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
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