tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38524019760917762282024-03-17T23:00:45.059-04:00Tellers of Weird TalesArtists & Writers in The Unique MagazineTerence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.comBlogger1330125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-42247036927035822992024-02-20T11:34:00.002-05:002024-02-25T19:39:53.217-05:00Weird Tales, Back to Old Habits<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My plan is to finish the current series on the </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Houdini</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> issues of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> from one hundred years ago--issues that culminated in the anniversary number of May/June/July 1924--then to move on to the most recent issue of the magazine, published last year. I have been caught up in my regular work, though, and so my plan is on hold. Rather than leave you with an unfinished Houdini series, though, I would like to write about a problem with the current <i>Weird Tales</i> and let that stew on the Internet for a while.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In preparing to write about the anniversary issues of <i>Weird Tales</i>, I ordered the most recent one, published in mid to late last year. I placed my order in October 2023, or five months ago as I write this. I ordered two copies, one for myself and one for my brother, who reads weird fiction and does his own research on it. He especially likes <b>Robert E. Howard</b>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To summarize: two copies of the 100th anniversary issue of <i>Weird Tales</i>, ordered in October 2023.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The rest of October went by.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then November and Thanksgiving.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then December.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Christmas.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Half of January went by, and I said enough is enough. I got on the website of <i>Weird Tales</i> and sent a message through its online email function.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I did not receive any response.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then I received in the mail a slim package from <i>Weird Tales</i>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It was slim because it contained only one copy of the magazine that I had ordered.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To summarize further: two copies ordered in October 2023. One delivered in January, but only after I pointed out to the magazine that I had placed an order.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I got back on the website of <i>Weird Tales</i> and sent my best Baby-Boomer message about trustworthiness and customer service and meeting your obligations. I still didn't receive a response. I also didn't receive my second copy.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So it looks like <i>Weird Tales</i> is back to its old habits of not providing good service to its readers and customers. This has been going on for years. A couple of people have left comments on this blog telling about their own lack of experience in receiving what they have paid for. I'm sure there are and will be more.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, my advice to anyone who is thinking about ordering copies of <i>Weird Tales</i> directly from the publisher: </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Don't do it. You won't get what you have ordered and you won't get any customer service once you point out to the publisher that your order has not been filled. I guess that's just how the world is now. Maybe we should learn to be satisfied with our meager portion and not to complain about it. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Weird Tales</i> has failed before, and I think it will likely fail again if this is how it runs its operations. As an aside, I will tell you that my current web browsers don't trust the <i>Weird Tales</i> website and have scrambled its contents. I'm not sure that I can send another message through the email function on the website. If I'm ever going to receive my second copy of <i>the thing that I ordered and paid for five months ago</i>, I guess I'll have to write a letter and send it the old-fashioned way, not that anyone at the magazine is interested at all in providing a service that they advertise on their website, the very same service that keeps them in business. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe someday </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> will be in good hands again. We can wait, I guess. After all, it's the magazine that never dies.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</span></div>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-78428461543177985812024-02-09T09:48:00.001-05:002024-02-14T10:21:50.931-05:00Weird Tales: The Houdini Issues-Part Four<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;"><b>"The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt"</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">So what about <b>Houdini</b>'s</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> other two stories in <i>Weird Tales</i>? Well, "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" came first. It's a two-part serial that appeared </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">in the issues of March and April 1924. Although it was in two parts, I'll call it one story.</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" is the lead story in the March issue of 1924. On page 3 is is an illustration by <b>William F. Heitman </b>of Houdini facing a turbaned medium. He is Popkens, a schemer, faker, blackmailer, kidnapper, and scoundrel. On the tabletop separating the two men is a crystal ball and a display of cards. Houdini is flanked by two women, the Countess D--- and her sister Rosicka (a Bohemian place name), both wearing ornate 1920s dress and headbands. On the following page is an introduction to the story, attributed to "The Editor." I take that to mean <b>Edwin Baird</b>, but the prose is clunky, old-fashioned, boosterish, and journalistic. Maybe <b>J.C. Henneberger</b> was its true author.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Houdini was renowned for his private library. "Houdini is a lover of books," The Editor wrote in his introduction, "and has the finest collection of psychic, spiritualistic and dramatic works of any man in America." Awhile back, I speculated that <b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b> had found <i>The Terrific Register</i> in a public or private library in Chicago and drew from it his non-fiction fillers in the anniversary number of May/June/July 1924 (probably earlier, too). Maybe his source copy actually came to him on loan from the great library of the Great Houdini.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Told in the first person, "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" is supposed to be a nonfictional account of one of Houdini's adventures, in this case in Transylvania and from before the Great War. Within the story--and it's clearly a a work of fiction--is nested a first-person account told by the Countess D---, daughter of a depraved (and deceased) inhabitant of Castle D---, located on the banks of the Maros River. Approached by the Countess D--- and once in her service at Castle D---, Houdini is, in pretty short order, bound by the henchmen of the fake medium Popkens and thrown into an oubliette. (1)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In part two, published in April 1924, Houdini escapes the oubliette and Castle D---. (2) He returns to the castle to rescue the Countess D--- and Rosicka from the spirit fakers. Part of his scheme is to take Popkens' place at a <i>séance</i>. In the dark, Houdini renders Popkens unconscious and begins imitating Popkens' voice. Houdini's ghostwriter--and we can be certain that "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" was written by a ghost--mentions in his narrative Houdini's own clearly recognizable "American accent." That made me wonder if there are any recordings of Houdini's voice, and there are. You can hear one for yourself on a megacorporate video website. You know the one. Just go there and have a listen.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Houdini is discovered and held at gunpoint by the henchmen. He and the two sisters are saved by the intervention of "a dozen peasants [. . .] armed with clubs, pitchforks, and axes." These are probably the same peasants, the same stock actors, who appear in every Dracula and Frankenstein movie. They are also in "The Thing of Thousand Shapes" by Otis Adelbert Kline, the first serial in <i>Weird Tales</i>, published exactly a year before in March and April 1923. I'll have more on Kline and his work in a minute, but first I should let you know that one of the spirit fakers, Houdini learns, is a Russian named Ileanadorff. "I have reason to believe," wrote the narrator, "that Ileanadorff was in reality the false monk Ileador, known as Rasputin, who became the most sinister figure in Russian history." In writing that, the narrator accidentally conflated <b>Rasputin</b> with his onetime associate, then enemy, <b>Sergei Michailovich Trufanov</b>, aka <b>Hieromonk Iliodor</b> or <b>Hieromonk Heliodorus</b> (1880-1952). Like Houdini, Iliodor was an author and actor. Unlike Houdini, he was an anti-Semite, at least at first. Strangely, Iliodor lived out his later years in New York City, working as a janitor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two more things. First, I'm pretty sure that we're supposed to associate the Countess D---'s depraved father with Count Dracula and the Castle D--- with Dracula's castle. The setting isn't quite right, though. In <b>Bram Stoker</b>'s novel, Dracula's castle is in the Carpathian Mountains. In Houdini's story, Castle D--- is along the river Maros, a real river, also called <span style="text-align: left;">Mureș and by other names, too. Second, Hermannstadt is the German name for the Romanian-Transylvanian city of </span><span style="text-align: left;">Sibiu. So, the story is set in real places and there is an attempt at verisimilitude instead of the typical weird-fictional settings and sequences of events. In fact, you might call "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" a thriller or a crime or detective story rather than a work of weird fiction. It also has elements of the Ruritanian romance.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I don't think there can be any doubt that "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" was ghostwritten. The question is, who was the ghostwriter? (3) I would like to nominate Otis Adelbert Kline for that title. Whoever wrote the story was well versed (or mostly well versed) in the history, language, and geography of fantasy, adventure, historical, and weird fiction. Kline fit the bill in that way. Kline was also a manuscript reader, workhorse writer, sometime editor, and partway agent for <i>Weird Tales</i>. He seems to have been a real go-to guy for Henneberger and Baird. In early 1924, the two men at the head of <i>Weird Tales</i> would have needed ghostwriters for Houdini's coming stories. Kline would have been an obvious choice for the first. Lovecraft of course came last. That leaves the middle story, a topic for a future entry in this series. Next, though, I would like to write about the <i>s</i><span style="text-align: left;"><i>éance</i> at Castle D---.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Notes</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1) <i>Oubliette</i> is the actual word used in the story. Another is <i>gyves</i>, an archaic word for shackles or manacles. Whoever wrote Houdini's story knew the lingo.</span></div><div style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(2) </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">More than once in these two parts of his story, the narrator mentions escapes made by Houdini, both real and fictional, the latter made, specifically, in his motion picture </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Terror Island</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> (See </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Apr. 1924, p. 53.)</span></div><div style="font-family: Times;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(3) </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">A ghost <i>rider</i> had appeared on the cover of <i>Weird Tales</i> in January 1924. Maybe that was a bit of foreshadowing that we would soon have ghost<i>writers</i> in the pages of "The Unique Magazine."</span></div></div></span><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwv882p-rv6t5FaQqsZQv_Zm5ZPPHUotvO3aeGqGyVbbDrCZV2-YuXwkLpO8DuYsTOwbxDizzt4dCXHExfi5q2whi82vSHskoEBQvgr54RNVi9sfscKEwPNgSvOOvzdIEohxZZ26Bf-EcpNL0ZI9I-ED-KG6iBO2pioodaalqc9KSVQG6loIFscvK11KT6/s580/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1924-03.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="431" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwv882p-rv6t5FaQqsZQv_Zm5ZPPHUotvO3aeGqGyVbbDrCZV2-YuXwkLpO8DuYsTOwbxDizzt4dCXHExfi5q2whi82vSHskoEBQvgr54RNVi9sfscKEwPNgSvOOvzdIEohxZZ26Bf-EcpNL0ZI9I-ED-KG6iBO2pioodaalqc9KSVQG6loIFscvK11KT6/s16000/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1924-03.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>Weird Tales</i>, March 1924. Cover story: "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" by Houdini. Cover art by <b>R.M. Mally</b>. This was the first Houdini issue and the first cover of <i>Weird Tales</i> to depict an author. The scene here is from near the end of part one of a two-part serial, in which Houdini is thrown, bound and naked, into an oubliette.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</span></div>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-10596537591242842252024-02-05T06:00:00.449-05:002024-02-05T18:52:35.488-05:00Weird Tales: The Houdini Issues-Part Three<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;"><b>"Imprisoned with the Pharaohs"</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">In January and February of 1924, <i>Weird Tales</i> magazine played cowboys and Indians on its covers. In the first illustration, a hatless cowboy wearing thick, furry chaps is seen fleeing on horseback from a ghostly rider twirling a ghostly lariat. In the second, an Indian seems to be summoning lightning from the night sky. With his straight arms raised and his hands open before him, he looks like <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/04/ralph-allen-lang-1906-1987.html" target="_blank">the symbol of the Lone Scouts</a>. With his flashing red cloak, he looks like <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/11/conan-on-cover-of-weird-tales.html" target="_blank">the ape in <b>Frank Frazetta</b>'s illustration for the Conan story "Rogues in the House."</a> Both covers were by <b>R.M. Mally</b>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Then the <b>Houdini</b> issues began.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">There were three in all, in March, April, and May/June/July 1924. Although Houdini signed his agreement with <i>Weird Tales</i> in February 1924, the issue with the Indian cover was already on the nation's newsstands by then. The March issue was the earliest in which his byline could appear. </span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">R.M. Mally was again the creator of the three Houdini covers. Houdini was supposed to have been the author of all three cover stories. They were:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">March 1924: "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt"</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">April 1924: "The Hoax of the Spirit Lover"</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">May/June/July 1924: "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs"</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">So there were three stories published under Houdini's byline in</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">. But does that mean that Houdini was actually their author? The answer is obviously no in the case of "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," as</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> </span><b style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">H.P. Lovecraft</b><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">is known to have ghostwritten that story. There was some drama attached to that, for Lovecraft wrote it in a hurry, lost his first version in an even quicker hurry, then rewrote it on his honeymoon, again in a hurry. (Most people are in a hurry on their honeymoons, though not to retype lost manuscripts.) Maybe the briefcase or satchel containing his typescript is in the same place as</span><b style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> Hemingway</b><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">'s stolen suitcase. Maybe they're both at the dead letter office where Bartleby the Scrivener used to work. Wherever it went, Lovecraft was well compensated for his work, Houdini liked the result, and his story is still admired by fans of weird fiction. It also became the cover story of the only quarterly issue of</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">, May/June/July 1924. (1, 2)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><b>To be continued . . .</b></span></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Notes</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1) According to <i>Wikipedia</i>, "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" is supposed to have been an influence upon a young <b>Robert Bloch</b>. <i>Wikipedia</i> of course doesn't say how. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2020/07/earl-peirce-jr-aside-no-3.html" target="_blank"><b>Robert Price</b>, though, has identified an Egyptian Cycle of stories written by Bloch</a>. These were published in <i>Weird Tales</i> in 1936-1938. Bloch's Milwaukee friend <b>Earl Peirce, Jr.</b>, wrote a story, "The Archer" (<i>Weird Tales</i>, Mar. 1937), that seems to be connected to the Egyptian Cycle as well. Bloch didn't encounter <i>Weird Tales</i> until 1927. If "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" was an influence upon him, that happened after the initial publication of Lovecraft's story.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(2) Houdini's fictional guide in "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" is Abdul Reis el Drogman. I assume that the <i>Reis</i> part of his name is from <b>Piri Reis</b>. <i>El Drogman</i> would seem to refer to Abdul Reis' service as a guide. <b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b> would later write stories about a man employed in the same way. These were in his <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-dragoman-on-cover-of-oriental.html" target="_blank">Dragoman series for <i>Oriental Stories</i> and <i>The Magic Carpet Magazine</i> of 1930-1933</a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7yuufHkiliTh-4SSLEkZP7HKli7JULBjel5o9eOC92CsHRehphpNEtJJ4fK3V8soYVTKQGSAY8rAu0sgTcZdzWxk7bgE-ZNrrRb-j1xQzCfDVUPjIB_ZjZV720GqvmfRIbnNJcnTK15Szv7U7lIT27IvuxuaLgxHhWjecnwn8CgCJXPb-ve0kT0oIUbe/s835/Heitman,%20William%20F.-Illustration%20for%20%22Imprisoned%20with%20the%20Pharaohs%22%20by%20Houdini.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="835" data-original-width="625" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE7yuufHkiliTh-4SSLEkZP7HKli7JULBjel5o9eOC92CsHRehphpNEtJJ4fK3V8soYVTKQGSAY8rAu0sgTcZdzWxk7bgE-ZNrrRb-j1xQzCfDVUPjIB_ZjZV720GqvmfRIbnNJcnTK15Szv7U7lIT27IvuxuaLgxHhWjecnwn8CgCJXPb-ve0kT0oIUbe/w479-h640/Heitman,%20William%20F.-Illustration%20for%20%22Imprisoned%20with%20the%20Pharaohs%22%20by%20Houdini.png" width="479" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>William F. Heitman</b>'s illustration for "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," in <i>Weird Tales</i>, May/June/July 1924. The byline was Houdini's, but the story was written by H.P. Lovecraft. The scene here reminds me of one from <i>Raiders of the Lost Ark</i> in which Indiana Jones descends into a pit full of snakes. Indy's friend Sallah is there. Played by <b>John Rhys-Davies</b> (Rhys, not Reis), Sallah would appear to be a drogman- or dragoman-type character. Every Western adventurer in the Middle East or Near East needs one.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</span></p></div>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-30535604317318692932024-02-02T06:00:00.485-05:002024-02-05T08:10:26.120-05:00Weird Tales: The Houdini Issues-Part Two<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><b>Spirits & Sphinxes</b></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i style="text-align: justify;">Weird Tales </i><span style="text-align: justify;">magazine was apparently already in trouble when <b>Harry Houdini</b> (1874-1926) met <b>J.C. Henneberger</b> (1890-1969) in his Chicago office in February 1924. Henneberger must have seen a chance to capitalize on Houdini's name and fame by having him and it associated with his magazine. Maybe that would increase sales. And maybe Houdini saw an agreement between them as a chance to publicize his upcoming lecture tour of America. He wanted to talk about spiritualism, </span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>séances</i>, and mediums. He wanted people to know that these things were (and still are) a scam, a hoax, and a great fraud.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">What followed were three cover stories for <i>Weird Tales</i> written under Houdini's byline. Houdini also conducted a letters column called "Ask Houdini," which took the place of "The Eyrie" and ran in two installments, April and May/June/July 1924. I haven't checked this, but I believe "The Eyrie" was in every other issue of <i>Weird Tales</i> from March 1923 to September 1954. Only those two issues had something different. In any case, things didn't work out so well for Henneberger. <i>Weird Tales</i> foundered in mid-1924, and although he officially retained ownership of the magazine, he became indebted to others, including the men at the head of Cornelius Printing Company of Indianapolis. (I always like to point out that <i>Weird Tales</i> originated in my native city.) </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">The quarterly issue of May/June/July was the last to appear until November 1924. By then, <b>Edwin Baird</b>, the first editor, had left, being replaced by <b>Farnsworth Wright</b>. Meanwhile, Houdini seemingly vanished, having moved on to another--apparently very successful--phase of his career.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">* * *</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-family: georgia;">The FictionMags Index</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">provides a list of <b>Harry Houdini</b>'s magazine credits. I have adapted it as follows:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">Letter in <i>The Sphinx: The Official Organ of the Society of American Magicians</i>, Sept. 15, 1916.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Thrills in the Life of a Magician" in <i>The American Magazine</i>, Sept. 1918.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt," a two-part serial in <i><b>Weird Tales</b></i>, Mar.-Apr. 1924.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Hoax of the Spirit Lover" in <i><b>Weird Tales</b></i>, Apr. 1924.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" in <i><b>Weird Tales</b></i>, May/June/July 1924, ghostwritten by <b>H.P. Lovecraft</b>. Reprinted in <i><b>Weird Tales</b></i> in June/July 1939 as part of a series entitled "Weird Story Reprint." Houdini still got the byline, but an introduction to the story identifies Lovecraft as its true author. It's ironic that a man who exposed ghosts also had a ghost behind his story.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"When Magic Didn’t Work" in <i>Collier's</i>, Apr. 18, 1925.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Tricks of Fake Mediums" in <i>Liberty</i>, Nov. 28, 1925.</span></li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thanks to <i>The FictionMags Index</i> for compiling these credits and making this and so much more information available for the rest of us. (Houdini had other credits in <i>The Sphinx</i>. There is a website with indices to <i>The Sphinx</i>, but it's a commercial website, so I won't provide a link. You can find it on your own easily enough.)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Here are two more magazine credits, from <i>Wikipedia</i>:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>"How I Unmask the Spirit Fakers" in <i>Popular Science</i>, Nov. 1925.</li><li>"How I Do My 'Spirit Tricks'" in <i>Popular Science</i>, Dec. 1925.</li></ul></div></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If you detect an air of skepticism and debunkery in these titles, you could be on to something.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Houdini had a famous difference of opinion with <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/01/weird-tales-from-ireland-and-scotland.html" target="_blank"><b>Arthur Conan Doyle</b> (1859-1930)</a>, who, like the Cowardly Lion, believed in spooks, and yet, like <b>Edgar Allan Poe</b>, wrote great tales of ratiocination. Houdini and Doyle had first corresponded in 1920 while Houdini was touring in Great Britain. (It isn't clear to me when they actually met, although there is an extant photograph of them standing together like a Mutt-and-Jeff pair.) They became friendly, but that turned sour as Houdini continued in his work investigating and exposing frauds, mediums, hoaxers, and fakers. Doyle was well known for his belief in ghosts and fairies. You could call him gullible, perhaps in the extreme, while Houdini resided at the opposite end of the spectrum, for he was in fact powerfully skeptical of the whole business of spiritualism. Doyle saw Houdini's film <i>The Man from Beyond</i> (1921), though, liked it, praised it, and was mollified by it, for Houdini apparently had attempted an onscreen reconciliation of a sorts through his second-to-last picture. Good for Houdini.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>To be continued . . .</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl62WiWrGESNOMjEXasQHrzkwdopN7oOvnHTn-7Rm1oc6YGmlAALpVUYEx_u34B5rgyVvZ7OcBCCSFA2TpEoMZ4PD6XpbFIyBDqrUm7r8bV2C6dEpXdeM7qUDvJoyuz1-eaJPjSRSwYhkdUb8uCo6hw6KFBBVpqbVbj0CY5RmjlbiCcuUwdb_w8EMKvQbJ/s500/Houdini-Master%20Mystifier.