Clyde Irvine (1899-1948)

John Clyde Irvine
Aka Lindsay Nisbet
Author, Playwright, Newspaper Drama Critic/Reviewer and Feature Editor
Born April 15, 1899, Glasgow, Scotland
Died June 21, 1948, Los Angeles, California

John Clyde Irvine was born on April 15, 1899, in Glasgow, Scotland. His name echoes those of geographic features in his native land: the River Clyde flows through Glasgow and into the Firth of Clyde north of Irvine. Knowing something about his life as a Scotsman transplanted to America and Canada makes me wonder whether he could have been the pseudonymous author Abrach in Weird Tales.

Clyde Irvine was the son of John Irvine, an agricultural worker and gamekeeper, and Jessie Easton Evans. Irvine attended school in Glasgow and served in the British army. In the census of 1921, he was counted in Maymyo, Burma, where he was a private in the Second Battalion of the King's Own Royal Regiment. A far more well-known writer was also at Maymyo. His name was Eric Arthur Blair, but we know him as George Orwell (1903-1950). Blair was at Maymyo in about 1923. I can't say whether these two men ever met, but crossed paths and the possibility of crossed paths are always fascinating to consider.

Eric Blair was a police officer in Burma. John C. Irvine seems to have been a police officer in Mashonaland, a region of what was at that time called Rhodesia. I base that supposition on a piece published in Short Stories magazine in its issue of October 25, 1939, credited to Clyde Irvine. Co-written with a Major Desmond, "I Was a Cop in Mashonaland" was Irvine's first known credit in an American pulp magazine, and it seems to establish his connection to Rhodesia. That connection will come into play shortly.

On February 28, 1921, Irvine married Kate Doreen "Scotty" Nisbet (1900-1980) in Glasgow. She was a pianist and, after her husband's death, a musician in a nightclub in Southern California. The couple had four children, Noreen Nisbet Easton Irvine Wilson (1922-2009), Rex John Irvine (1924-1996), Mona Hay Irvine Warren (1928-2001), and Clyde Irvine, Jr. (1933-2003), three of whom lived into the current century. According to The FictionMags Index, Irvine wrote as Lindsay Nisbet in Weird Tales magazine, March 1940. Nisbet was of course his wife's maiden name. There are other Nisbets listed in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, but I can't say whether any was related to her. Irvine had a short story under his own name in that same issue of Weird Tales.

Irvine was an author, playwright, newspaper drama critic/reviewer, and feature editor of The Daily Record, then and now based in Glasgow. Irvine's plays include "So Free We Seem" (performed at the Arran Drama Festival in 1938), "Scrap" (1938), "Yet They Endure" (1940), "The Last Cavalier," "Death Chair", and "Saltire in Crimson." He was also a member of International P.E.N.

All of that was in his first career in Scotland.

In late 1938 or early 1939, Irvine came to the United States as a representative of the Southern Rhodesia Government in its exhibit of a replica of Victoria Falls, put on display at the World's Fair in New York City. Irvine handled publicity around the exhibit and gave talks to clubs, groups, and organizations in the area of the city. He also returned dispatches to The Daily Record in Glasgow about his stay in New York.

When the enumerator of the U.S. Census came around in 1940, she found Irvine living in Queens Village, Queens, New York. He gave his occupation as freelance writer. I wonder if Irvine encountered pulp magazines for the first time when he came to the United States, for all of his credits in that type of magazine were published in 1939 and after. Here's a list from The FictionMags Index from before and after 1939:

• "Some Kind Letters and Cross Words" (with The Duke), column, in Ziffs Magazine, Nov. 1925
• "I Was a Cop in Mashonaland" (with Major Desmond) in Short Stories, Oct. 25 1939
• "Bush Devil" in Jungle Stories, Spring 1940
• "The Centurion’s Prisoner," in Weird Tales, Mar. 1940, as by Lindsay Nisbet--First installment of "It Happened To Me"
• "The Horror in the Glen," in Weird Tales, Mar. 1940
• "Second Chance Booter," in 12 Sports Aces, Mar. 1940
• "Bride of the Dragon," in Mystery Tales, May 1940
• "Idol of Death," in Jungle Stories, Fall 1940
• "The Eye of Death," in Action Stories, Oct. 1940
• "The Devil’s Bodyguard," in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Dec. 1940
• "Satan on Safari," in Jungle Stories, Winter 1940
• "Code of the Veldt," in Jungle Stories, Summer 1941
• "The Singing Skull, " in Jungle Stories, Fall 1941
• "Bush Gamble," in Jungle Stories, Winter 1941
• "The Crocodile’s Bride," in Jungle Stories, Spring 1942
• "White Man’s Voodoo," in Jungle Stories, Summer 1942
• "Kraal of Blood-Miracles," in Jungle Stories, Fall 1942
• "The Juju of N'Jola," in Jungle Stories, Winter 1942
• "Diamonds of Death," in Jungle Stories, Apr. 1943

There is also a credit for a John Irvine, a poem called "Mairi," published in The Cornhill Magazine in February 1938. There are enough stories there to make a collection. I would like to read them.

Irvine's credits in the list above ended in 1943. I think there's an easy explanation for that, for he relocated to Canada during World War II. There he appears to have served once again in the military, and he continued to write. I have as evidence one credit for him in that part of his career, a feature article called "Two-Time Winner--The Story of a Guy With Courage Plus!," by Sgt. J. Clyde Irvine, in the Canadian military newspaper Khaki, in its issue of February 16, 1944. Irvine's story is about Sgt. George Alfred Hickson (1915-1979) of Kitchener, Ontario, a Canadian war hero.

After the war, Clyde Irvine moved with his family to Southern California. He died on June 21, 1948, in Los Angeles at age forty-nine and was buried at Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood, California.

Clyde Irvine's Story in Weird Tales
"The Horror in the Glen," (Mar. 1940)

Lindsay Nisbet's Story in Weird Tales
"The Centurion’s Prisoner" (Mar. 1940)--First installment of "It Happened To Me"

The list from The FictionMags Index is the work of that website and its compilers, and I thank them for it. I also thank them for the image shown below.

Jungle Stories, Summer 1942. "White Man's Voodoo" by Clyde Irvine is inside. His name is on the cover.

Original text copyright 2026 Terence E. Hanley