Weird Tales, April 1923-Part Three

More authors from the second issue of Weird Tales:

Victor Johns (1882-1960)--I assume that Victor Johns was Victor Emanuel Philip Johns of Kansas City, but I can't say that for sure. Online information on him is nonexistent. In any case, Victor Johns wrote a story of France in Weird Tales, "The Hideous Face." It ends with all italics.

Laurie McClintock & Culpeper Chunn--Culpeper Chunn was Seymour Cunningham Chunn (1889-1927), a young man of Washington, D.C., who tried to kill himself in late 1914. He was paralyzed by his self-inflicted gunshot wound and thereafter went around in a wheelchair. After his wounding, he was committed to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in the nation's capital. Chunn co-authored "The Whispering Thing" with Laurie McClintock. It was the first story by an author known to have been an inmate.

I had thought that Chunn and McClintock might have been a husband-and-wife writing team. Once I learned that Chunn was an inmate, I considered the possibility that McClintock was his nurse or some other kind of helper. I looked for a nurse named Laurie McClintock and found one. He was Gustus Laurie McClintock (1889-1956) of Missouri, nicknamed Guy and Gus. In 1918, when he filled out his draft card, McClintock was a graduate nurse at the Kansas State Hospital, an asylum for the insane at Osawatomie. So if Guy Laurie McClintock was Chunn's co-author, did he go to Washington, D.C., or did Chunn go to Kansas? It must have been the former, although I haven't found any record for him in that city. Or maybe they wrote their collaborative stories by U.S. Mail. "The Whispering Thing" is another story of a Frenchman. France and Frenchmen seem to have been a theme in the April issue of Weird Tales.

Ted Olson (1899-1981)--Theodore B. Olson was a native of Laramie, Wyoming. "The Conquering Will" was his only story in Weird Tales and his only known work of science fiction, weird fiction, or fantasy. It's another tale told from a found manuscript, another tale of the Far North, and another tale of bodily possession by the spirit of a departed person. 

Carroll F. Michener (1885-1970)--Carroll F. Michener was Carroll Kinsey Michener of Spring Valley, Minnesota. He wrote two stories for Weird Tales, "Six Feet of Willow Green" (Apr. 1923) and "The Earth Girl" (Dec. 1924). I haven't read "Six Feet of Willow Green," but I can tell you that it's a story of the South Seas and of the Orient, also another story about snakes and snakebite. It might be worth a look.

C.E. Howard (1858-1930)--Clarence Everett Howard was a satirist and humorist, among many other things. Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, he lived a life of accomplishment in Orlando, Florida, and that's where he died in 1930. I assume that he was our man, as "The Parlor Cemetery" is called "a grisly satire," and much of the story takes the form of Southern-inflected dialogue. Howard was known as a satirist and was at one time mayor of Orlando. There is or was a school named after him.

The second issue includes:

• The first voodoo story and the first story set in Central America: "Jungle Death" by Artemus Calloway. The story ends with a smart observation: "Voodooism loses its strength when it mixes up with white men."

• The first story set in historical France: "The Affair of the Man in Scarlet" by Julian Kilman.

• The first Oriental adventure: "The Forty Jars" by Ray McGillivray (Anthony M. Rud). I haven't read "The Forty Jars," but it looks promising.

• The first story by an author known to have been born in Ireland. Though set in England, it is also the first story about Egypt. Entitled "The Hall of the Dead," the story is by Francis D. Grierson.

• More stories of insanity, murder, infidelity; more stories that end in places of confinement, mostly, in this case, in asylums for the insane; and even another short snakebite story, "The Snake Fiend" by Farnsworth Wright.

• A call for contributions, on page 184, beginning with these words: "The Skeleton in Your Closet." The result, I believe, was the first Weird Tales feature and the first readers' contribution feature other than "The Eyrie", "The Cauldron: True Adventures of Terror," conducted by Preston Langley Hickey in four installments, June through October 1923.

Carroll K. Michener, from a newspaper article called "Michener, Defender of Bread, Retires" by Ralph Mason in the Minneapolis Star, July 25, 1957, page 18A.

Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley