Weird Tales: The Houdini Issues-Part One

Harry Houdini
Né Erik Weisz
Aka Eric or Erich Weiss, Harry Weiss
Performer, Magician, Illusionist, Escape Artist, Actor, Author, Aviator, Technical Advisor, Movie Producer & Director, Public Speaker, Psychic Investigator, Skeptic, & Debunker
Born March 24, 1874 (O.S.), Pest (Budapest), Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire
Died October 31, 1926, Detroit, Michigan

A lot has been written about Harry Houdini. I'm not sure that I can add to it. Instead I'll just write about him in his connections to genre fiction, genre films, and of course Weird Tales.

Born in Hungary to a rabbi and his wife, Houdini grew up in Appleton and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, then in New York City. He began performing--on a trapeze--at age nine and became a professional magician in 1891. He performed on the vaudeville stage, in circuses and museums, at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, and--off and on from 1906 to 1923--in films. He was supposed to have played Captain Nemo in an adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but that deal fell though. Instead, he appeared in a number of other genre films:

• The Master Mystery (1918), a fifteen-part thriller/mystery/science fiction serial on which Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) of all people served as a consultant.

• The Grim Game (1919), a crime thriller and aviation picture.

• Terror Island (1920), a South Seas adventure.

• The Man from Beyond (1922), a time-travel adventure with the ever-popular man-frozen-in-the-ice-then-thawed-out-and-reawakened plot device. There is also a depiction of reincarnation in The Man from Beyond, now interpreted as an attempt at reconciliation with Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), whom had been alienated by Houdini's skepticism and debunking of spiritualism, mediums, and séances. (1)

• Haldane of the Secret Service (1923), a crime/detective story. Released on September 30, 1923, it was Houdini's last film. Weird Tales was halfway through its first year when Haldane arrived in theaters.

Although his name was known the world over, Houdini began slipping in his career by the time the 1920s rolled around. His last movies weren't very successful and so he put that business behind him. In February 1924, he announced that he was leaving the vaudeville stage and going on a twenty-four-date lecture tour to talk about "his experience with fraud medium." (2) He also announced that he had signed a contract to write a series of articles on the same subject for none other than Weird Tales magazine.

Maybe it was a step down for Houdini to get involved in pulp fiction, but that's what he did, meeting Weird Tales publisher J.C. Henneberger in his Chicago office in early 1924. (3) The two men swung a deal, and that's how the Houdini issues of Weird Tales came about. I won't go into the particulars here. You can read about the people, places, and events involved in John Locke's history, The Thing's Incredible! The Secret Origins of Weird Tales (2018), pages 136-156. Suffice it to say, Houdini had the cover story in three straight issues of the magazine, March, April, and the quarterly issue of May/June/July 1924. His likeness, by R.M. Mally, appeared on the first of the three, making Houdini the first author to be depicted on the cover of "The Unique Magazine."

To be continued  . . .

Notes
(1) In his biography, Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls (MacFadden, 1961), William Lindsay Gresham wrote: "The idea [behind The Man from Beyond] was probably suggested to Houdini by a story which appeared in The American Weekly about the body of a viking, complete with winged helmet and flaxen beard, which had been discovered in the Arctic, perfectly preserved after a thousand years." (p. 196) If we had the title of that story, we could add it to the Internet Polar Fiction Database and the Internet Viking Adventure Database. Was it one of A. Merritt's works? (My paperback edition of Gresham's Houdini lacks an index. Mention of Weird Tales and H.P. Lovecraft--"the late, great H.P. Lovecraft"--is on page 236.)
(2) "Houdini Leaving Stage," Minneapolis Star, February 23, 1924, page 8.
(3) John Locke suggests the week of February 11, 1924, as the period during which they met. See The Thing's Incredible!: The Secret Origins of Weird Tales (2018), page 138.

A still from The Master Mystery (1918), starring Harry Houdini. I believe the actress here is Marguerite Marsh (1888-1925). Inside the robot suit is Floyd Buckley (1877-1956), later the voice of Popeye the Sailor on radio and in animated cartoons. The robot is called Q the Automaton. You might think Q was one of the first robots in cinema, but there were robots on film as early as 1897. From The Secrets of Houdini by J.C. Cannell (Dover, 1973), facing page 244.

Here's a French-language version of the movie poster for The Master Mystery. The artist was E.G. I'm not sure why a robot needs a knife in order to carry out its mayhem. Maybe robots were different then.

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924-Non-Fiction & Other Fillers

Following is a list of the fillers in the May/June/July issue of Weird Tales, a list transcribed from the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Thanks to them again. All are by uncredited authors. Most have asterisks around them. Read on to see what they mean.

• **"Juvenile Criminal," about the Hon. Grey Bennett and a boy named Leary. There really was a Grey Bennett, as remote from the first year of Weird Tales as we are from it.**

• **"Retaliation," about a British ship.**

• **"Providential Warning at Sea," about Captain Thomas Rogers and his ship Society in about 1694.**

• **"Pastime of Despots," about Czar Peter.**

• **"The Unnatural Son," about a theft in Salisbury.**

• **"Singular Discovery of a Murder in 1740," an account of events at St. Neots, England.**

• **"Giants," about very tall men known to history.**

• **"Sham Fight," about a battle between Christian and Musselman armies at Bostra [sic].**

• **"War Horses," about war in Funen, Denmark.**

• **"The Original Bluebeard," about Gilles, Marquis de Laval. Seabury Quinn had covered him before in his non-fiction series "Weird Crimes," in October 1923.**

• **"Distressing March of the Crusaders Through Phrygia."**

• **"Remarkable Accident," about Baptiste, an actor at the Comedie Francaise in 1820.**

• *"An Account of a Family Who Were All Afflicted with the Loss of Their Limbs," about John Dowling of Wattisham, England.*

• *"Hypocrisy Detected," set in Paris.*

• *"Force of Imagination," also set in Paris.*

• *"Immolation of Human Beings," about the Ashantees [sic] of Africa.*

• **"Imprisonment of Baron De Geramb."**

• *"Anecdote Concerning the Execution of King Charles the First."*

• **"Anne Boleyn."**

• **"The Heroes of Hindoostan."**

• *"Extraordinary Instance of Second Sight," about a French army officer quartered in Scotland during "the previous century."*

• **"Miracles," about a Dr. Connell and his patient, named Anne Mulligan, in 1777.**

• **"National Superstition," about two Venetians.**

• **"Death of the Duchess of Bedford."**

• **"Pardon for Forgery," a case from 1803.**

• **"Terrific Death of a Painter," about Peter Peutemann.**

• **"Deaths by Lightning," set in Ireland.**

• **"Wonderful Providence," about war in France in 1562.**

• **"Monsieur Rouelle," about the "celebrated chemist."**

• **"A Singular Experiment," about an Irish boy named Magrath who fell into the hands of a "subtile doctor," a kind of Procrustes who experimented on the boy and made of him a monstrous creation. This account goes along with my suggestion that medical doctors are very often psychopaths or sociopaths and see their fellow human beings as mere material and subjects for their bizarre and monstrous experimentation. We recently had one of those at the head of a large governmental agency. He and his fellows very likely developed and loosed upon the world a deadly virus and in response created an oppressive regime that is still lurking, still preying, including in the minds of his and their followers, supporters, and apologists. Monstrous medical doctors recently won a victory for themselves in Ohio, too. Now they have the power under the state constitution to decide who is a human being and who is not. Now we have another Moloch State.**

• **"Pentilly House, Cornwall," about a Mr. Tilly, an atheist.**

• **"Singular Combat," about England in the time of Henry IV.**

• **"Fatal Misfortune and Singular Instance of Affection in a Horse," set in England.**

• *"Punishment of the Knout in Russia."*

• **"Intrepid Conduct of Admiral Douglas," about a mutiny on board the ship Stately.**

• "Only Sound," a very brief item from the Los Angeles Times. (Below it are two jokes.)

• "Odd Facts," half a dozen brief fillers. (Below it are three anecdotes or jokes. So there are five untitled anecdotes or jokes in addition to 37 titled fillers.)