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="381" height="473" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl62WiWrGESNOMjEXasQHrzkwdopN7oOvnHTn-7Rm1oc6YGmlAALpVUYEx_u34B5rgyVvZ7OcBCCSFA2TpEoMZ4PD6XpbFIyBDqrUm7r8bV2C6dEpXdeM7qUDvJoyuz1-eaJPjSRSwYhkdUb8uCo6hw6KFBBVpqbVbj0CY5RmjlbiCcuUwdb_w8EMKvQbJ/w361-h473/Houdini-Master%20Mystifier.jpg" width="361" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">In 1924, Houdini went on a twenty-four-date lecture tour of America booked by Coit-Albee Lyceum. His subjects were spiritualism, mediums, and <i>séances</i>. He also investigated mediums as a member of the Committee for Psychical Investigations organized by <i>Scientific American</i>. The poster or lobby card shown here is from 1924. It advertised something or other but I haven't found out what. But it was 1924, Houdini's name was still in the news and in American popular culture, and it shows the Great Sphinx of Egypt . . .</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVGtvQidGtNhs74zHZ9YdkKnokNboLiBNvMKBR5VgdYLWDEqrjyIpBxAW-KEf3AhIkIDl7mMTsnpeuZgV5bukiYWzoKYV_T1unuLQGo7dTEo9ArobKjzgMGo9mKUfc6mAnnQ8szCeX-5jk0X8U28Ymp5KERg-eu5UWouudSPDZbkZfbcId9u5XDb8ru7Ij/s400/Houdini-The%20Sphinx%20Cover-Mar.%2015,%201924.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVGtvQidGtNhs74zHZ9YdkKnokNboLiBNvMKBR5VgdYLWDEqrjyIpBxAW-KEf3AhIkIDl7mMTsnpeuZgV5bukiYWzoKYV_T1unuLQGo7dTEo9ArobKjzgMGo9mKUfc6mAnnQ8szCeX-5jk0X8U28Ymp5KERg-eu5UWouudSPDZbkZfbcId9u5XDb8ru7Ij/s16000/Houdini-The%20Sphinx%20Cover-Mar.%2015,%201924.jpeg" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>The Sphinx</i> was "The Official Organ of the Society of American Magicians." Here is the cover for the March 15, 1924, issue, showing Houdini's picture flanked by hieroglyphics and the volume (XXIII) and number (One) enclosed in what you might call cartouches. By mid-March, Houdini was already on tour. (He had lectured in Birmingham, Alabama, on March 7 and 8, 1924.) Also by then, the first of three Houdini issues of <i>Weird Tales</i> had come out. His story, or article, "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt," first of a two-part serial, was the cover story that month.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJhQy7rcbjDU8Tc8dm3JJVvxqP0wW7j5qoIak51EKBIn8LrfBuZte5t8oX45VLHxU5AKWn1YJoMfwjraVnWX4nkkAGT4V6GFfD9GWggGQuRo7BJDJ5LD_z83B0neXvL8fqqPWTYd8x1gKC9XHvzs758vGILcLvabIsNgvBU3SY12Mb6L6lZ9wroV9UnT7t/s600/Houdini-Society%20of%20American%20Magicians%20Annual%20Dinner%20Program%20Cover,%20June%206,%201924.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="444" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJhQy7rcbjDU8Tc8dm3JJVvxqP0wW7j5qoIak51EKBIn8LrfBuZte5t8oX45VLHxU5AKWn1YJoMfwjraVnWX4nkkAGT4V6GFfD9GWggGQuRo7BJDJ5LD_z83B0neXvL8fqqPWTYd8x1gKC9XHvzs758vGILcLvabIsNgvBU3SY12Mb6L6lZ9wroV9UnT7t/w354-h478/Houdini-Society%20of%20American%20Magicians%20Annual%20Dinner%20Program%20Cover,%20June%206,%201924.jpeg" width="354" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The Society of American Magicians held its 20th annual dinner at the Hotel McAlpin in New York City on June 6, 1924. Houdini was on the cover of the program along with the Great Sphinx of Egypt. The cover artist was <b>Grant Wright</b>. At about that same time, Houdini's book <i>A Magician Among the Spirits</i> (Harper & Brothers, 1924) came out. The subject was the same as in his lecture tour, that is, spirit fakers. According to <i>Wikipedia</i>, the uncredited co-author of <i>A Magician Among the Spirits</i> was <b>C.M. Eddy, Jr.</b>, of <i>Weird Tales</i> fame. Like Houdini, Eddy had stories in the March, April, and May/June/July issues. Eddy's story for the triple-issue (cover shown below) was "The Loved Dead."</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCazseNP8Qq6zvwDt2LkC1fdwHpFGz6qLs3YilaTT-AoWG_0sNweArQ2Zcxmddy0Zn1e_Wlna1CtGiFrgu4ek9jIZkSbRKLZxFMdxAkCjMbhxYeh1nm2uMLYsYZk8LkTRM-9dRoMvY0QzZXBRPct-Wkxz6GR2n879AJxEaeVKppXO1zqw5DaTcuQ4Gv6i/s500/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1924-05:6:7.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCazseNP8Qq6zvwDt2LkC1fdwHpFGz6qLs3YilaTT-AoWG_0sNweArQ2Zcxmddy0Zn1e_Wlna1CtGiFrgu4ek9jIZkSbRKLZxFMdxAkCjMbhxYeh1nm2uMLYsYZk8LkTRM-9dRoMvY0QzZXBRPct-Wkxz6GR2n879AJxEaeVKppXO1zqw5DaTcuQ4Gv6i/s16000/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1924-05:6:7.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The theme and motif of the Sphinx returned in the May/June/July issue of <i>Weird Tales </i>and in Houdini's cover story, "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," actually by H.P. Lovecraft, a friend and sometime collaborator of Eddy. The cover art was by <b>R.M. Mally</b>, his or her last for "The Unique Magazine." (In fact, all three of the Houdini covers were by Mally.) After reading about Houdini's activities in 1924 and seeing all of these images, I think it pretty likely that <i>Weird Tales</i> was still seeking to capitalize on its association with Houdini, thus the Sphinx on the cover. Ancient Egypt and the pharaohs of Egypt were still in the public consciousness, too, after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen in November 1922. In looking over the first thirteen issues of <i>Weird Tales</i>, I see that there were several stories and non-fiction fillers on those subjects. In this space, those will have to be subjects for another day.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</span></div>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-7899596510607860812024-01-30T06:00:00.511-05:002024-01-30T06:00:00.134-05:00Weird Tales: The Houdini Issues-Part One<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large; text-align: justify;"><b>Harry Houdini</b></span></span><br /><b style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Né </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Erik Weisz</span></span></b><br /><b style="color: #4c1130;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Aka Eric or Erich Weiss, Harry Weiss</span></span></b><br /><b style="font-family: georgia;">Performer, Magician, Illusionist, Escape Artist, Actor, Author, Aviator, Technical Advisor, Movie Producer & Director, Public Speaker, Psychic Investigator, Skeptic, & Debunker</b><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Born March 24, 1874 (O.S.), </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pest (Budapest), Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Died October 31, 1926, </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Detroit, Michigan</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A lot has been written about <b>Harry Houdini</b>. 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 <i>Weird Tales</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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 <i>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</i>, but that deal fell though. Instead, he appeared in a number of other genre films:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Master Mystery </i>(1918), a fifteen-part thriller/mystery/science fiction serial on which <b>Aleister Crowley</b> (1875-1947) of all people served as a consultant.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Grim Game</i> (1919), a crime thriller and aviation picture.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Terror Island </i>(1920), a South Seas adventure.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Man from Beyond</i> (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 <i>The Man from Beyond</i>, now interpreted as an attempt at reconciliation with <b>Arthur Conan Doyle</b> (1859-1930), whom had been alienated by Houdini's skepticism and debunking of spiritualism, mediums, and séances. (1)</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Haldane of the Secret Service</i> (1923), a crime/detective story. Released on September 30, 1923, it was Houdini's last film. <i>Weird Tales</i> was halfway through its first year when <i>Haldane</i> arrived in theaters.</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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 <i>Weird Tales</i> magazine.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Maybe it was a step down for Houdini to get involved in pulp fiction, but that's what he did, meeting <i>Weird Tales</i> publisher <b>J.C. Henneberger</b> in his Chicago office in early 1924. (3) The two men swung a deal, and that's how the Houdini issues of <i>Weird Tales</i> came about. I won't go into the particulars here. You can read about the people, places, and events involved in <b>John Locke</b>'s history, <i>The Thing's Incredible! The Secret Origins of Weird Tales</i> (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 <b>R.M. Mally</b>, appeared on the first of the three, making Houdini the first author to be depicted on the cover of "The Unique Magazine."</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>To be continued . . .</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Notes</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1) In his biography, <i>Houdini: The Man Who Walked Through Walls</i> (MacFadden, 1961), <b>William Lindsay Gresham</b> wrote: "The idea [behind <i>The Man from Beyond</i>] was probably suggested to Houdini by a story which appeared in <i>The American Weekly</i> 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 <i><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/12/polar-fiction-database.html" target="_blank">Internet Polar Fiction Database</a></i> and the <i><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2019/01/viking-adventure.html" target="_blank">Internet Viking Adventure Database</a></i>. Was it one of <b>A. Merritt</b>'s works? </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(My paperback edition of Gresham's </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Houdini</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> lacks an index. Mention of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> and </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">H.P. Lovecraft</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">--"the late, great H.P. Lovecraft"--</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">is on page 236.)</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">(2) "Houdini Leaving Stage," </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Minneapolis Star</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, February 23, 1924, page 8.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">(3) John Locke</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b> </b>suggests the week of February 11, 1924, as the period during which they met. See <i>The Thing's Incredible!: The Secret Origins of Weird Tales</i> (2018), page 138.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqRHQx4lnpKOsMgLkuT8df7hMgIBPDc59C3KdnS0bXedc4Xn972akHQT41_4AG8oOeY8tl_w0aJVWzEKNG3SZbP294s75pZUV0EYxpA79Z5ckLIBcYyKq1_fEhBUxkqu8Rl6bv5FPgC4bzOeo78gCaqG23xZfK2xtkNFRINeQmcgSuOqppPAxY-kBTZXc/s1701/Houdini-The%20Master%20Mystery.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1335" data-original-width="1701" height="451" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpqRHQx4lnpKOsMgLkuT8df7hMgIBPDc59C3KdnS0bXedc4Xn972akHQT41_4AG8oOeY8tl_w0aJVWzEKNG3SZbP294s75pZUV0EYxpA79Z5ckLIBcYyKq1_fEhBUxkqu8Rl6bv5FPgC4bzOeo78gCaqG23xZfK2xtkNFRINeQmcgSuOqppPAxY-kBTZXc/w575-h451/Houdini-The%20Master%20Mystery.png" width="575" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A still from <i>The Master Mystery</i> (1918), starring Harry Houdini. I believe the actress here is <b>Marguerite Marsh</b> (1888-1925). Inside the robot suit is <b>Floyd Buckley</b> (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 <i>The Secrets of Houdini</i> by <b>J.C. Cannell</b> (Dover, 1973), facing page 244.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiBec-7kqcs3FlFsUneUL0L8WiaNzAmA6LiE4BKsnrSs01NmUe8TZsC7tA-EnPgJkRzCEoFrDViUErQ5y7i2pVzNvzROsx1BqIXAJkIb1AOnyiH2gzl1lYCcslf7ptQQjkJl1-7E7OeBccxJSRIHudy9NDVhnvJa1ZBg630ETnoQQwjDBrFze7DPgiAtSo/s1024/Houdini-Le%20Maitre%20du%20Mystere%20Movie%20Poster.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="780" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiBec-7kqcs3FlFsUneUL0L8WiaNzAmA6LiE4BKsnrSs01NmUe8TZsC7tA-EnPgJkRzCEoFrDViUErQ5y7i2pVzNvzROsx1BqIXAJkIb1AOnyiH2gzl1lYCcslf7ptQQjkJl1-7E7OeBccxJSRIHudy9NDVhnvJa1ZBg630ETnoQQwjDBrFze7DPgiAtSo/w488-h640/Houdini-Le%20Maitre%20du%20Mystere%20Movie%20Poster.png" width="488" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Here's a French-language version of the movie poster for <i>The Master Mystery</i>. The artist was <b>E.G.</b> I'm not sure why a robot needs a knife in order to carry out its mayhem. Maybe robots were different then.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</span></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-3969776965922002292024-01-27T06:00:00.213-05:002024-01-28T17:04:22.489-05:00Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924-Non-Fiction & Other Fillers<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Following is a list of the fillers in the May/June/July issue of <i>Weird Tales</i>, a list transcribed from the <i>Internet Speculative Fiction Database</i>. Thanks to them again. All are by uncredited authors. Most have asterisks around them. Read on to see what they mean.