Willard Price Books In Order

Publication Order of Hal & Roger Hunt Adventures Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Willard Price
Author Willard Price was born July 28, 1887 in Peterborough, Ontario, and moved to America when he was just four. He was born to a family of devout Methodists.

Willard went to East High School and Western Reserve University, where he funded his college degree by writing ads for newspapers and local businesses. He gained notoriety during this time as a young Methodist leader and developed his taste for adventure on long trips during different vacations.

After he graduated in the year 1909, he confounded everybody’s expectations when he decided not to enter a seminary, rather spending a year preaching as an unordained pastor. Then he made a resolution to experience the “workaday world”, a choice that took him to New York and later London. While in London, he developed a “painfully acute social awareness” while he volunteered at a settlement house in Southwark. It inspired him to become “a social worker with a pen”.

After he returned to New York in 1911, he got a scholarship to the School of Philanthropy at Columbia, where he got his Litt.D and his MA. While here, he wrote many campaigning newspaper and magazine articles, including a survey of Newark’s slums, one first-hand account of the squalid conditions on a transatlantic liner, and an investigation of the child labor conditions in an iron and steel plant in Pittsburgh.

Willard had a special interest in ethnology, natural history, and explorations and he made many expeditions for the National Geographic Society and the American Museum of Natural History.

He spent his later life working as a ‘foreign correspondent and a roving researcher’ on the behalf of magazines, newspapers, and societies. As a result, he circled the globe three times and he visited a total of 148 countries.

It was these trips he would go on that proved to be the inspiration for his very popular “Adventure” books for younger readers. They describe the daring exploits of Hal and Roger Hunt, globe-trotting teenaged zoologists.

He would also document his adventures on these trips in his adult non-fiction books. Early writing focused especially on Japan, where he lived from the year 1933 until 1938 and was able to see the country’s militarization first-hand.

In one of his memoirs, called “My Own Life of Adventure”, he admits to having spied for the United States. However, what is not clear, is whether or not he was on military intelligence’s payroll.

Willard would edit many magazines on world affairs and travel. He spent six years working in as an as a foreign correspondent for London and New York newspapers.

He wrote the “Adventure” series of kid’s novels, the first of which, called “Amazon Adventure”, was released in the year 1949. In all, there are fourteen novels in the series, the last of which, called “Arctic Adventure”, being released in the year 1980.

Before he died, Willard said that his goal in writing the “Adventure” series of novels for kids was to lead to them read by making it an exciting experience and filled with plenty of adventure. He also wanted to inspire an interest in wild animals as well their behavior. He also noted that he helped open them up to the worlds of natural history and books, based off of the letters he had gotten from kids all around the world.

He died October 14, 1983 at the age of 96.

“Amazon Adventure” is a novel in the “Adventure” series, and was released in the year 1949. Hal and Roger Hunt, Long Island teens, explore the Amazon River with their dad, an expert naturalist, named John Hunt, to add to his exotic animal collection.

Somebody sends an anonymous telegram, so John goes back. All alone, the two boys face some wild animals, hostile natives, and dangerous rapids. There is also a hunchback that has bloodshot eyes.

Readers love these books for the way they are filled with natural history facts and some exciting exploits and are simply enjoyable reads.

“South Sea Adventure” is a novel in the “Adventure” series, and was released in the year 1952. The boys are searching for some exotic sea-life and have a mission to collect pearls from out of the oyster-beds of some secret lagoon.

However, do the crew and the passengers of “Lively Lady” know more than they are supposed to? Can these passengers be trusted?

“Underwater Adventure” is a novel in the “Adventure” series, and was released in the year 1954. Hal and Roger are on board the Lively Lady again. This time, they are studying submarine life and hunting for the treasure of Santa Cruz that sunk three hundred years ago.

Skink, who is an unscrupulous former school chum of Hal’s, is on board too and he is going to stop at nothing in order to get the treasure all for himself.

“Volcano Adventure” is a novel in the “Adventure” series, and was released in the year 1956. Now the boys help Dr. Dan Adams to research some volcanoes out in the Pacific.

Mount Myojin erupts, and the doctor’s odd behavior endangers every single one of them while they flee a large eruption that is capable of devastating a city the exact size of New York.

“African Adventure” is a novel in the “Adventure” series, and was released in the year 1963. Hal and Roger are out on safari in Africa. They find that the bogus White Hunter that is accompanying them is hindering all their attempts of capturing some wild animals.

Worse is yet to come, though, in the shape of one evil Witch Doctor that is determined on killing both Hunt brothers.

“Safari Adventure” is a novel in the “Adventure” series, and was released in the year 1966. Hal and Roger bring thirty natives to join Mark Crosby, a warden, in Tsavo, Kenya, Africa in a place where poaching is some pretty big business.

He has lost twelve of 22 rangers to one gang that leaves behind a blood-stained trail of torture and terror. These teens have to find Blackbeard, the mysterious leader of the gang, before they also become victims.

One Response to “Willard Price”

1. Kelly Ivey: 2 years ago

   I became, not only a lifelong reader of books,but a lover of books, because of this author. I had a near full set of his ” adventure” books, but in 2018 lost them all in a house fire. I now I’ve one grandson and a granddaughter on the way so it is needless for me to say I wish to replace them, if I can. I hoping you can!

   Reply