As I was about halfway through this list, I discovered the original source of most of these accounts. The source is:

The Terrific Register; or, Record of Crimes, Judgements, Providences, and Calamities, Volume I and Volume II, published in 1825 by Sherwood, Jones, and Co., of London, and Hunter of Edinburgh.

Presumably all are factual, so no fiction to add to the 37 stories in this issues. Items taken from Volume I have single asterisks around them in the list above. Those from Volume II have double asterisks. Seven of the items are from Volume I of The Terrific Register. Twenty-eight are from Volume II. That makes 35 in all, leaving only two that are from other sources.

So, if we're trying to get from 37 new stories in the interior of the anniversary number to the 50 promised on its cover, then we'll have to add 13 of the items listed above, I guess. You get to choose. A couple of them are almost as long as the shortest new stories.

It's clear that Otis Adelbert Kline was not the author of these fillers, as he had been (or probably was) in previous issues. But if he was acting as editor, or co-editor, then maybe he was the one who chose them for inclusion. And that makes me think that there must have been copies of these two volumes either in a public or university library in Chicago or in a private collection to which he had access. And now I think we had better look at the fillers in previous issues for their possible origins in the same two volumes of The Terrific Register.

I have written before about the Fortean method. I called it that after Charles Fort (1874-1932), author, gadfly of science, and collector of oddities. People who read and wrote for Weird Tales knew of Fort and his ways. Some became Forteans themselves. Others simply availed themselves of the Fortean method in creating their fictions. Like I said, I have suspected that Otis Adelbert Kline was the author of the many non-fiction fillers printed in Weird Tales in its first year, and maybe he was after all, taking after Fort in the process. But it's clear with this discovery of The Terrific Register as a source that Kline was not the sole author of the Weird Tales fillers and that Fort was not the first collector of oddities. He, along with Kline, was simply working in an older tradition. I wonder how far back that tradition goes. And I wonder: is history simply a field engaged in telling about the odd events--the crimes, judgements, providences, and calamities--of the past? Aside from that, are not these accounts simply retellings of how weird works in our lives and affairs?

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924-Stories & Essays

Following is a list of the contents of Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924, the first of two parts, this one showing the 37 stories, one essay, and two features or departments, transcribed from the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Thanks to them.

• "Why Weird Tales?" by Anonymous, actually by Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946).

• "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" by Houdini (1874-1926), ghostwritten by H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937).

• "'Whoso Diggeth a Pit—'" by Vida Tyler Adams (1896-1976).

• "Deep Calleth" by Gordon Burns.

• "The Malignant Entity" by Otis Adelbert Kline, the middle story of his three featuring Dr. Dorp.

• "The Sixth Tree" by Edith Lichty Stewart.

• "The Haunted Mansion in the Pines" by Leonard F. Schumann.

• "Spirits" by J. M. Alvey.

• "Hypnos" by H. P. Lovecraft.

• "Ebenezer's Casket," part two of a two-part serial by J. U. Giesy (1877-1947) and Junius B. Smith (1883-1945).

• "Draconda," part six of a six-part serial by John Martin Leahy (1886-1967).

• "The Hand" by H. Francis Caskey.

• "The Loved Dead" by C. M. Eddy, Jr. (1896-1967), with an uncredited H. P. Lovecraft.

• "The Vow on Halloween" by Lyllian Huntley Harris (1883-1939).

• "Eyes" by Galen C. Colin (1890-1973).

• "The Man Who Thought He Was Dead" by Granville S. Hoss.

• "Called Back" by Dan W. Totheron [Dan W. Totheroh (1894-1976)].

• "The Sunken Land" by George W. Bayly.

• "The Dancing Partner" by Guy L. Helms.

• "The Last Entry (In the Diary of R. Q. P.)" by Meredith Beyers (1899-1996).

• "The Purple Death" by Edith Lyle Ragsdale.

• "The Imposter" by Norman Springer (1888-1974).

• "The Werewolf of St. Bonnot," an article in the series "Weird Crimes" (No. 6), by Seabury Quinn (1889-1969).

