author
Best known for fast-moving boys’ adventure fiction, this elusive writer is remembered today through lively dime-novel tales of pirates, danger, and high-seas escapades.

by Herrick Johnstone
Herrick Johnstone is a little-documented author associated with popular adventure fiction for young readers. Reliable online references for the person are scarce, but digitized and library records connect the name to Barney Blake, the Boy Privateer; or, The Cruise of the Queer Fish, a colorful sea adventure that has continued to circulate in reprints and digital editions.
What stands out most is the kind of storytelling attached to the name: brisk pacing, peril, and the energetic spirit of inexpensive mass-market fiction from an earlier era. Because firm biographical details are hard to verify from readily available sources, it is safest to remember Herrick Johnstone primarily through the surviving books rather than through a well-established personal history.