</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">**"Juvenile Criminal," about the <b>Hon. Grey Bennett</b> and a boy named <b>Leary</b>. There really was a Grey Bennett, as remote from the first year of <i>Weird Tales</i> as we are from it.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Retaliation," about a British ship.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Providential Warning at Sea," about <b>Captain Thomas Rogers</b> and his ship <i>Society</i> in about 1694.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Pastime of Despots," about <b>Czar Peter</b>.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"The Unnatural Son," about a theft in Salisbury.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Singular Discovery of a Murder in 1740," an account of events at St. Neots, England.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Giants," about very tall men known to history.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Sham Fight," about a battle between Christian and Musselman armies at Bostra [<i>sic</i>].**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"War Horses," about war in Funen, Denmark.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>**"The Original Bluebeard,</span>" about <b>Gilles, Marquis de Laval</b>. <b>Seabury Quinn</b> had covered him before in his non-fiction series <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/11/weird-crimes-by-seabury-quinn.html" target="_blank">"Weird Crimes,"</a> in October 1923.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Distressing March of the Crusaders Through Phrygia."**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Remarkable Accident," about <b>Baptiste</b>, an actor at the <i>Comedie Francaise</i> in 1820.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">*"An Account of a Family Who Were All Afflicted with the Loss of Their Limbs," about <b>John Dowling </b>of Wattisham, England.*</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">*"Hypocrisy Detected," set in Paris.*</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">*"Force of Imagination," also set in Paris.*</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">*"Immolation of Human Beings," about the Ashantees [<i>sic</i>] of Africa.*</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Imprisonment of <b>Baron De Geramb</b>."**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">*"Anecdote Concerning the Execution of <b>King Charles the First</b>."*</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"<b>Anne Boleyn</b>."**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"The Heroes of Hindoostan."**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">*"Extraordinary Instance of Second Sight," about a French army officer quartered in Scotland during "the previous century."*</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Miracles," about a <b>Dr. Connell</b> and his patient, named <b>Anne Mulligan</b>, in 1777.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"National Superstition," about two Venetians.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Death of the <b>Duchess of Bedford</b>."**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Pardon for Forgery," a case from 1803.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Terrific Death of a Painter," about <b>Peter Peutemann</b>.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Deaths by Lightning," set in Ireland.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Wonderful Providence," about war in France in 1562.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"<b>Monsieur Rouelle</b>," about the "celebrated chemist."**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"A Singular Experiment," about an Irish boy named <b>Magrath</b> 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.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Pentilly House, Cornwall," about a <b>Mr. Tilly</b>, an atheist.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Singular Combat," about England in the time of <b>Henry IV</b>.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Fatal Misfortune and Singular Instance of Affection in a Horse," set in England.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">*"Punishment of the Knout in Russia."*</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">**"Intrepid Conduct of <b>Admiral Douglas</b>," about a mutiny on board the ship <i>Stately</i>.**</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Only Sound," a very brief item from the <i>Los Angeles Times</i>. (Below it are two jokes.)</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"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.)</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>As I was about halfway through this list, I discovered the original source of most of these accounts. </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">The source is:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><i>The Terrific Register; or, Record of Crimes, Judgements, Providences, and Calamities</i>, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433075947865&seq=6" target="_blank">Volume I</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=1OwTAAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s" target="_blank">Volume II</a>, </b>published in 1825 by Sherwood, Jones, and Co., of London, and Hunter of Edinburgh.</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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 </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">double asterisks. Seven of the items are from Volume I of <i>The Terrific Register</i>. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Twenty-eight are from Volume II. That makes 35 in all, leaving only two that are from other sources.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It's clear that <b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b> 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 <i>The Terrific Register</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2022/05/piecing-together-separate-things.html" target="_blank">I have written before about the Fortean method</a>. I called it that after <b>Charles Fort</b> (1874-1932), author, gadfly of science, and collector of oddities. People who read and wrote for <i>Weird Tales</i> 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 <i>Weird Tales</i> in its first year, and maybe he was after all, taking after Fort in the process. But it's clear with this discovery of <i>The Terrific Register</i> as a source that</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Kline was not the sole author of the </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> fillers and that </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Fort was not the first collector of oddities. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">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 <i>weird</i> works in our lives and affairs?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ca4z0cs5-ibSVTFKxC0E2s6zU7vqybnz5QPZ0C5ctT_3BMZgsp3nZR1NUjFa5Ebq_8T0KjC2THjZuElPRs9q7qQ5kwtkau4InSgcr1HBHcrzxnNrRM4P_iJr6x5ndfDUjoUJi34hfGp8gHFjmeiYLHcZJTUIewC8yyycmWRppQH26RdmbHbYWuMp40wT/s1116/The%20Terrific%20Register.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1116" data-original-width="670" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ca4z0cs5-ibSVTFKxC0E2s6zU7vqybnz5QPZ0C5ctT_3BMZgsp3nZR1NUjFa5Ebq_8T0KjC2THjZuElPRs9q7qQ5kwtkau4InSgcr1HBHcrzxnNrRM4P_iJr6x5ndfDUjoUJi34hfGp8gHFjmeiYLHcZJTUIewC8yyycmWRppQH26RdmbHbYWuMp40wT/w384-h640/The%20Terrific%20Register.png" width="384" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><p style="text-align: justify;">Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</p></span><p></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-46737086654296925792024-01-24T06:00:00.207-05:002024-01-24T06:00:00.131-05:00Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924-Stories & Essays<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Following is a list of the contents of <i>Weird Tales</i>, 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 <i>Internet Speculative Fiction Database</i>. Thanks to them.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Why Weird Tales?" by <b>Anonymous</b>, actually by <b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b> (1891-1946).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" by <b>Houdini</b> (1874-1926), ghostwritten by <b>H.P. Lovecraft</b> (1890-1937).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"'Whoso Diggeth a Pit—'" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2014/10/vida-tyler-adams-1896-1976.html" target="_blank"><b>Vida Tyler Adams</b> (1896-1976)</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Deep Calleth" by <b>Gordon Burns</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Malignant Entity" by Otis Adelbert Kline, the middle story of his three featuring <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/dr-dorp-by-otis-adelbert-kline.html" target="_blank">Dr. Dorp</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Sixth Tree" by <b>Edith Lichty Stewart</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Haunted Mansion in the Pines" by <b>Leonard F. Schumann</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Spirits" by <b>J. M. Alvey</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Hypnos" by H. P. Lovecraft.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Ebenezer's Casket," part two of a two-part serial by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/04/ju-giesy-1877-1947.html" target="_blank"><b>J. U. Giesy</b> (1877-1947)</a> and <b>Junius B. Smith</b> (1883-1945).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Draconda," part six of a six-part serial by <b>John Martin Leahy</b> (1886-1967).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Hand" by <b>H. Francis Caskey</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Loved Dead" by <b>C. M. Eddy, Jr. </b>(1896-1967), with an uncredited H. P. Lovecraft.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Vow on Halloween" by <b>Lyllian Huntley Harris</b> (1883-1939).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Eyes" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2014/10/galen-c-colin-1890-1973.html" target="_blank"><b>Galen C. Colin</b> (1890-1973)</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Man Who Thought He Was Dead" by <b>Granville S. Hoss</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Called Back" by <b>Dan W. Totheron</b> [<b>Dan W. Totheroh</b> (1894-1976)].</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Sunken Land" by <b>George W. Bayly</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Dancing Partner" by <b>Guy L. Helms</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Last Entry (In the Diary of R. Q. P.)" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2018/11/meredith-beyers-1899-1996-part-one.html" target="_blank"><b>Meredith Beyers</b> (1899-1996)</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Purple Death" by <b>Edith Lyle Ragsdale</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Imposter" by <b>Norman Springer</b> (1888-1974).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Werewolf of St. Bonnot," an article in the series <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/11/weird-crimes-by-seabury-quinn.html" target="_blank">"Weird Crimes"</a> (No. 6), by <b>Seabury Quinn</b> (1889-1969).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Just Bones" by <b>Samuel Stewart Mims </b>(1885-1974).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"First Degree" by <b>Robert Cosmo Harding</b> (1883-?).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Latvian" by <b>Herman Fetzer</b>, aka <b>Jake Falstaff</b> (1899-1935).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Machine from Outside" by <b>Don Howard</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Doctor Grant's Experiment" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/09/ha-noureddin-addis-1884-1958-marguerite.html" target="_blank"><b>H. A. Noureddin Addis</b> (1884-1958)</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Tea Leaves" by <b>Henry S. Whitehead </b>(1882-1932).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"An Egyptian Lotus" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/06/mrs-chetwood-smith-1872-1950.html" target="_blank"><b>Mrs. Chetwood Smith</b> (1872-1950)</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Deep Sea Game" by <b>Arthur J. Messier</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Soul Mark" by <b>H. C. Wire</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"It!" by <b>E. M. Samson</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Man Who Lived Next Door to Himself" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/06/frank-owen-1893-1968.html" target="_blank"><b>Frank Owen</b> (1893-1968)</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Mystery River" by <b>Elwin J. Owens</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The God Yuano" by <b>Marjorie Darter</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Cellar" by <b>Paul L. Anderson</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"In the Weird Light" by <b>Edward Everett Wright</b> and <b>Ralph Howard Wright</b>, with an epigraph by <b>William Wordsworth</b> and including a graphic of the globe.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"A Glimpse Beyond" by <b>H. M. Hamilton</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Ask Houdini," letters column conducted by Houdini.</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The thirteenth issue of <i>Weird Tales</i> 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.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">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 . . .".</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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 . . .</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</span></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-86858675729239177322024-01-21T14:33:00.005-05:002024-01-22T07:33:49.092-05:00Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924-Introduction<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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 <i>Weird Tales</i>. Last <i>year</i>, I went one by one through the issues of <i>Weird Tales</i> 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, <i>Weird Tales</i> #367, after that.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Weird Tales</i> of May/June/July 1924, called on its cover "Anniversary Number," contains 192 pages in all. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">The cover story is "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," credited to </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Harry Houdini </b><span style="font-family: georgia;">but</span><b style="font-family: georgia;"> </b><span style="font-family: georgia;">ghostwritten by </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">H.P. Lovecraft</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">. 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 </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">. The interior art was by </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">William F. Heitman</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, his last for "The Unique Magazine."</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The thirteenth issue of "The Unique Magazine" opens with an essay, "</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Why Weird Tales?", written by <b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b> 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 <i>Weird Tales</i>. Click the page on the right, under "Home," or <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/p/why-weird-tales.html" target="_blank">here</a> to read "Why Weird Tales?".</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Confirmation of Kline's authorship of this otherwise anonymous work is based at least in part on a letter he wrote to <b>Dr. Isaac M. Howard</b>, father of <b>Robert E. Howard</b>, dated April 1, 1941:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Edwin Baird was the first editor of <u>Weird Tales</u>, and continued as such until 1924. After that, I edited one issue. That was when <b>John Lansinger</b> sold his interest in the magazine to <b>J.C. Henneberger</b>, while Henneberger sold his interest in <u>Detective Tales</u> and <u>College Humor</u> to Lansinger. Baird went with Lansinger as editor of <u>Detective Tales</u>, and Henneberger had no editor for <u>Weird Tales</u>. 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 <i>The Compleat Oak Leaves: The Official Journal of Otis Adelbert Kline and His Works</i> (Clayton, GA: Fictioneer Books, Ltd., 1980), my source for it, and originally in <i>Oak Leaves</i>, Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 1970, p. 6.]</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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 <i>Weird Tales</i> out to the reading public.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One more thing: the indicia on page one read, in part:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales, The Unique Magazine, published quarterly by The Rural Publishing Corp., 325 N. Capitol Ave., Indianapolis, Ind. Vol. 4, No. 2. [. . .]</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Quarterly</i>. So that was the plan? Or <i>a</i> plan? Interesting. It gives me an idea . . . .</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</span></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-31585907769451132572024-01-16T20:50:00.002-05:002024-01-17T08:58:52.803-05:00Weird Tales: The First 13 Issues<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">From March 1923 to May/June/July 1924, The Rural Publishing Corporation of Chicago and Indianapolis published thirteen issues of its new magazine, <i>Weird Tales</i>. There was one bimonthly issue during that time, July/August 1923, and one month with no issue at all, December 1923. <i>Weird Tales</i> 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 <b>Farnsworth Wright</b> brought on as the new editor.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The publishers of <i>Weird Tales</i> in that first year and more were <b>Jacob Clark Henneberger</b> and <b>John M. Lansinger</b>. The editor of the first twelve issues was <b>Edwin Baird</b>. A recent exchange of comments and some research seems to have established that Baird, Wright, and <b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b> were involved in the editorship of the thirteenth issue. See the comments in the previous posting to learn more.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Following is a summary of <i>Weird Tales</i> during its first year and more.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/03/weird-tales-first-issue.html" target="_blank"><b><i>Weird Tales</i>, March 1923 (Vol. 1, No. 1)--Whole Number 1</b></a></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: "Ooze" by </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Anthony M. Rud</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Richard R. Epperly</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">; no interior illustrations.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">192 pages</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">26 stories, plus non-fiction fillers and "The Eyrie"</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">First stories by </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Anthony M. Rud</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">, Otis Adelbert Kline, Farnsworth Wright.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/07/weird-tales-april-1923-part-one.html" target="_blank"><i>Weird Tales</i>, April 1923 (Vol. 1, No. 2)--Whole Number 2</a></b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: Presumably "The Whispering Thing" by </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Laurie McClintock</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> & </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Culpeper Chunn</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">; no interior illustrations.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">192 pages</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">21 stories, plus non-fiction fillers and "The Eyrie"</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/07/weird-tales-may-1923-part-one.html" target="_blank"><i>Weird Tales</i>, May 1923 (Vol. 1, No. 3)--Whole Number 3</a></b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: None. (The cover is partly a swipe from an older illustration.)</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">William F. Heitman</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">; interior illustrations by Heitman.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">120 pages</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">21 stories, plus non-fiction fillers and "The Eyrie"</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">First story by </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Vincent Starrett</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">; first weird fiction reprint, by </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Edward Bulwer-Lytton</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></p><div><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/08/weird-tales-june-1923-part-one.html" target="_blank"><i>Weird Tales</i>, June 1923 (Vol. 1, No. 4)--Whole Number 4</a></b></span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Cover story: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by <b>Edgar Allan Poe</b></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">.</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> </span><b style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">William F. Heitman</b><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">.</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">120 pages</span><br style="text-align: justify;" /><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">21 stories, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "The Cauldron"</span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">First story by Edgar Allan Poe.</span></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/weird-tales-julyaugust-1923.html" target="_blank"><i>Weird Tales</i>, July/August 1923 (Vol. 2, No. 1)--Whole Number 5</a></b><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: Presumably "Sunfire" by <b>Francis Stevens</b> (<b>Gertrude Barrows Bennett</b>).</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">96 pages</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">16 stories, 1 essay, and two poems, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "The Cauldron"</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">First verse in <i>Weird Tales</i>, two poems by <b>Clark Ashton Smith</b>, his first works for the magazine.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/weird-tales-september-1923.html" target="_blank"><i>Weird Tales</i>, September 1923 (Vol. 2, No. 2)--Whole Number 6</a></b><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: Presumably "People of the Comet" by <b>Austin Hall</b>.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">96 pages</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">16 stories and 1 essay, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "The Cauldron"</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">First and only story by <b>Ambrose Bierce</b>. First letter by <b>H.P. Lovecraft</b>.</span></p><b style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/10/weird-tales-october-1923.html" target="_blank"><i>Weird Tales</i>, October 1923 (Vol. 2, No. 3)--Whole Number 7</a></b><b style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></b><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Cover story: "The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton" by </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><b>Effie W. Fifield</b></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">.</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">R.M. Mally</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">.</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">96 pages</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">14 stories, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," "The Cauldron," and "Weird Crimes"</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">First stories by</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">H.P. Lovecraft and <b>Frank Owen</b>; first work, an essay, by <b>Seabury Quinn</b></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">.</span><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/11/weird-tales-november-1923.html" target="_blank"><i>Weird Tales</i>, November 1923 (Vol. 2, No. 4)--Whole Number 8</a></b><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: "The Closed Room" by </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Maybelle McCalment</b></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally, misattributed to <b>Washburn</b></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">96 pages</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">17 stories, plus non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Weird Tales</i>, January 1924 (Vol. 3, No. 1)--Whole Number 9</b><b style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></b><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: None.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">96 pages</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">14 stories, plus three poems, non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Weird Tales</i>, February 1924 (Vol. 3, No. 2)--Whole Number 10</b><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: None.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">96 pages</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">16 stories, plus one poem, non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">First poem by a woman, </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Mary Sharon</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Weird Tales</i>, March 1924 (Vol. 3, No. 3)--Whole Number 11</b><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" by <b>Harry Houdini</b>.