Radio by the Book: Adaptations of Literature and Fiction on the Airwaves

During the first half of the 20th century, when radio reigned supreme in the living rooms of America, the medium's hunger for captivating characters and stories could not be sated. Three national networks and dozens of independent stations created a vast expanse of air time that had to be filled with comedy, adventure, mystery, drama and music, night after night. It's no surprise that radio's producers and writers looked to outside sources for inspiration, drawing some of old-time radio's most beloved characters (e.g., Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Hopalong Cassidy, and Buck Rogers) directly from the pages of literature and popular fiction.This book examines individual characters that jumped from prose to radio, and also looks at a number of anthology programs that specialized in dramatizing short stories or novels. It begins with an exploration of mystery and detective shows, followed by evaluations of adventure stories, westerns, and science fiction. Later chapters focus on anthology shows, such as Orson Welles' ""Mercury Theater on the Air,"" that adapted classic novels by Twain, Steinbeck, Dickens and other great authors. Each chapter explores how the writers and producers approached the source material - what they changed, what they kept and what they left behind. The results of their efforts were almost always highly entertaining radio, examples of a form of storytelling much more engaging and satisfying than much of that with which it has been replaced.