Nathaniel T. Babcock (1851-1928)

Nathaniel P. Babcock
Journalist, Editor, Author
Born December 28, 1851, New York, New York
Died February 13, 1928, Zanesville, Ohio

I'll have to begin again with a question of names. In his first issue of a revived Weird Tales, Sam Moskowitz credited one of his authors as "Nathaniel T. Babcock." That credit seems to have come from Munsey's in 1892 and perhaps also from The Argosy in 1896. We now know that the author's real name was Nathaniel P. Babcock. In any case, one of the reasons for doing research is to correct mistakes made by previous researchers. I have received frequent corrections from readers of this blog. Although I haven't made all those corrections yet, I hope to get to them and I hope that you'll continue to send them in.

Nathaniel P. Babcock, by my best guess, was born on December 28, 1851, in New York City. (1) He may have been related to an old and prominent New England family named Babcock, but I have been unable to confirm that. H.P. Lovecraft must have known the Babcock name, for he used it in "A Shadow Over Innsmouth" (1936). Lovecraft's own family may have been related to the Babcock family as well through the Whipple line.

Babcock was a newspaperman. His obituary in the New York Times (Feb. 16, 1928, p. 3) states that he had worked in the newspaper business for fifty-three years, first with the New York Tribune, then with the World, the American, and with the Hearst syndicates. His story "The Man with the Brown Beard" was published in Munsey's in January 1892 and in The Argosy in February 1896. That was the story Moskowitz used in Weird Tales. Babcock also contributed to The Century, The Junior Munsey, Ladies' Home Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, and St. Nicholas Magazine between 1886 and 1903.

Babcock married a woman from Somerset, Ohio. At least one of his children was born in Zanesville. That would explain his connection to the Buckeye State. In February 1928, Babcock returned from Europe with his wife and daughter. Eleven days later, he died in a hospital in Zanesville. He was seventy-six years old.

Forty-five years after that, Sam Moskowitz placed "The Man with the Brown Beard" in his new Weird Tales and in his paperback anthology, Horrors in Hiding. Evidently it had proved elusive: despite the fact that "The Man with the Brown Beard" was the first--chronologically--of the stories listed in the first comprehensive index of fantasy in the Munsey periodicals (2), it had never before been reprinted. Moskowitz corrected the oversight, calling Babcock's story a "powerful tale of horror."

Nathaniel P. Babcock's Story in Weird Tales

"The Man with the Brown Beard" (Summer 1973, originally in The Argosy, Feb. 1896)

Update (Oct. 27, 2020): Reader Ricardo Gouvea asked about other short stories written by Nathaniel P. Babcock. I found a list of his credits on the website The FictionMags Index. I have found a few more credits in other places, so here is an updated list:

• "The Stranger Cat" (poem) in St. Nicholas, Jan. 1886
• "The Queerness of Quelf" (poem) in St. Nicholas, Apr. 1887
• "Silly Miss Unicorn" (poem) in St. Nicholas, July 1887
• "Love’s Dilemma" (poem) in The Century Magazine, Apr. 1888
• "Ruth’s Birthday" (poem) in St. Nicholas, Nov. 1888
• "His Majesty the King" (poem) in St. Nicholas, May 1889
• "The Man with the Brown Beard" (short story) in Munsey’s Magazine, Jan. 1892
• "When Moody and Sankey Stirred the Nation" (article) in Ladies’ Home Journal, Oct. 1897
• "Newspaper Head Lines" (article) in The Junior Munsey, Dec. 1901
• "Without Publicity" (short story) in The Black Cat, June 1902
• "The Cheseboro Heir" (short story) in The Buffalo Times, Oct. 19, 1902
• "My Red Cravat" (short story) in The Saturday Evening Post, July 11, 1903
• "The Day in June; or When Teddy Comes Home" (poem) in The Daily Arkansas Gazette, Mar. 31, 1910
• "The Dawn of Effort" (poem) in The Daily Arkansas Gazette, Apr. 26, 1910
• "Casabianca in 1910" (poem) in The San Francisco Examiner, June 28, 1910
• "The Fall of a Poet" (poem) in The Daily Arkansas Gazette, Nov. 19, 1910

Babcock was married to Caroline Maginnis Babcock (1856-1942) a native of Somerset, Ohio, and a member of the Froebel Society, an educational organization in Brooklyn, New York.

Notes

(1) I have seen birthdates of February 1852 and December 1853 as well. If the 1860 census is accurate, then the 1853 birthdate cannot be. Two sources indicate a birthdate in December--two (for December) against one (for February) leaves December 28, 1851, as the most likely date in my mind.

(2) The index, "Fantasy in the Munsey Periodicals" by William H. Evans, was serialized in Fantasy Commentator, a fanzine, in 1946-1947.

Text copyright 2012, 2023 Terence E. Hanley