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">96 pages</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">17 stories, plus one poem, non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">First stories by Harry Houdini and <b>C.M. Eddy, Jr</b></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></p><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Weird Tales</i>, April 1924 (Vol. 3, No. 4)--Whole Number 12</b><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: "The Hoax of the Spirit Lover" by Harry Houdini.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">96 pages</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">18 stories, plus one poem, non-fiction fillers, "The Eyrie," and "Weird Crimes"</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">First poem by H.P. Lovecraft within the contents of the magazine</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Weird Tales</i>, May/June/July 1924 (Vol. 4, No. 2)--Whole Number 13</b><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover story: "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" by Harry Houdini.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Cover art by</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">R.M. Mally</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">; </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">interior illustrations by Heitman</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">192 pages</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">37 stories, plus the essay "Why Weird Tales?", non-fiction fillers, "Ask Houdini," and "Weird Crimes"</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">First story by <b>Henry S. Whitehead</b></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">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.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Although it came along in May/June/July 1924, more than a year after the magazine began, the triple issue of <i>Weird Tales</i> was called on the cover "Anniversary Number." That was the first of many observances of anniversaries in the one hundred years plus one of <i>Weird Tales</i>. The most recent issue of <i>Weird Tales</i> also observes an anniversary on its cover. I'd like to write about that issue next.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoVKBTwa8figMBm-tXB_fmS1tLyUXQQ65pAKfPYop_L164jVt6i1HQFQRpJWrrJCD6JRUld8AINQ2K0_PSy7MC3N6k_N56_nahJbLATlTM_6VGXjJkaCZB8ULUMKkWGpm6DsqYeBRMXp1NGNK_NrkBUr_yeYcbLflHt5xYPr7f9HYz6OgCb3kF5g3kt1z8/s500/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1924-05:6:7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="357" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoVKBTwa8figMBm-tXB_fmS1tLyUXQQ65pAKfPYop_L164jVt6i1HQFQRpJWrrJCD6JRUld8AINQ2K0_PSy7MC3N6k_N56_nahJbLATlTM_6VGXjJkaCZB8ULUMKkWGpm6DsqYeBRMXp1NGNK_NrkBUr_yeYcbLflHt5xYPr7f9HYz6OgCb3kF5g3kt1z8/s16000/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1924-05:6:7.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><p style="text-align: justify;">Text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</p></span><p></p></div>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-89845446301775162262024-01-06T11:00:00.005-05:002024-01-06T20:02:14.704-05:00Weird Tales in the First Year (and More)<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A century ago, in January 1924, <i>Weird Tales</i> 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.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Those thirteen issues can be taken together because all were published by The Rural Publishing Corporation of Chicago and Indianapolis under its two founders, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/09/jacob-clark-henneberger-on-campus.html" target="_blank"><b>J.C. Henneberger</b> (1890-1969)</a> and <b>John M. Lansinger</b> (1892-1963). Twelve of the first thirteen were without a doubt edited by <b>Edwin Baird</b> (1886-1954). The last, the jumbo-sized triple issue of May/June/July 1924, was edited by Baird or some combination of Baird, Henneberger, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/04/farnsworth-wright-1888-1940-short-short.html" target="_blank"><b>Farnsworth Wright</b> (1888-1940)</a>, and/or <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2021/12/otis-adelbert-kline-1891-1946.html" target="_blank"><b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b> (1891-1946)</a>. (See the comments below.)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">By the end of that first year and more, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> and The Rural Publishing Corporation were in trouble. That's a story for another day. Suffice it to say, Henneberger gave up <i>Detective Tales</i> after its issue of April 1924 but kept his <i>Weird Tales</i> property. The editor Baird went with <i>Detective Tales</i>, which became <i>Real Detective Tales</i> 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 <i>The FictionMags Index</i> for pertinent facts on <i>Detective Tales</i>/<i>Real Detective Tales</i>.)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first year and more of <i>Weird Tales</i> was also characterized by the employment of just three cover artists, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/03/richard-r-epperly-1891-1973-first-cover.html" target="_blank"><b>Richard R. Epperly</b> (1891-1973)</a> for the first issue, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/04/william-f-heitman-ca-1879-1945.html" target="_blank"><b>William F. Heitman</b> (1878-1945)</a> for the issues of May and June 1923, and <b>R.M. Mally</b> (dates unknown) for all the rest. The November 1923 issue is attributed to an artist supposedly named <b>Washburn</b>. 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.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">After a gap of three months, from August to October 1924, <i>Weird Tales</i> returned in November 1924 with a new editor, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/04/farnsworth-wright-1888-1940-short-short.html" target="_blank">Farnsworth Wright</a>, and a new cover artist, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/08/andrew-brosnatch-1896.html" target="_blank"><b>Andrew Brosnatch</b> (1896-1965)</a>. Both would serve for some time to come, Brosnatch until 1926, Wright until 1940. Three other changes: first, <i>Weird Tales</i> 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, <i>Weird Tales</i> was now published by the Popular Fiction Publishing Company, again of Chicago and Indianapolis.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Next</b>: <b>The Issues</b>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh38Ni_UceS3E2bvAs6lGZutUiNwz46rptd_K5Bz8AqsFr_-Pym0keTciGYtJkDIMIx0T7AlBCXFVuc_Pd2sVg6XAp_FFLzfaGsO55IwBTdfps4xezxdZTqsbqcfJN_dh8N4nCeU69bgWjNfgWuGsIRlwkWWhYi233-FOpMYHa9Bq2EiQs2b2lbqCiNITY9/s552/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1924-01.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh38Ni_UceS3E2bvAs6lGZutUiNwz46rptd_K5Bz8AqsFr_-Pym0keTciGYtJkDIMIx0T7AlBCXFVuc_Pd2sVg6XAp_FFLzfaGsO55IwBTdfps4xezxdZTqsbqcfJN_dh8N4nCeU69bgWjNfgWuGsIRlwkWWhYi233-FOpMYHa9Bq2EiQs2b2lbqCiNITY9/s16000/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1924-01.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>Weird Tales</i>, January 1924, with cover art by R.M. Mally.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Revised on January 6, 2024, following a comment by <b>Phil Stephensen-Payne</b>. (See below.)</span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</span></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-58108906277166499472024-01-04T20:30:00.007-05:002024-01-08T09:05:42.449-05:00Larry Blake Needs Help<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">My friend <b><a href="http://fivestarcomics.blogspot.com/p/larry-blake.html" target="_blank">Larry Blake</a></b> 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 <b>The Ramones</b>, <b><a href="http://www.kissasylum.com/focus/kisshell.shtml" target="_blank">KISS</a></b>, <b>Alice Cooper</b>, and <b>John Lennon</b>. For years he attended small press and comic book conventions. He has collaborated with lots of other artists, including <a href="https://alleghenyman.tripod.com/id3.html" target="_blank"><b>Tim Corrigan</b> (1950-2015)</a> with whom he created a weekly newspaper comic strip called <i>Allegheny Man</i>. Those involved in small press and alternative comics will remember Tim as the publisher of a journal called <i>Small Press Comics Explosion</i> and a supporter of and mentor to countless cartoonists. It was through Larry that I met Tim at the <a href="https://www.backporchcomics.com/space" target="_blank">Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo (S.P.A.C.E.) in Columbus, Ohio</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">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. <b>Bob Corby</b> of Columbus has set up a <i>GoFundMe</i> page for Larry. You can access it at the following URL and link:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/larry-blake" target="_blank">https://www.gofundme.com/f/larry-blake</a></b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You can read and see videos about Larry on the Internet. You can also purchase his books, which include:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Psychozort-Book-One-Larry-Blake/dp/1533539421" target="_blank"><i><b>Psychozort: Book One</b></i> (2016)--Click here</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09S66KYFW/ref=x_gr_bb_amazon?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_bb_amazon-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B09S66KYFW&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2" target="_blank"><i><b>Psychozort: Book Two</b></i> (2022)--Click here</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1726267849/ref=x_gr_bb_amazon?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_bb_amazon-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1726267849&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2" target="_blank"><i><b>The Big Book of Christian Comics</b></i> (2018)--Click here</a>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><i>The New Sons of Thunder</i></b>.</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I don't ordinarily provide links to commercial websites on this blog, but for this I'm making an exception.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As for fans of <i>Weird Tales</i> 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.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thanks for reading and for hanging in there with me.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley</span></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-65391075678792386792023-12-21T15:30:00.002-05:002023-12-21T15:35:18.498-05:00Weird Tales at the End of the Year<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It's a happy day, for even if we have cold, gray days following this one, they will be longer and longer with each one that passes. It's no wonder that this became a season of holidays. </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Hanukkah has passed, but Christmas is still ahead of us. I want to wish everyone the Happiest and Most Blessed Christmas and a Very Happy New Year. We all need these things.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">* * *</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">I had planned to write more on the first year of </span><i style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"> before 2023 came to an end</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">, but I have run out of time this year and I'll have to pick up again next. One short series will be on anniversary issues of </span><i style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">. In October, I ordered my copy of the 100th anniversary issue directly from the </span><i style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"> website. My plan was to write about these issues during the month of December. I ran out of time of course, but I also haven't received my copy. I guess </span><i style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"> is back to its old habits. Maybe next year. I'm also planning to write about another cover artist, as well as the most valuable players in that first year. I also discovered some interesting authors of 1923 whom I haven't covered yet. I would like to write about them, too. So come back. There will be more.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinouzKsT1ufs987Cz8c_Vhe5ECadYpjNPfHxdySYcV1rNgHTYZtuaTYZd_TKxsHu4k8Ucg3FBp350hcG_9V6s829Ld9-Gsp9w85mXWT9QKdkZxQ50gG_WHYFFvVq3FsKQxjPFhlydMqetsOjAgO3erzUVf8FKNYsMNvnS-5YKCkZTeA7Rhbq6el1vDDKOM/s500/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1934-07-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinouzKsT1ufs987Cz8c_Vhe5ECadYpjNPfHxdySYcV1rNgHTYZtuaTYZd_TKxsHu4k8Ucg3FBp350hcG_9V6s829Ld9-Gsp9w85mXWT9QKdkZxQ50gG_WHYFFvVq3FsKQxjPFhlydMqetsOjAgO3erzUVf8FKNYsMNvnS-5YKCkZTeA7Rhbq6el1vDDKOM/s16000/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1934-07-3.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></p></span><p></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-37195231566608163302023-12-12T22:00:00.011-05:002024-01-05T15:34:26.915-05:00Jewish Authors in Weird Tales<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">With his story "Fear" in the April issue of 1923, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/04/david-r-solomon-1893-1951-another-story.html" target="_blank"><b>David R. Solomon</b> (1893-1951)</a> was the first Jewish author that I know of to be published in <i>Weird Tales</i>. There were others who followed and more, I'm sure, awaiting discovery as I go along in this blog.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So far, I have covered the following Jewish authors who were published in <i>Weird Tales</i>:</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/04/authors-of-golden-age-of-science_07.html" target="_blank"><b>Isaac Asimov</b> (1919 or 1920-1992)</a> was born in Russia and grew up in Brooklyn. He was the author of hundreds of books, including books on both science and the Bible. He considered himself a secular Jew.</span></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/01/weird-tales-from-austria-and-bohemia.html" target="_blank"><b>Max Brod</b> (1884-1968)</a>, a native of Prague, fled the Nazi takeover of his city in 1939 and spent the rest of his life in the land that became Israel, and after 1948 was and still is Israel. He took with him the papers of his friend <b>Franz Kafka</b> (1883-1924), thereby saving them from destruction.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/03/science-fiction-authors-in-bellerophon.html" target="_blank"><b>Harlan Ellison</b> (1934-2018)</a> was one of the most well known--and perhaps notorious--of all science fiction authors. He called himself in more than one interview "a stiff-necked Jewish atheist."</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/04/myrtle-levy-gaylord-1895-1960.html" target="_blank"><b>Myrtle Levy Gaylord </b>(1895-1960)</a>, descended from Russian-Polish Jews, was born in San Francisco. She was a pulp fiction author and a journalist who worked in Spokane, Washington.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2022/12/s-gordon-gurwit-1887-1955.html" target="_blank"><b>S. Gordon Gurwit</b> (1887-1955)</a>, originally Gurivit or Gurevit, was the son of Russian-born immigrants to America. His wife, <b>Ruth (Stein) Gurwit</b> (1894-1981), and son, <b>Montgomery Stanhope "Monte" Gurwit</b> (1920-1993), were also writers. They lived in Chicago and Florida.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/05/henry-lieferant-1892-1968-sylvia-b.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Henry Lieferant</b> (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">1892-</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/05/henry-lieferant-1892-1968-sylvia-b.html" target="_blank">1968)</a> was born in Austria, in a city that is now part of Poland. I don't know for a fact that he was Jewish, but I believe that he was. His original surname may have been something other than Lieferant. I base that supposition only on the fact that I haven't found anything on him from before the Great War. He came to the United States in 1910. His wife was <b>Sylvia B. Saltzberg</b>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/05/two-victorian-british-authors.html" target="_blank"><b>Richard Marsh</b> (<b>Richard Bernard Heldmann</b>) (1857-1915)</a> was a British author of German-Jewish descent. His grandson was the author <b>Robert Aickman</b> (1914-1981).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/01/edith-ogutsch-1929-1990.html" target="_blank"><b>Edith Ogutsch </b>(1929-1990)</a>, daughter of a cantor and teacher of religion, was born in Germany and escaped from the Nazi regime on board a Kindertransport to London. She grew up in England and came to America in 1947. She was primarily a poet. </span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/05/henry-lieferant-1892-1968-sylvia-b.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Sylvia B. Saltzberg</b> (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">1896-</span></a><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/05/henry-lieferant-1892-1968-sylvia-b.html" target="_blank">1952)</a>, wife and writing partner of <b>Henry Lieferant</b>, was the daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia or Lithuania. She worked in medicine in New York City before becoming a writer. She and her husband wrote a number of romances involving doctors and nurses.</span></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/05/before-golden-age-arthur-leo-zagat-and.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Nathan Schachner </b></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">(1895-</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">1955)</span></a> was the son of Austrian-Jewish immigrants. He was born in New York City, educated in law and chemistry, and worked as a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. He was director of public relations of the National Council of Jewish Women and a consultant with the American Jewish Committee.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/04/two-belgian-authors.html" target="_blank"><b>Oscar Schisgall </b>(1901-1984)</a> was born either in Russia or Belgium. Most sources say Belgium. His parents, however, were Russian Jews. According to the 1930 Federal census, he spoke Flemish before coming to America in 1925. His novel <i>Swastika</i> (1939) was adapted to the silver screen as <i>The Man I Married</i>, also known as <i>I Married a Nazi</i> (1940).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2018/12/j-schlossel-1902-1977.html" target="_blank"><b>J. Schlossel</b> (1902-1977)</a> was <b>Joseph H. Schlossel</b>, a Jewish writer who was born either in New York or Canada, lived in Canada for several years, after that in New York, and wrote just six published stories.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/01/nadia-lavrova-1897-1989.html" target="_blank"><b>Nadia Lavrova</b> (1897-1989)</a> was born <b>Nadia Lavrova Shapiro</b> in Irkutsk, Russia. I don't know for a fact that she was Jewish. At some point she dropped her surname Shapiro and went by the pen name Nadia Lavrova. However, her father was named <b>Lazar Solomonovich Shapiro</b> (1863-1934). If I understand Russian naming properly, that means his father was named Solomon, of course a Hebrew name.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/03/science-fiction-authors-in-bellerophon_17.html" target="_blank"><b>Henry Slesar</b> (1927-2002)</a> was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants whose native language was Yiddish and who came to the United States in 1921. He was an extremely prolific writer, including for <i>CBS Radio Mystery Theater</i>, a show we listened to when we were kids in Indianapolis. I believe it came out of a station in Chicago, and it played in the evening. I remember the sound of the creaking door and the host's closing words: "Until next time, pleasant . . . dreams?"</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/05/before-golden-age-arthur-leo-zagat-and.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Arthur Leo Zagat</b> (</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">1896-</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">1949)</span></a> was, like his writing partner <b>Nathan Schachner</b>, born in New York City and studied law and chemistry. In 1941, Zagat was elected to the national executive committee for the pulp writers' section of the Authors League of America. <b>Oscar Schisgall</b> served as chairman, while Zagat was treasurer.</span></li></ul></span><div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have also written about Jewish authors of science fiction and fantasy who were not in "The Unique Magazine":</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2014/10/they-should-have-been-in-weird-tales_10.html" target="_blank"><b>Ben Hecht</b> (1894-1964)</a></span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2022/01/marvin-kaye-1938-2021.html" target="_blank"><b>Marvin Kaye</b> (1938-2021)</a></span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2021/10/summer-reading-list-no-4-engines-of.html" target="_blank"><b>Barry N. Malzberg</b> (b. 1939)</a></span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2019/01/who-was-arthur-pendragon.html" target="_blank"><b>Arthur Porges</b> (1915-2006)</a></span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2021/09/summer-reading-list-no-3-status.html" target="_blank"><b>Robert Scheckley </b>(1928-2005)</a></span></li><li><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2014/10/rod-serling-and-weird-tales.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Rod Serling </b>(1924-1975)</span></a></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2022/01/readings-over-christmas-no-2-lomokome.html" target="_blank"><b>Herman Wouk</b> (1915-2019)</a></span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>I write on this topic today because of the current world situation. </span><span>In September, I wrote about how old gods have returned to earth. Now we see clearly that an old hatred has returned, too. It is in fact one of the oldest hatreds in the world and has never really gone away. Like the plague in </span><b>Albert Camus</b><span>' novel, it withdraws from time to time into its hidden places, only to come forth again with renewed virulence. </span><span>That hatred is of course Jew-hatred, and it lives again--more accurately it shows itself again--at our highest levels of government and academia, as well as in our news media. It also lives at the lowest intellectual levels, namely among high school and university students, White House interns, people on the Internet, and even members of Congress, who have chased, surrounded, harassed, threatened, attacked, insulted, chanted and protested against, and attempted to silence, intimidate, and dehumanize Jews, as well as the non-Jews who stand with them. These are human beings and our fellow Americans, and yet they have become fair game, as if this were Nazi Germany or tsarist Russia. </span><span>I never thought we would see such things here, but the America that once was may not be any longer. Maybe we are at the beginning of a new terror and a new tyranny in our country.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>In any case, I can imagine a group of Nazis and klansmen showing up at a pro-terrorist rally on a university campus somewhere in America. They believe the exact same things as the pro-terrorist students and professors, speak the exact same words, carry the exact same signs, only to be told, "Go away. These are our Jews to hate." Although they believe the same things, have the same aspirations, and are ultimately of the same piece, the supporters of terror and the apologists of pogrom believe themselves to be different from Nazis. As always, people on their side of the political spectrum lack self-awareness. I imagine also a different version of the scene in </span><i>Blazing Saddles</i><span> in which there are Nazis, klansmen, and other villains waiting in an employment line. Now add some twenty-first century university students and idiot congresswomen to the line and reverse the roles. Now </span><b>Cleavon Little</b><span> holds </span><b>Gene Wilder</b><span> by his shirt collar, shouting, "Hey, boys, look what I got here." Now the university students go chasing after the Jew, with glee, in hopes of harming or even killing him. Remember that the klansmen in the movie wear on their robes emojis, a major form of communication in our post-literate age.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are probably those who would prefer that I not name or recognize Jewish authors, especially someone like <b>Max Brod</b>, who was a Zionist and who lived and died in Israel. But even <b>Isaac Asimov</b>, who considered himself an atheist and a liberal, was proud of his Jewish identity and heritage. He would not disavow his religion or culture or his own given name. According to journalist <b>Stephen Silver</b>, Asimov's "own personal success" was unimpeded by antisemitism. Nonetheless, Asimov found it "'</span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">difficult to endure . . . the feeling of insecurity, and even terror, because of what was happening in the world'." (From "</span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Judaism Was Complex for Isaac Asimov, Whose 'Foundation' Series Is Now a TV Show" on the website of <i>The Times of Israel</i>, September 24 2021, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/judaism-was-complex-for-isaac-asimov-whose-foundation-series-is-now-a-tv-show/" target="_blank">here</a>. The ellipses are in the original article. The full quote is from <i>I, Asimov: A Memoir</i> [1994], pp. 20-21.)</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We know now that liberalism and progressivism are luxuries among Jews. In ordinary times, their political beliefs might be enough to ward off the subtler forms of anti-Semitism and Jew-hatred that live among their fellow liberals and progressives. But in times of terror, they will not protect them. Even an atheistic or socialistic Jew--a cultural versus a practicing or devout Jew--is Jewish enough to be subjected to anti-Semitic terror, murder, and imprisonment. In other words, in the hierarchy of progressivism, some people are worthy and some are not. Like women under transgenderism, Jews can and will be canceled, silenced, and erased, sometimes, as we have seen in the case of <b>Paul Kessler</b>, with lethal aims and results.