Capt. George Warburton Lewis (1878-1963)-The First Femme Fatale

Carpenter, Typesetter, Soldier, Author, Poet
Born February 20, 1878, near Old Fairview, Kansas
Died November 1, 1963, U.S. Veterans Hospital, The Bronx, New York

George Warburton Lewis was born on February 20, 1878, in prairie country, southeast of Old Fairview, Kansas. He was the son of Robert Lewis (ca. 1831-1893) and Rhoda E. Massey Lewis (1838-1890), both of whom died when he was still in his adolescence. Lewis attended school at Old Fairview and Fairview and worked as a typesetter at the Powhattan Bee. On April 30, 1898, he enlisted in the Kansas National Guard, beginning as a private with the 20th Kansas Infantry Regiment. Shortly after his enlistment, Lewis' unit was activated in the U.S. Army. He served under General Frederick Funston in the Philippines during and/or after the Spanish-American War. He was also in China during the Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901).

George W. Lewis seems to have been in and out and then back in the Army. By the time his first story for Weird Tales was published in March 1923, he had attained the rank of captain. Although he was nicknamed "General" by friends and acquaintances, Lewis rose no higher in rank than major or colonel. His headstone calls him captain. Impressively tall and slender, he was a drum major in the U.S. Infantry Band. He served in the military police in the Panama Canal Zone under George W. Goethals and in Haiti in about 1914. He was director general of revenue and acting treasurer of the Dominican Republic. In Puerto Rico, he was police chief and inspector general of the Puerto Rican Insular Police. Lewis also served in Liberia for two years and wrote a manual of instruction for the Liberian Army. By 1938, he had retreated to Arkansas for the sake of his health, also to write. During World War II, he was with the U.S. Department of War in the censorship division in New York City.

On December 22, 1930, Lewis married Zoraida Matus (1903-1984), a native of Puntarenas, Costa Rica, in Monrovia, Liberia. She was the daughter of Nicaraguan general and undersecretary of state Juan de Dios Matus. Zoraida studied at Columbia University and taught Spanish in Arizona and in New York City. Her husband spoke Spanish and several other languages. The Lewises lived in New York City. George W. Lewis died on November 1, 1963, at U.S. Veterans Hospital, in the Bronx, New York, and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. His wife survived him by more than two decades and now lies by his side.

George Warburton Lewis had stories and articles published in magazines from 1909 to 1949, including three in Weird Tales and three in Detective Tales, all in 1923. He also had stories, articles, and poems in Action Stories, Adventure, The Cavalier, Ghost Stories, Homicide, The Kansas Magazine, Top-Notch Magazine, and other titles. He wrote a book about his life, Fifty Most Thrilling Experiences of My Life, plus at least three volumes of verse, including Poems of Panama (1916) and Songs of Tropic Trails (1928).

Capt. George Warburton Lewis' Stories in Weird Tales and Detective Tales

Weird Tales

• "The Return of Paul Slavsky" (Mar. 1923)
• "The Blade of Vengeance" (June 1923)
• "The Outcasts" (July-Aug. 1923)

Detective Tales

• "Doctor Dunraven's Discovery" (Mar. 1923)
• "The Pink Mirador" (Apr./May 1923)
• "The Snitchers" (July/Aug. 1923)

Further Reading

"Col. George W. Lewis" (obituary) in the Fairview Enterprise, November 21, 1963, page 2, plus several brief newspaper articles about his service in the U.S Army.

Capt. George Warburton Lewis' Story:

"The Return of Paul Slavsky" is a short story about crime and murder. There are six characters in Lewis' story, three detectives and three terrorists recently arrived in the United States from Russia. The terrorists are Paul Slavsky, his sister Olga, and an unnamed brother who looks like Paul. You can tell they're Russians because their name is Slavsky. Like the Germans in The Big Lebowski (1998), they are Nihilists.

"The Return of Paul Slavsky" is told cleanly and efficiently and without any of the purple prose so common in pulp magazines. Paul Slavksy is dispatched in less than a page. One and a half pages later, two of the detectives have Olga in custody. But then there is the ride on the train. Olga tells them that her dead brother is coming back to deliver vengeance on his killer. Then they see a man who looks a lot like him riding with them on the train. One of the detectives leaves the car to smoke. When he comes back, his partner is sleeping with his hat pulled down over his face. The third detective nabs the third Slavsky and brings him into their car. He isn't Paul after all. But why won't the sleeping detective wake up? And why does Olga have that look on her face? Why has she bitten into and drawn blood from her carmine lips? A final sentence, printed in italics, provides an explanation as to just what has happened here.

Captain Lewis was a police detective in Panama and Puerto Rico. His experience shows through in "The Return of Paul Slavsky," not only in his depiction of his three detectives but also in the efficiency and conciseness of his story, as if he were writing a police report. There are no writer's tricks, self-indulgences, or extravagances. "The Return of Paul Slavksy" is out of the ordinary for the first issue of Weird Tales. Yes, it's set in the United States and is a story of crime and detection, but there is an international element and an element of suspense in the story, and in Olga there is the first of her type in the magazine, the femme fatale. She might be the best and fullest of the female characters so far in the magazine. And of course there is the first example of the final, italicized sentence, printed that way for effect.

George Warburton Lewis (1878-1963).

Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley