Seabury Quinn had the second essay in "The Eyrie" in March 1948. His is quite a bit longer than August Derleth's. His, too, includes a list, but Quinn's is longer, and I sense a kindlier inclusivity in it. He even used the word inclusion in his essay, albeit in a different context. Quinn's essay is in the same spirit, I think, as early observances of anniversaries in Weird Tales. That's fitting, I think. And I think his essay is better than that written by Derleth, who preceded him.
Weird Tales, A Retrospect--Quinn
The vast majority of people will tell you, "I don’t like ghost stories," meaning, thereby, "I am afraid of them." A relatively small minority of cultured and imaginative readers either find a sort of masochistic thrill in having the daylights scared out of them or, completely agnostic, still get a lift from reading stories of "ghoulies and ghosties, long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night." It is for this select, sophisticated minority WEIRD TALES is published, and that it has fulfilled its purpose is more than merely adequately proved by the fact that it celebrates its Silver Anniversary this issue.
Until the advent of WEIRD TALES the longest-lived magazine dedicated to the supernatural story was the Black Cat which first saw the light of print October, 1895, and perished in September, 1906, after eleven years of superservice to discerning readers on both sides of the Atlantic. True, it had a temporary recrudescence between December, 1919, and October, 1920, but in that little interval it functioned only as a zombie, without life or spirit.
The publication of WEIRD TALES filled a real want. Thrill-seekers, votaries of the ghost story, people fed up with the boy-meets-girl formula or the adventures of impossible detectives flocked to it as the thirsty flocked to wet-goods emporia at the recision of the Volstead Act, and writers who had turned out one or more good stories of the supernatural and found no market for them sent in their cherished brain-children with a sigh of profound thankfulness.
The list of names which has appeared on WEIRD TALES contents pages reads like a roster of those already great or destined to greatness in this particular genre: H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, E. Hoffman Price, Frank Belknap Long, H.G. Wells, Sax Rohmer, Major George Fielding Elliot, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Carl Jacobi, A.V. Harding, Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, Frank Owen, Clark Ashton Smith, Manly Wade Wellman, Henry E. Whitehead [sic], Earl Pierce [sic], Greye LaSpina, Edmund Hamilton [sic], David H. Keller, Malcolm Jameson, Nictzin Dyalhys [sic], Otis Adelbert Kline--this is but a sampling of the galaxy made at random and from memory, to count them all would be like numbering the Milky Way.
One thing, however, WEIRD TALES writers have in common: ability to tell good stories well. It has been said that "WEIRD TALES prints slick-paper fiction wrapped in pulp." However false or true that estimate may be it is an undisputed fact that more WEIRD TALES writers are "tapped” for inclusion in anthologies than those of any other pulp magazine, that many of its regular contributors are also "names" in the slick-paper field, and that a high percentage of them have had one or more successful books published.
In its quarter-century of publication WEIRD TALES has had many imitators, but no real competitors. Some of these degenerated--or evolved, if you prefer that term --into straight science-fiction magazines, some were so patently sex-motivated that the Post Office and/or the censors took them in hand, some misjudged their market and used shock--shock--shock! as their formula and paid small heed to literary composition. All of them are gone, and of a dozen imitative magazines put out ten years ago not one can be found on the newsstands today. WEIRD TALES enters on its second quarter-century as truly the unique magazine as it was when No. 1 of Volume I was offered to a critical public.
SEABURY QUINN.
(Boldface added.)
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| Seabury Quinn speaks before the Free Lance Writers Association in Washington, D.C., from an article in The Sunday Star Pictorial Magazine, July 27, 1947, page 15. There are men in the group, but I see the women, who remind me of Helen Hokinson's clubwomen. Could there be another teller of weird tales in this photograph? Photograph by Paul Schmick. |
Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley
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