• "Just Bones" by Samuel Stewart Mims (1885-1974).

• "First Degree" by Robert Cosmo Harding (1883-?).

• "The Latvian" by Herman Fetzer, aka Jake Falstaff (1899-1935).

• "The Machine from Outside" by Don Howard.

• "Doctor Grant's Experiment" by H. A. Noureddin Addis (1884-1958).

• "Tea Leaves" by Henry S. Whitehead (1882-1932).

• "An Egyptian Lotus" by Mrs. Chetwood Smith (1872-1950).

• "Deep Sea Game" by Arthur J. Messier.

• "The Soul Mark" by H. C. Wire.

• "It!" by E. M. Samson.

• "The Man Who Lived Next Door to Himself" by Frank Owen (1893-1968).

• "Mystery River" by Elwin J. Owens.

• "The God Yuano" by Marjorie Darter.

• "The Cellar" by Paul L. Anderson.

• "In the Weird Light" by Edward Everett Wright and Ralph Howard Wright, with an epigraph by William Wordsworth and including a graphic of the globe.

• "A Glimpse Beyond" by H. M. Hamilton.

• "Ask Houdini," letters column conducted by Houdini.

The thirteenth issue of Weird Tales was a big one, 192 pages in all, containing 37 stories, 37 titled fillers (and several untitled ones), Otis Adelbert Kline's anonymously published essay "Why Weird Tales?", and two features, "Weird Crimes" by Seabury Quinn and "Ask Houdini," a letters column conducted by Harry Houdini. All of that content was printed in three columns of small type on each page.

In terms of page count, the triple issue is twice as long as the most recent issue, #367 from last year, as well as many issues immediately after it, which began again in November after a hiatus of three months. Some of these stories are very short, only a page or two. Most have never been reprinted. I have read only a few, but several sound intriguing, including "Draconda," an interplanetary adventure by John Martin Leahy. H.P. Lovecraft was pretty prominent in this issue, with one story under his own byline, one that he ghost-wrote, and one on which he lent a hand, C.M. Eddy's scandalous tale "The Loved Dead." Notice that there is not one but two stories with titles in the form of "The Man Who . . .".

I have written about some of these authors before. Hover over their names, then click. And now I find that there are lots that I haven't written about, and they deserve some space . . .

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924-Introduction

I'm going to back up and jump ahead, both at the same time. Last time I closed by saying that I would like to write next about the most recent issue of Weird Tales. Last year, I went one by one through the issues of Weird Tales published in its first calendar year, March through December 1923. Now I'm going to skip the issues from January through April 1924 and go to the first-anniversary triple issue of May/June/July 1924. I'll write about the most recent issue, Weird Tales #367, after that.

Weird Tales of May/June/July 1924, called on its cover "Anniversary Number," contains 192 pages in all. The cover story is "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," credited to Harry Houdini but ghostwritten by H.P. Lovecraft. There are 37 stories inside (including parts of two serials), an essay, and two features or departments. There are also 37 fillers. These are supposed to be nonfictional works. Considering that the cover blurb promises "Fifty Distinct Feature Novels, Short Stories and Novelettes," they deserve a closer look to see whether they are in fact nonfictional, or whether they might include some works of fiction. In order to meet the promise made on the cover, there would have to be 13 works of fiction out of 37 items in all. We'll see what happens. The cover art was by the mysterious R.M. Mally. The interior art was by William F. Heitman, his last for "The Unique Magazine."

The thirteenth issue of "The Unique Magazine" opens with an essay, "Why Weird Tales?", written by Otis Adelbert Kline as a kind of manifesto. There was a lot of drama going on with the magazine and its contributors at that time. In the face of these things, Kline sounded defiant in his essay, and he has been proved right in predicting immortality--or, at least a hundred-year-and-counting immortality--for what was published in Weird Tales. Click the page on the right, under "Home," or here to read "Why Weird Tales?".

