Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940)-A Short Short Story

Newspaper Reporter, Soldier, Translator, Author, Editor, Music Critic
Born July 29, 1888, Santa Barbara, California
Died June 12, 1940, Jackson Heights, New York

I have stayed away from writing a biography of Farnsworth Wright. Luckily, I found a source that will allow me to go on avoiding that task. My source is a biographical article in a series called "Titans of Science Fiction," printed in the fanzine Science Fiction Digest, Combined with The Time Traveler, in Volume 1, Number 7, from March 1933. The editor was Maurice Z. Ingher; associate editors were Mortimer Weisinger, Raymond A. Palmer, and Julius Schwartz; and contributing editors were Forrest J. Ackerman and Henry Schalansky. The article itself was written anonymously. Wright may have himself been the author. I found this issue of Science Fiction Digest in a most timely way, on Saturday last week. It's from the collection of Margaret B. Nicholas of Bartlett and Marietta, Ohio. I found it at the same place as her larger collection, much of which I purchased last year.

TITANS OF SCIENCE FICTION

FARNSWORTH WRIGHT

    Editor of Weird Tales since November, 1924, was born in California forty-five years ago. Has English, Scotch, and French blood in him. Lived in San Francisco until 1906 when the earthquake 'threw' him out.

   Was bitten early with the editorial bug. When attending a San Francisco High School, he published an amateur magazine, "The Laurel," which he edited, wrote, and printed himself on a hand press belonging to a friend.

    Was educated at the University of Nevada and the University of Washington. While at the latter he was managing editor of their daily paper. Had to work his way through college. Spent one year surveying, one summer canvassing books, another summer as entomologist for the British Columbia Hop-Company, campaigning against the hop-fleas and the hop-lice.

    When the United State got into the Big Scrap he went to France as a private in the infantry. Was acquainted with French well enough to act as a French interpreter in the A.E.F. for one year.

    Returned to resume life as a newspaper reporter in Chicago. Was the music critic for the Chicago Herald and Examiner (the Hearst Morning paper in the Windy City) for two years.

    Wrote stories and read manuscripts for Weird Tales when Edwin Baird was editor from 1923-1924, and later became its editor when the Popular Fiction Publishing Company bought the magazine in 1924.

    He is the author of about 40 stories altogether, but story-writing is merely an avocation with him. Has written but one science fiction story, "An Adventure in the Fourth Dimension," an uproarious satire on interplanetary stories and science fiction in general. It was reprinted twice: in the Ten Story Book, and again with "The Moon Terror."

    It is rumored that Mr. Wright writes under the nom-de-plume of Francis Hard, whose stories and poems have appeared in Weird Tales and Oriental Stories--but he prefers not to say anything about it.

    His favorite relaxations are chess and swimming, he prefers to read books dealing with science and history. His favorite poet is Keats, favorite story-writer is Alphonse Daudet, but thinks William Morris' "A King' Lesson" is the best short story he's read. Likes to see Mickey Mouse on the screen in preference to anyone else, and considers Master Robert Wright, age three, his favorite hobby.

* * *

It goes on from there, but that's enough for now. "Master Robert Wright," by the way, was Wright's son, Robert Farnsworth Wright (1930-1993). How strange it is to hold a publication from ninety years ago in one's hand, a publication that was new and fresh when a long-dead man was just a three-year-old boy.

"Francis Hard" was in fact a nom-de-plume of Farnsworth Wright. (Hard was his mother's maiden name.) He began using that nom-de-plume only after he had assumed the role of editor of Weird Tales in November 1924. In all, Wright had five stories in Weird Tales from March through November 1923, plus three short stories and five poems in Weird Tales, Oriental Stories, and The Magic Carpet Magazine from November 1924 to October 1937. So there was precedent for an editor to use a pseudonym while still having his works printed in Weird Tales. Maybe Lamont Buchanan, later associate editor, availed himself of that practice during the 1940s and '50s.

Farnsworth Wright's Stories in Weird Tales

• "The Closing Hand" (Mar. 1923)
• "The Snake Fiend" (Apr. 1923)
• "The Teak-Wood Shrine" (Sept. 1923)
• "An Adventure in the Fourth Dimension" (Oct. 1923; reprinted in The Moon Terror [1923] and in The Best of Weird Tales: 1923 [1997])
• "Poisoned" (Nov. 1923)

Stories & Poems by Farnsworth Wright Writing as Francis Hard in Weird Tales, Oriental Stories, and The Magic Carpet Magazine

• "The Great Panjandrum" in Weird Tales (short story, Nov. 1924)
• "The Dark Pool" in Weird Tales (poem, Apr. 1925)
• "The Death Angel" in Weird Tales (poem, Sept. 1925)
• "Two Crows" in Weird Tales (poem, Jan. 1925)
• "The Evening Star" in Weird Tales (poem, Mar. 1926) 
• "The White Queen" in Oriental Stories (short story, Oct./Nov. 1930)
• "The Picture of Judas" in The Magic Carpet Magazine (short story, Apr. 1933)
• "After Two Nights of the Ear-ache" in Weird Tales (poem, Oct. 1937)

Farnsworth Wright's Story:

"The Closing Hand" is a very short story of only two pages. It takes place in an old house at night, with two sisters lying together in an upstairs bedroom and the younger of them talking about how the place might be haunted. The older sister is more level-headed and proceeds to fall asleep. There are sounds downstairs. The younger sister wakes the older, who goes to investigate. She is gone for too long. A presence comes into the room and . . .

"The Closing Hand" is written more or less at a high school level. It begins as a haunted house story and ends as a simple crime story. It reads like a sequence from a modern horror movie.

In its issue of September 1, 1922, the Chicago Tribune asked the man on the street, "What do you think of Health commissioner's Bundesen's 'public' health plan?" Farnworth Wright, then aged thirty-three, provided this answer.

Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley