E. Irvine Haines (1877-1959)

Edwin Irvine Haines
Editor, Author, Historian, Correspondent, Businessman
Born October 21, 1877, New York
Died August 1959, Pinellas County, Florida

Edwin Irvine Haines was born on October 21, 1877, in New York, probably in New York City. He was an editor of newspapers and magazines and an author of feature articles, stories, a play, and a novel. Haines also wrote lengthy letters to several publications, including the New York Times. He specialized in the history of Colonial times and the American Revolution and was a member of the American Scenic, Historic and Preservation Society. In the 1930s, Haines authored a series of historical articles for The New York Times Magazine. His research culminated in a play, Peggy Shippen: A Drama of the American Revolution in Three Acts (1935), moreover in a well received historical novel, The Exquisite Siren: The Romance of Peggy Shippen and Major John Andre, published in 1938. Haines contributed stories, articles, and letters of comment to a number of magazines, including All-Story Weekly, American Banker, Coronet, The Editor, Ghost Stories, Mill Supplies, The Mining American, San Francisco Call, Soldiers of Fortune, Weird Tales, and Woman's Home Companion. His pulp magazine credits are short enough to list here. This list may or may not be complete:

• Letter in All-Story Weekly (July 3, 1920)
• "Is Bear Mountain Haunted?" in Ghost Stories (July 1931)
• "The Spy of the Neutral Ground" in Soldiers of Fortune (May 1932)
• Plus his letters and story for Weird Tales, listed below

Early in his career, Haines was the editor of American Banker. In 1909 he took a position with the C.O. Burns Company, a manufacturer of coin banks and home safes. Haines later worked for Burnet L. Clark, editor of El Comercio, a newspaper on Latin American trade. Haines' wife was Ruth M. Haines, a librarian. Haines lived in New Rochelle, Manhattan, and Queens Village, New York. He died in August 1959 in Pinellas County, Florida, at age eighty-one.

E. Irvine Haines' Story and Letters in Weird Tales

"The Hand of the Invisible" (May 1928)

Letters to "The Eyrie"

May 1929

Feb. 1932

Mar. 1932

Feb. 1933

Oct. 1933

Apr. 1934

Further Reading

There are tidbits on E. Irvine Haines on the Internet, mostly to do with his book, The Exquisite Siren.

Ghost Stories, July 1931, with the title of E. Irvine Haines' story but without his byline on the cover. 

Haines had a story or article in this issue of Soldiers of Fortune (May 1932) but no credit on the cover. I thought I would show it anyway because of a nicely done cover illustration and because I had never before heard of this magazine. By the way, Lawrence D'Orsay and Victor Rousseau also contributed to Weird Tales. 

An illustration for a "true" ghost story by E. Irvine Haines published in the San Francisco Call, March 1, 1908. The illustration is signed, but I can't read the signature.

Text and captions copyright 2014, 2023 Terence E. Hanley