Confirmation of Kline's authorship of this otherwise anonymous work is based at least in part on a letter he wrote to Dr. Isaac M. Howard, father of Robert E. Howard, dated April 1, 1941:

     Edwin Baird was the first editor of Weird Tales, and continued as such until 1924. After that, I edited one issue. That was when John Lansinger sold his interest in the magazine to J.C. Henneberger, while Henneberger sold his interest in Detective Tales and College Humor to Lansinger. Baird went with Lansinger as editor of Detective Tales, and Henneberger had no editor for Weird Tales. He called on me for help, (both Farnsworth Wright and I had previously read manuscripts for Baird) and I got out that issue and wrote the editorial "Why Weird Tales" which has guided the editorial policy ever since in the selection of material. [Boldface added. Reprinted in The Compleat Oak Leaves: The Official Journal of Otis Adelbert Kline and His Works (Clayton, GA: Fictioneer Books, Ltd., 1980), my source for it, and originally in Oak Leaves, Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 1970, p. 6.]

You could say that Kline was implying that he played the hero and saved the day in early to mid 1924, but I don't take it that way at all. I sense a man simply telling the truth in a matter-of-fact way. Notice that he first wrote that he edited the issue at hand before writing that he "got it out." Those aren't exactly the same thing, I guess, but I don't see any reason to quibble. If Kline wasn't the sole editor, he at least led in getting the first-anniversary issue of Weird Tales out to the reading public.

One more thing: the indicia on page one read, in part:

Weird Tales, The Unique Magazine, published quarterly by The Rural Publishing Corp., 325 N. Capitol Ave., Indianapolis, Ind. Vol. 4, No. 2. [. . .]

Quarterly. So that was the plan? Or a plan? Interesting. It gives me an idea . . . .

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales: The First 13 Issues

From March 1923 to May/June/July 1924, The Rural Publishing Corporation of Chicago and Indianapolis published thirteen issues of its new magazine, Weird Tales. There was one bimonthly issue during that time, July/August 1923, and one month with no issue at all, December 1923. Weird Tales was otherwise a monthly magazine until the thirteenth issue, which did triple duty, covering May through July 1924. Then came a hiatus and reorganization, which ended with the issue of November 1924 and Farnsworth Wright brought on as the new editor.

The publishers of Weird Tales in that first year and more were Jacob Clark Henneberger and John M. Lansinger. The editor of the first twelve issues was Edwin Baird. A recent exchange of comments and some research seems to have established that Baird, Wright, and Otis Adelbert Kline were involved in the editorship of the thirteenth issue. See the comments in the previous posting to learn more.

Following is a summary of Weird Tales during its first year and more.

Weird Tales, March 1923 (Vol. 1, No. 1)--Whole Number 1
Cover story: "Ooze" by Anthony M. Rud.
Cover art by Richard R. Epperly; no interior illustrations.
192 pages
26 stories, plus non-fiction fillers and "The Eyrie"
First stories by Anthony M. Rud, Otis Adelbert Kline, Farnsworth Wright.

Weird Tales, April 1923 (Vol. 1, No. 2)--Whole Number 2
Cover story: Presumably "The Whispering Thing" by Laurie McClintock & Culpeper Chunn.
Cover art by R.M. Mally; no interior illustrations.
192 pages
21 stories, plus non-fiction fillers and "The Eyrie"

Weird Tales, May 1923 (Vol. 1, No. 3)--Whole Number 3
Cover story: None. (The cover is partly a swipe from an older illustration.)
Cover art by William F. Heitman; interior illustrations by Heitman.
120 pages
21 stories, plus non-fiction fillers and "The Eyrie"
First story by Vincent Starrett; first weird fiction reprint, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton.

Weird Tales, June 1923 (Vol. 1, No. 4)--Whole Number 4
Cover story: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe.
Cover art by William F. Heitman; interior illustrations by Heitman.
120 pages
21 stories, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "The Cauldron"

First story by Edgar Allan Poe.

Weird Tales, July/August 1923 (Vol. 2, No. 1)--Whole Number 5
Cover story: Presumably "Sunfire" by Francis Stevens (Gertrude Barrows Bennett).
Cover art by R.M. Mally; interior illustrations by Heitman.
96 pages
16 stories, 1 essay, and two poems, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "The Cauldron"
First verse in Weird Tales, two poems by Clark Ashton Smith, his first works for the magazine.

