Ronal Kayser (1905-1988)

Aka Dale Clark, Dale Clarke

Author

Born August 27, 1905, Springfield, Minnesota

Died February 22, 1988, San Diego County, California

Ronal (or Ronald) Sherwood Kayser was born on August 27, 1905, in Minnesota and lived in towns named after two of the state's ten thousand lakes. Graham Lake may have been his place of birth. At age twenty-five, he lived in Round Lake with his family and was already calling himself an author of magazine stories. Kayser married in 1930 and may have left home for Chicago at about the same time. In any case, he worked as an investigator for the Juvenile Protective Association (JPA), an agency set up by social worker Jane Addams in 1901. His position with JPA may explain why his first two stories for Weird Tales appeared under a pseudonym, Dale Clark. (A speculation on my part.) Those stories were published in early 1934. By the October issue, Kayser was writing under his own name.

Nineteen thirty-six was a good year for Ronal Kayser, at least when it came to Weird Tales. He had three stories and a poem printed in the magazine that year, beating his previous best of three stories printed in 1934. One from 1936, "In the Dark," was reprinted in 100 Wild Little Weird Tales (1994) and is now available as a download on the Internet. "In the Dark" was also Kayser's last story for "The Unique Magazine," although he sold other stories to Argosy and Terror Tales during the 1930s.

Weird fiction, though popular, had limited appeal during the pulp era, at least compared to crime fiction. Perhaps recognizing that and drawing on his experience as an investigator, Kayser began writing detective stories, some with a scientific angle, and again under his Dale Clark identity. Among his books were Focus on Murder (1943), The Red Rods (1946), Mambo to Murder (1955), and Country Coffin (1961). Kayser also wrote stories for Detective Story Magazine, Detective Fiction Weekly, and other magazines during this phase of his career. 

Kayser lived in La Jolla, California, during the 1940s and probably afterward. He died in San Diego County on February 22, 1988, but his fiction is still read and admired, in print and encoded in electrons.

Update (Feb. 20, 2022): I don't have many Golden Age comic books, but one I do have is Ibis the Invincible #2, from 1943. Inside is a text story called "If the Shoe Fits." The author was Dale Clark. So, it looks like we can add Ronal Kayser to the list of tellers of weird tales who also contributed to comic books.

Ronal Kayser's Stories, Poem, and Letter in Weird Tales

"The Phantom in the Sky" (Jan. 1934) as by Dale Clark

"Behind the Screen" (Apr. 1934) as by Dale Clark

"The White Prince" (Oct. 1934)

"The Albino Deaths" (Mar. 1936)
Letter to "The Eyrie" (May 1936)

"The Seance" (poem, Apr. 1936)

"The Unborn" (July 1936)

"In the Dark" (Aug./Sept. 1936)

Further Reading

You can read more about Kayser's detective stories on websites devoted to pulp fiction. A search with the keywords "Dale Clark" and "detective" will turn up plenty of material.

The Blonde, the Gangster, and the Private Eye was also titled The Red Rods (1946). I'm not sure if Lauren Bacall had anything to do with the story, but there she is on the cover, apparently in the role of a femme fatale.

Finally, the cover of A Run for the Money (1956) by Dale Clark, alias Ronal Kayser. Now the woman looks like Susan Hayward or Arlene Dahl. The man looks like he's gotten a run for his money.

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for locating Ronal Kayser's birth record.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley