Edward Sidney Aarons (September 11, 1916 – June 16, 1975) was an American writer who authored more than 80 novels from 1936 until 1975. One of these was under the pseudonym "Paul Ayres" (''Dead Heat''), and 30 were written using the name "Edward Ronns". He also wrote stories for detective magazines, such as ''

Detective Story Magazine ''Detective Story Magazine'' was an American magazine published by Street & Smith from October 15, 1915, to summer 1949 (1,057 issues). It was one of the first pulp magazines devoted to detective fiction and consisted of short stories and seri ...

'' and ''Scarab''. Aarons also wrote spy thrillers, including his "Assignment" series, which are set all over the world and have been translated into 17 languages. The 42 novels in this series starred

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

agent Sam Durell. The first "Assignment" novel was written in 1955, and Aarons continued writing the series until up to his death.

Early life

Aarons was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, and earned a degree in

Literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

and

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

. He worked at various jobs to put himself through college, including jobs as a newspaper reporter and fisherman. In 1933, he won a short story contest as a student. In

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he was in the

United States Coast Guard The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and Admiralty law, law enforcement military branch, service branch of the armed forces of the United States. It is one of the country's eight Uniformed services ...

, joining after the attack on

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the Reci ...

in 1941. He finished his duty in 1945, having obtained the rank of

Chief Petty Officer A chief petty officer (CPO) is a senior non-commissioned officer in many navies and coast guards, usually above petty officer. By country Australia "Chief Petty Officer" is the second highest non-commissioned rank in the Royal Australian Navy ...

Writing career

Early works

Among his early works are ''The Art Studio Murders'' (1950) and ''The Decoy'' (1951).

''Assignment'' series

Fictional CIA agent Sam Durell is the protagonist for all of the stories in this series. Though the publisher listed these as the “Assignment series”, it is just as well known as the “Sam Durell series". In later editions, the publisher also used “Sam Durell” in the blurb immediately after the front cover - For example, ''Assignment Ceylon'' has “This is number thirty-six of the famed Sam Durell novels—one of the bestselling suspense series in the history of publishing.” One consistent element is that all of the story titles started with the word “Assignment.” The stories were written over a span of 28 years, from 1955 to 1983. Each book set, more or less, in the time it was written. When initially issued the stories were not numbered and the publisher showed the list of available stories in the “Assignment” series in alphabetical order though often the alphabetical list did not include all of the previous stories. Later re-prints numbered the stories based the order in which they were first published though the list of stories just before the title page was still in alphabetical order. The list is shown in numbered/published order here. Each story is a standalone work and while they can be read in any order reading them in the order given here will provide some continuity as there are occasional references to people or incidents from previous assignments. The publications were inconsistent in their formatting of the title. For consistency, all of the titles are listed here with a hyphen. # ''Assignment to Disaster'' (1955) # ''Assignment—Treason'' (1956) # ''Assignment—Suicide'' (1956) # ''Assignment—Stella Marni'' (1957) # ''Assignment—Budapest'' (1957) # ''Assignment—Angelina'' (1958) # ''Assignment—Madeleine'' (1958) # ''Assignment—Carlotta Cortez'' (1959) # ''Assignment—Helene'' (1959) # ''Assignment—Lili Lamaris'' (1959) # ''Assignment—Zoraya'' (1960) # ''Assignment—Mara Tirana'' (1960) # ''Assignment—Lowlands'' (1961) # ''Assignment—Burma Girl'' (1961) # ''Assignment—Ankara'' (1961) # ''Assignment—Karachi'' (1962) # ''Assignment—Sorrento Siren'' (1962) # ''Assignment—Manchurian Doll'' (1963) # ''Assignment—The Girl in the Gondola'' (1964) # ''Assignment—Sulu Sea'' (1964) # ''Assignment—The Cairo Dancers'' (1965) # ''Assignment—School for Spies'' (1966) # ''Assignment—Cong Hai Kill'' (1966) # ''Assignment—Palermo'' (1966) # ''Assignment—Black Viking'' (1967) # ''Assignment—Moon Girl'' (1967) # ''Assignment&mdas
Nuclear Nude
' (1968) # ''Assignment—Peking'' (1969) # ''Assignment—White Rajah'' (1970) # ''Assignment—Star Stealers'' (1970) # ''Assignment—Tokyo'' (1971) # ''Assignment—Golden Girl'' (1971) # ''Assignment—Bangkok'' (1972) # ''Assignment—Maltese Maiden'' (1972) # ''Assignment—Silver Scorpion'' (1973) # ''Assignment—Ceylon'' (1973) # ''Assignment—Amazon Queen'' (1974) # ''Assignment—Sumatra'' (1974) # ''Assignment—Quayle Question'' (1975) # ''Assignment—Black Gold'' (1975) # ''Assignment—Unicorn'' (1976) # ''Assignment—Afghan Dragon'' (1976) After Edward S. Aarons' death in 1975, his brother, William B. Aarons (1914-2002), continued to publish the series as executor of the Edward S. Aarons' estate. Volumes 43 to 48 state Will B. Aarons as the author but were ghost written by Lawrence Hall.Footnote
to "An Introduction to Edward S. Aarons’ Assignment Series" by Doug Bassett. # ''Assignment—Sheba'' (1976) # ''Assignment—Tiger Devil'' (1977) # ''Assignment—13th Princess'' (1977) # ''Assignment—Mermaid'' (1979) # ''Assignment—Tyrant's Bride'' (1980) # ''Assignment—Death Ship'' (1983)

References

External links

Edward S. Aarons Bibliography

Edward Ronns Bibliography
(A pseudonym used by Edward S. Aarons)
Will B. Aarons Bibliography
(William was Edward S. Aarons' brother and arranged to continue the ''Sam Durell'' series after Edward's death)

Sam Durell Novels Description
* (this bibliography is limited to the author's

speculative fiction Speculative fiction is an umbrella term, umbrella genre of fiction that encompasses all the subgenres that depart from Realism (arts), realism, or strictly imitating everyday reality, instead presenting fantastical, supernatural, futuristic, or ...

work.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Aarons, Edward S 1916 births 1975 deaths American spy fiction writers Columbia College (New York) alumni American male novelists 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American male writers United States Coast Guard personnel of World War II United States Coast Guard non-commissioned officers