Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946)

Laborer, Compositor, Pressman, Salesman, Manufacturing Chemist, Advertising Manager, Songwriter, Music Publisher, Silent Movie Scenarist, Writer of Plots for Skits and Revues, Author, Manuscript Reader, Editor, Literary Agent, Outdoorsman, Orientalist
Born July 1, 1891, Chicago, Illinois
Died October 24, 1946, at home, Short Beach, Connecticut

Otis Adelbert Kline was there at the start. He wrote the first serial published in Weird Tales and worked as a reader of manuscripts for Edwin Baird (1886-1954), the first editor of the magazine. (1) Entitled "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes," Kline's serial appeared in the first two issues of Weird Tales, March and April 1923. It was also his first published story. Kline had three more stories in Weird Tales during that first year and two more in the second. Thereafter he was a occasional contributor from 1927 to 1943, twice with one friend, E. Hoffman Price (1898-1988), and once with another, Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994). In that time, too, Kline's writing career outside of "The Unique Magazine" took off. For a time, he was thought of as a rival of Edgar Rice Burroughs (1875-1950). There were even rumors of a feud between the two.

Otis Adelbert Kline was born on July 1, 1891, in Chicago, Illinois. His father was Louis A. Kline (1864-1938), a farmer, druggist, violin salesman, and chemical manufacturer. According to the Find A Grave website entry on him, Kline the elder was also a member of the Knights Templar and a writer "[m]ostly in favor of Prohibition." Kline's mother was Ora K. (Sides) Kline (1870-1949). The couple were married in 1888. Otis Kline grew up on his parents' farm, which was located west of Chicago, in Coloma Township, Whiteside County, Illinois, along with his younger brother Allen Sides Kline (1893-1971). Kline remembered that his father had "quite a large, well-chosen library." Louis Kline was interested in astronomy. When he was a boy, Kline and his father talked about the possibility of life on other planets. Both read H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds when it came out in 1898. "Perhaps the greatest thrill of all," Kline wrote, "was when Dad and I went together to look through the big telescope at Northwestern University. We had splendid views of Jupiter and Saturn but Mars, which we had wanted chiefly to see, was too low in the mists to be clear." Just as well. Mars should probably remain in the mists for every young and aspiring author of fantasy and science fiction. (2)

In his youth, Kline knocked about the country doing various jobs. He got his first notice in the nation's newspapers by writing songs. He started writing stories for publication after his thirtieth birthday. Weird Tales came along at just the right time. That first year, 1923-1924, was rough for the magazine. It nearly foundered. Edwin Baird left as editor at the end of the first year. Kline took over and edited the jumbo-sized first anniversary issue, dated May-June-July 1924, and wrote, anonymously, the editorial "Why Weird Tales?", which has been reprinted again and again since then. By the time the next issue was published in November 1924, Farnsworth Wright was at the helm.

In the early 1920s, Kline provided a lot of wordage to Weird Tales and other pulp magazines. His story "The Phantom Wolfhound" (Weird Tales, June 1923) introduced Dr. Dorp, an occult detective, and one of Kline's many series characters. Dr. Dorp was also in "The Malignant Entity" (Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924) and "The Radio Ghost" (Amazing Stories, Sept. 1927). Kline also wrote stories of detective Byrd Wright, nicknamed The Ferret, for Detective Tales and Flynn's Detective Weekly; Two-Gun Bart Leslie for Weird Tales, Real Detective Tales, and Young People's Weekly; and a non-fiction filler, "Curious Crimes," for Detective Tales in 1923.

The years 1925-1926 were drought years for Kline as far as Weird Tales was concerned. In its first year, the magazine had paid a penny per word. That rate dropped to 1/2 cent per word in Wright's first couple of years as editor. Once the rate returned to one cent per word, in 1926 or 1927, Kline returned, too. He soon became a star writer for the magazine and was paid 1-1/2 cents per word. In 1931, as Kline lay in the hospital, Bill Sprenger, the business manager of Weird Tales, fronted him $500 for his unfinished serial "Tam, Son of the Tiger." Kline recalled: "I never knew anyone to shoot squarer with a person, than that." (3)

In 1930, Weird Tales instituted a companion magazine, Oriental Stories. The title was changed to The Magic Carpet Magazine in 1933 and ceased publication in January 1934. Kline was there at the beginning of those two titles, too. In fact, he was the only author to have a story in each of the first issues of Weird Tales, Oriental Stories, and The Magic Carpet Magazine. Kline and Hoffman were known as Orientalists. Kline is supposed to have spoken fluent Arabic. Oriental Stories/The Magic Carpet Magazine would have been right up his alley. He contributed eight stories to those titles altogether. 

Kline's series character the Dragoman was in Oriental Stories and The Magic Carpet Magazine. There were seven of these, the first being "The Man Who Limped," from the October/November 1930 issue. The last was "The Dragoman's Pilgrimage," from January 1933. Kline's eighth story for that companion magazine to Weird Tales is "The Vengeance of Sa'ik," from December/January 1931.