Weird Tales, September 1923 (Vol. 2, No. 2)--Whole Number 6
Cover story: Presumably "People of the Comet" by Austin Hall.
Cover art by R.M. Mally; interior illustrations by Heitman.
96 pages
16 stories and 1 essay, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "The Cauldron"
First and only story by Ambrose Bierce. First letter by H.P. Lovecraft.

Weird Tales, October 1923 (Vol. 2, No. 3)--Whole Number 7
Cover story: "The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton" by Effie W. Fifield.
Cover art by R.M. Mally; interior illustrations by Heitman.
96 pages
14 stories, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," "The Cauldron," and "Weird Crimes"
First stories by H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Owen; first work, an essay, by Seabury Quinn.

Weird Tales, November 1923 (Vol. 2, No. 4)--Whole Number 8
Cover story: "The Closed Room" by Maybelle McCalment.
Cover art by R.M. Mally, misattributed to Washburn; interior illustrations by Heitman.
96 pages
17 stories, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"

Weird Tales, January 1924 (Vol. 3, No. 1)--Whole Number 9
Cover story: None.
Cover art by R.M. Mally; interior illustrations by Heitman.
96 pages
14 stories, plus three poems, non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"

Weird Tales, February 1924 (Vol. 3, No. 2)--Whole Number 10
Cover story: None.
Cover art by R.M. Mally; interior illustrations by Heitman.
96 pages
16 stories, plus one poem, non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"
First poem by a woman, Mary Sharon.

Weird Tales, March 1924 (Vol. 3, No. 3)--Whole Number 11
Cover story: "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" by Harry Houdini.
Cover art by R.M. Mally; interior illustrations by Heitman.
96 pages
17 stories, plus one poem, non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"
First stories by Harry Houdini and C.M. Eddy, Jr.

Weird Tales, April 1924 (Vol. 3, No. 4)--Whole Number 12
Cover story: "The Hoax of the Spirit Lover" by Harry Houdini.
Cover art by R.M. Mally; interior illustrations by Heitman.
96 pages
18 stories, plus one poem, non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"
First poem by H.P. Lovecraft within the contents of the magazine.

Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924 (Vol. 4, No. 2)--Whole Number 13
Cover story: "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" by Harry Houdini.
Cover art by R.M. Mally; interior illustrations by Heitman.
192 pages
37 stories, plus the essay "Why Weird Tales?", non-fiction fillers, "Ask Houdini," and "Weird Crimes"
First story by Henry S. Whitehead.

Some notes: First, the number of pages shown here is for interior pages only. Second, the count that I have here for stories, poems, and essays is my own. If you see any mistakes, let me know and I will correct them. Third, I'm not sure about some of the cover illustrations, thus the qualifier "presumably." Fourth, there wasn't any Volume 4, Number 1. Fifth, the issues in that first year and more were otherwise gathered into three volumes of four issues each.

I wanted to make this list mostly to compare these thirteen issues, particularly the number of interior pages and the number of stories in each. As you can see, the first two issues were pretty close in that regard. The next two can also be taken as a pair. Then came eight issues with 96 pages each. I have been calling the May/June/July issue of 1924 a jumbo-sized issue, but it's not really when you compare it to the first two. All three of these issues contain 192 pages. The triple-issue, though, has thirty-seven stories in all, plus an essay, non-fiction fillers, and two features. Not counting non-fiction fillers, that's about half again as many items as in the first issue.

Although it came along in May/June/July 1924, more than a year after the magazine began, the triple issue of Weird Tales was called on the cover "Anniversary Number." That was the first of many observances of anniversaries in the one hundred years plus one of Weird Tales. The most recent issue of Weird Tales also observes an anniversary on its cover. I'd like to write about that issue next.

