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Rand, Nila. Nila Rand was created by “Beech Allen,” the pseudonym of Hedwig Langer, and appeared in six stories in Scarlet Adventuress from 1935 to 1937, beginning with “The Devil’s Mistress” (Scarlet Adventuress, July 1935).

Nila Rand is a Femme Fatale. Rand is "that strange exotic creature who turned the blood of all men into molten fire--yet always forced her head to rule her heart..." She is an adventuress, arms dealer, gunfighter, and dealer in stolen goods. She is also bisexual, something unusual for the pulps.

* I'm including the Nila Rand stories in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because of their historical importance. The Nila Rand stories are fun in a minor key--I enjoy a good femme fatale story more than most people, but they aren't exceptional stories--but what really sets them apart is the open (for 1935) acknowledgement of Rand's bisexuality, an extremely unusual and rare thing in the pulps. Certainly Scarlet Adventuress was the place for such a character--the stories tried to be as racy as they could while not violating publisher or postal censor standards--but even in Scarlet Adventuress you didn't find bisexual characters. And of course a bisexual female character is a lot less daring than a bisexual male character. But still. Nila Rand counts as progress. 

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