Otis Kline began selling stories for Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) in 1933 and continued as Howard's agent even after his death in 1936. Kline's agency, Otis Kline Associates, was sold to Oscar J. Friend (1897-1963) after Kline's death. Friend died in 1963 and the agency was dissolved. Only then did Glenn Lord (1931-2011) take over as the literary executor--and champion--of Robert E. Howard. Kline was also an agent for Carl Jacobi (1908-1997), Otto Binder (1911-1974), and Bertrand L. Shurtleff (1897-1967). Binder worked a year for Kline as an assistant in Kline's literary agency in New York City.

Again and again, those who wrote about Otis Adelbert Kline remarked on his tastes for good food, wine, spirits, and tobacco. If he was ever healthy, Kline had become, before aged forty, stricken with ailments. Nonetheless, he was, like E. Hoffman Price, a man of action. Like Price (and Robert A. Heinlein), Kline was a swordsman. He also enjoyed outdoor activities, including fishing, hunting, hiking, boating, swimming, and clamming. He worked mostly as a literary agent beginning in about 1936. In 1936, he moved from Chicago to New York City, then in 1940 to Short Beach, Connecticut. His wife and daughters helped him out in his work. They seem to have been a happy family. Tending over the years towards portliness, Kline suffered a heart attack and a stroke at home and died on October 24, 1946. He was just fifty-five years old. His friend Eric Frank Russell (1905-1978) wrote of him: "A more likeable [sic] individual it would be hard to find. Plump, jovial, generous, he seemed to have hundreds of friends and no enemies." (4)

Otis Adelbert Kline's Essay, Serials, Stories, and Poems in Weird Tales, Oriental Stories, and The Magic Carpet Magazine (All credits listed here are for short stories except where otherwise noted.)

• "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes" in Weird Tales (two-part serial, Mar.-Apr. 1923)
• "The Phantom Wolfhound" in Weird Tales (June 1923)-Dr. Dorp
• "The Corpse on the Third Slab" in Weird Tales (July/Aug. 1923)
• "The Cup of Blood" in Weird Tales (Sept. 1923; reprinted June 1935)
• "The Malignant Entity" in Weird Tales (May/June/July 1924; reprinted in Amazing Stories, June 1926)-Dr. Dorp
• "Why Weird Tales?" in Weird Tales (also attributed to Edwin Baird) (essay; May/June/July 1924)
• "The Phantom Rider" in Weird Tales (Nov. 1924)
• "The Bride of Osiris" in Weird Tales (three-part serial, Aug.-Sept.-Oct. 1927)
• "The Demon of Tlaxpam" in Weird Tales (Jan. 1929)-Two-Gun Bart Leslie
• "But Was It?" in Weird Tales (poem; Sept. 1929)
• "The Bird-People" in Weird Tales (Jan. 1930)
• "Thirsty Blades" with E. Hoffman Price in Weird Tales (Feb. 1930)-Ismeddin
• "The Man Who Limped" in Oriental Stories (Oct./Nov. 1930)-The Dragoman
• "The Vengeance of Sa'ik" in Oriental Stories (Dec. 1930/Jan. 1931)
• "The Dragoman's Revenge" in Oriental Stories (Feb./Mar. 1931)-The Dragoman
• "The Dragoman's Secret" in Oriental Stories (Apr./May/June 1931)-The Dragoman
• "The Dragoman's Slave Girl" in Oriental Stories (Summer 1931)-The Dragoman
• "Tam, Son of the Tiger" in Weird Tales (six-part serial, June/July through Dec. 1931)
• "The Dragoman's Jest" in Oriental Stories; with E. Hoffman Price (Winter 1932)-The Dragoman
• "The Dragoman's Confession" in Oriental Stories (Summer 1932)-The Dragoman
• "The Gallows Tree" in Weird Tales (poem; Feb. 1932)
• "Midnight Madness" in Weird Tales (Apr. 1932)
• "Buccaneers of Venus" in Weird Tales (six-part serial, Nov. 1932 through Apr. 1933)
• "The Dragoman's Pilgrimage" in The Magic Carpet Magazine (Jan. 1933)-The Dragoman
• "Lord of the Lamia" in Weird Tales (three-part serial, Mar.-Apr.-May 1935)
• "The Cyclops of Xoatl" with E. Hoffman Price in Weird Tales (Dec. 1936)-Two-Gun Bart Leslie
• "Spotted Satan" with E. Hoffman Price in Weird Tales (Jan. 1940)
• "Return of the Undead" with Frank Belknap Long in Weird Tales (July 1943)

Further Reading

• The Compleat OAK Leaves: The Official Journal of Otis Adelbert Kline and His Works, edited by David Anthony Kraft (Clayton, GA: Fictioneer Books, 1980).
• Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear: Fictioneers & Others by E. Hoffman Price (Arkham House, 2001).

Notes
(1) Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940) was also one of Baird's readers.
(2) From "Reflections" by Otis Adelbert Kline, in OAK Leaves #11 (1975), pp. 3-4.
(3) Kline, in a letter to Dr. I.M. Howard, April 1, 1941, reprinted in OAK Leaves #1 (Fall 1970), p. 7.
(4) Quoted in "Otis A. Kline Dead," originally in The Fantasy Review, reprinted in OAK Leaves #1 (Fall 1970), p. 12.

Next: Otis Adelbert Kline-Three Questions

Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946).

Revised and omissions corrected on December 11, 2021.

Original text copyright 2021, 2023 Terence E. Hanley