Text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales in the First Year (and More)

A century ago, in January 1924, Weird Tales was still in its first year of publication. The magazine had begun in March 1923. There were issues published in almost every month following that one, from April 1923 to May/June/July 1924. There were two exceptions: one, a bimonthly issue of July/August 1923, the other, no issue at all in December 1923. That makes thirteen issues in all in the first year and more of "The Unique Magazine." Unlucky thirteen.

Those thirteen issues can be taken together because all were published by The Rural Publishing Corporation of Chicago and Indianapolis under its two founders, J.C. Henneberger (1890-1969) and John M. Lansinger (1892-1963). Twelve of the first thirteen were without a doubt edited by Edwin Baird (1886-1954). The last, the jumbo-sized triple issue of May/June/July 1924, was edited by Baird or some combination of Baird, Henneberger, Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940), and/or Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946). (See the comments below.)

By the end of that first year and more, Weird Tales and The Rural Publishing Corporation were in trouble. That's a story for another day. Suffice it to say, Henneberger gave up Detective Tales after its issue of April 1924 but kept his Weird Tales property. The editor Baird went with Detective Tales, which became Real Detective Tales in April 1924. From May 1924 onward, that magazine was published by Real Detective Tales, Inc., of Chicago. Baird's departure explains the now uncertain editorship of that first-anniversary issue. (Thanks to The FictionMags Index for pertinent facts on Detective Tales/Real Detective Tales.)

The first year and more of Weird Tales was also characterized by the employment of just three cover artists, Richard R. Epperly (1891-1973) for the first issue, William F. Heitman (1878-1945) for the issues of May and June 1923, and R.M. Mally (dates unknown) for all the rest. The November 1923 issue is attributed to an artist supposedly named Washburn. We now know that Mally was the cover artist for that issue, too. I plan to write about the case of the misattributed cover within the next few weeks.

After a gap of three months, from August to October 1924, Weird Tales returned in November 1924 with a new editor, Farnsworth Wright, and a new cover artist, Andrew Brosnatch (1896-1965). Both would serve for some time to come, Brosnatch until 1926, Wright until 1940. Three other changes: first, Weird Tales became (I'm pretty sure) a standard pulp-sized magazine; second, the non-fiction fillers of previous issues, probably provided by Otis Adelbert Kline, came to an end; and, third, Weird Tales was now published by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, again of Chicago and Indianapolis.

Next: The Issues.

Weird Tales, January 1924, with cover art by R.M. Mally.

Revised on January 6, 2024, following a comment by Phil Stephensen-Payne. (See below.)
Text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Larry Blake Needs Help

My friend Larry Blake is a cartoonist and comic book artist who has been at work in his chosen field for more than half a century. He has drawn every kind of comic book character, from Little Lulu to his own superheroes such as Missile, Nightstar, and Kevin Kool. He is also a great fan of rock 'n' roll and pop music. His favorites include The Ramones, KISS, Alice Cooper, and John Lennon. For years he attended small press and comic book conventions. He has collaborated with lots of other artists, including Tim Corrigan (1950-2015) with whom he created a weekly newspaper comic strip called Allegheny Man. Those involved in small press and alternative comics will remember Tim as the publisher of a journal called Small Press Comics Explosion and a supporter of and mentor to countless cartoonists. It was through Larry that I met Tim at the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (S.P.A.C.E.) in Columbus, Ohio.

Larry Blake's health problems began many years ago. Things improved for him after he moved from Ohio to Indiana and to a better situation. Now Larry is down again and needs help. Bob Corby of Columbus has set up a GoFundMe page for Larry. You can access it at the following URL and link:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/larry-blake

You can read and see videos about Larry on the Internet. You can also purchase his books, which include:

• Psychozort: Book One (2016)--Click here.

• Psychozort: Book Two (2022)--Click here.

• The Big Book of Christian Comics (2018)--Click here.

• The New Sons of Thunder.

I don't ordinarily provide links to commercial websites on this blog, but for this I'm making an exception.

As for fans of Weird Tales and pulp fiction, I send wishes for a Happy New Year. I'm ready to begin again and hope to have something new posted within the next few days.

Thanks for reading and for hanging in there with me.

Copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley