christopher Cool | 4 | 1967 | Maybe |
Tom Swift and the Captive Planetoid | Tom Swift | 29 | 1967 | |
Binky Brothers, Detectives | Binky Brothers | 1968 |
with Leonard P. Kessler
|
|
Heads You Lose | Christopher Cool | 5 | 1968 | Maybe |
Tom Swift and his G-Force Inverter | Tom Swift | 30 | 1968 | |
Trial by Fury | Christopher Cool | 6 | 1969 | Maybe |
Binky Brothers and the Fearless Four | Binky Brothers | 1970 |
with Leonard P. Kessler
|
|
The Man from Planet X #1: The She-Beast | Man From Planet X | 1 | 1975 | |
The Man from Planet X #2: Tiger by the Tail | Man From Planet X | 2 | 1975 | |
The Man from Planet X: The Devil to Pay | Man From Planet X | 3 | 1975 | |
The Sting Of The Scorpion | Hardy Boys | 58 | 1979 | |
Night Of The Werewolf | Hardy Boys | 59 | 1979 | |
Mystery Of The Samurai Sword | Hardy Boys | 60 | 1979 | |
The Apeman’s Secret | Hardy Boys | 62 | 1980 | |
Race Against Time | Nancy Drew | 66 | 1982 | |
Clue in the Ancient Disguise | Nancy Drew | 69 | 1982 | |
Bobbsey Twins: The Music Box Mystery | Bobbsey Twins | 9 | 1983 | |
ESP McGee and the Haunted Mansion | ESP McGee | 1983 | ||
The Silver Cobweb | Nancy Drew | 71 | 1983 | |
The Haunted Carousel | Nancy Drew | 72 | 1983 | |
Bobbsey Twins: The Ghost in the Computer | Bobbsey Twins | 10 | 1984 | |
The Mysterious Image | Nancy Drew | 74 | 1984 | |
The Bluebeard Room | Nancy Drew | 77 | 1985 | |
The Phantom of Venice | Nancy Drew | 78 | 1985 | |
The Cutlass Clue | A. I. Gang | 2 | 1986 | |
The Ugly Duckling | 1987 | |||
The Three Billy Goats Gruff | 1987 | |||
The Gingerbread Boy | 1987 | |||
Henny Penny | 1987 | |||
Shy Little Kitten’s Secret Place | Little Golden Books | 1989 | ||
The Shoemaker and the Christmas Elves | 1993 |
Comics by Jim Lawrence
Note that in some of these cases, Mr. Lawrence may have contributed only a fraction of the scripts.
- James Bond newspaper comics (1966-1984)
- Captain Easy newspaper comics (1969-??)
- Friday Foster newspaper comics (1970-1974)
- Buck Rogers newspaper comics (1979-1981)
- Joe Palooka newspaper comics (??)
Radio Play Scripts by Jim Lawrence
- Green Hornet (1949-1950) (two episodes)
- Sargent Preston of the Yukon / Challenge of the Yukon (1949-1950)
- Sky King (??)