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If they were still living, I might hesitate to name the Jewish authors listed above, as that might give terrorists, including intellectual terrorists, a list of targets to go after. But I name them, I recognize them, and I give them credit. I stand with them and with the Jewish people as individuals and as a whole, past and present, and with the nation of Israel in its fight against Jew-haters, murderers, rapists, baby-killers, terrorists, and pogromists. Their cause is righteous, God is with them, and I believe they will prevail.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I live in a small city that is home to a big university. On Saturday, October 7, I walked to a local museum to see an exhibit of art created by my friend <b>S.P.</b> Along the way, I walked through a student neighborhood. It was homecoming weekend, and so a lot of students were out in their yards, drinking, partying, and having fun. I saw a student wearing an Israeli flag like a cape. I didn't know then what had happened in Israel that day, but I'm always glad to see signs of support for Israel and for the Jewish people. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">If nothing else, the atrocities of that day have granted us a great moral clarity. It is absolutely crystalline, in high relief, precisely delineated, razor-sharp along its edges. We know now who is on one side of that line and who is on the other. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">In this era, there's a lot to be said for college students who like to drink and party and don't care anything at all about politics. Thank God for non-activists. But there is more to be said for one man who would wear--like a superhero--a flag bearing the blue Star of David in support of a people whom so many others, including in American universities, want to see exterminated and their nation destroyed. (Remember that the most popular superheroes were created or co-created by American Jews.) Last week, we witnessed the spectacle of three women on the opposite ends of academic power, three cowardly and morally reprehensible university presidents who were either unwilling or found themselves unable to condemn genocide against the Jewish people. Pick any other group and they would have spoken out against wiping them out. But in the halls of academia in America, the mass murder of Jews is nuanced and contextual, "nuance" and "context" being two words used to defend and apologize for these hateful women and their hateful ideas. Thankfully now one of them is gone from her position. We can only hope that the other two and all like them will soon be gone as well. They could go to work in fast food except that even in fast food there are standards of conduct that they could not meet.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The city in which I live is full of leftists, socialists, statists, progressives, and other kinds of Democrats. Some of these people put out yard signs, "Black Lives Matter" or "We Stand with Ukraine." This is of course extreme virtue signaling and conspicuous moral preening. In strong contrast, I haven't seen any "Jewish Lives Matter" or "We Stand with Israel" signs. The student with the cape stands alone. Never mind that Black Lives Matter, in its own words, "stands in solidarity with Palestinians," or that Black Lives Matter Grassroots issued a statement following the pogrom of October 7 beginning with these words: "When a people have been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned, but understood as a desperate act of self-defense."* In other words, those Israelis got what they deserved for being oppressors, including, I suppose, the Jewish baby baked in an oven.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As for Ukraine, we should remember that the previous democratically elected government in Ukraine was overthrown--with the support of the U.S. government and/or people and/or elements within our government, I might add--and replaced with an unlawful regime; that the current Ukrainian regime has declared martial law, delayed elections, outlawed certain political parties, barred people from traveling freely, silenced dissenters, closed down churches, oppressed ethnic minorities, and now has the power to and in fact does regulate its news media; that Ukraine is utterly corrupt in moral, financial, economic, and political terms, that corruption easily demonstrated in the case of our current president's ties to Ukraine and its oil industry, if not other industries; and that there are or were Nazoid or Nazi-istic elements within the Ukrainian military, if not the Ukrainian government itself. Go ahead if you want, stand with that Ukraine.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are people who have tried to draw parallels between Ukraine and Israel. I would say to them: Ukraine is not a democracy and not an ally of the United States. Its agents and sympathizers in our government actually tried to bring down our president. Israel, on the other hand, is both our ally and a democracy. The Ukrainian government suppresses or has banned the political opposition. The leader of the opposition in Israel is now a member of the war cabinet. Ukraine is a failure, a giant scam disguised as a country, before the war a playground for the worst of Western corruptocrats. Again, witness the ties our current president, through his son, has to Ukraine. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Israel on the other hand is not corrupt. It is a free country. Israel is also an economic success, which is, truth be told, one of the complaints that its enemies have against it.** Israel will continue in its war whether the United States and Europe support it or not. Ukraine <i>can't</i> continue in its war without that support. Its president and other leaders act like entitled beggars who believe we <i>must</i> support them, <i>must</i> continue to pour money into their open maws--<i>or else</i>, they threaten. Finally, again, there are or were Nazis, neo-Nazis, or people who play at being Nazis within Ukraine, including within its military. Think of it: we are sending aid, including military aid, to Nazis, or as I've called them, Nazoids. What kind of crazy world are we living in? What have our elites become in their utter derangement?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Anyway, it would of course be an absurdity to say that there are Nazis within Israel. In actuality, the people with Nazi-istic aims are on the opposite side, in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and perhaps worst of all in Western governments and universities. These people live by pretzel logic. Russia is warring against Ukraine. Russia also supports the terrorists in Gaza. The pro-Ukraine people in the West are against Russia. Many of them are also against Israel (Jews in general) and in favor of the terrorists that are trying to exterminate them. Our current president is soft on Iran, which wants to destroy Israel and the Jewish people, and yet he's called "Genocide Joe" by the pro-pogrom people in America for his support of Israel, such as it is. The Canadian Parliament recently applauded a Ukrainian Nazi for fighting against Russia during World War II. Meanwhile, in America, there are antifa people who want to punch a Nazi, and yet I'm certain that there is a lot of overlap--maybe complete overlap--between them and the Jew-haters in our country. Antifa really likes Nazis <i>and</i> they want to punch them, both at the same time. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">How do these people keep all of their hatreds and all of their loyalties straight in their heads?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So is this blog the right place for these things? Maybe. Maybe not. But other than my yard, where I could put a sign that would probably be ripped out, it's the only place I have. Also, this is my blog, and I get to use it as I please. Beyond that, as a writer, I would like to have my thoughts known on such important topics, including as they pertain to other writers, their words, their ideas, and most of all their lives. Beyond that still, if we are to be decent people, we must call out and confront indecent people. These are, after all, the two races of men as identified by <b>Victor Frankl</b>, a Jew and a survivor of the Holocaust.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In these past two months, we have seen extremes of indecency and depravity, not only in the terrorists and pogromists of Gaza but also in their supporters and apologists in the West. On October 7, there were more Jews murdered in the world than at any time since World War II, more Americans killed at any one time by Islamist terrorists since 2016, and more Americans taken hostage by that same brand of terrorist since 1981. I think, anyway. It's hard to say for sure because the numbers and the facts are so hard to come by. It's clear that we're not supposed to know how many Americans were killed on October 7 nor how many are being held hostage by the terrorists. The figure I have for the number killed--33--is ultimately from a French-language source. Apparently, American "journalists," a really incurious group when you get down to it, can't bring themselves to look into or talk about these things. Ask the Internet how many Americans were killed or how many American hostages are being held. You will get nowhere fast. The facts and the figures have gone into the memory hole.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">To get back to my point, we must speak out against indecency and depravity whenever we can, wherever we can, and in whatever way we can, especially when those around us remain silent.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So today I write in recognition of Jewish authors and in support of Israel and the Jewish people.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">-----</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">*Never mind also that Black Lives Matter was founded by self-admitted "trained Marxists" and that they want to do away with the family, as Marxists do the world over. Remember that Marxism is very often anti-Jewish. In <b>Karl Marx</b>'s own words: "In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from <i>Judaism</i>." (Apparently, Marx used the N-word when writing about his Jewish rival, <b>Ferdinand Lasalle</b>. That's supposed to be an unforgivable sin, but to Marxists, I guess, Marx was the perfect man.) Remember that a Jew, <b>Leon Trotsky</b>, was one of the lead villains in <b>Stalin</b>'s great, horrific, decades-long drama of terror, and that another, the fictional Emmanuel Goldstein, plays that same role in <b>George Orwell</b>'s <i>Nineteen Eighty-Four</i>. Now remember <a href="https://www.yu.edu/library/2017/01/12/mlk-speaks-out" target="_blank">the words of <b>Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.</b>, regarding the oppression of Jews in the Soviet Union, from fifty-seven years ago this week</a>:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;">"We cannot sit complacently by the wayside while our Jewish brothers in the Soviet Union face the possible extinction of their cultural and spiritual life. Those that sit at rest, while others take pains, are tender turtles and buy their quiet with disgrace."</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Whom do you prefer, Dr. King or BLM? Like Ukraine, Black Lives Matter is a scam, essentially a moneymaking operation for its leaders. Go ahead if you want, support that scam, too.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">**Socialists, whether they be Nazis or Bolsheviks, are anti-liberal. They despise free-market economics and free associations among men made outside of the State. These things they call capitalism. Where there is freedom, some people will have more than others. Some will be more successful than others. That's one of the reasons that socialists hate freedom, especially free economic activity. Non-Jewish envy of Jewish success partly--or maybe wholly--explains the hatred that socialists have for Jews. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/10/ambrose-bierce-1842-part-1.html" target="_blank">As <b>Ambrose Bierce</b> wrote, success is "the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows."</a> Remember here that the Palestinian Liberation Organization includes or has included Marxist, socialist, and Maoist groups. Remember also that some of the most rabid anti-Israel and anti-Jewish Arab regimes are or were Ba'athist regimes, Ba'athism being just another brand of socialism. Finally, remember that <b>António Guterres</b>, the current secretary general of the United Nations, by the way another Jew-hating organization, is also a socialist. He as much as anyone wants Israel to lose and the terrorists and Jew-murderers to win this war. We can predict that the closer Israel comes to victory, the more desperate will be the calls for ceasefire from him and his fellow travelers.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So, as an aside, a maxim:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If people are free, they will not be equal. And if they are to be made equal, they can't be permitted their freedom.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-U_2nF42SSb0y5taVUciMBxqVQP0OgKhNJ9EnpgxqLdqCxFtvbhPJQwRikqy9dJpMcVpSjfQ09ctkFLvvy0rpuu9L2bsQ7nSlYTxtBZRwJHShxfgmI7LmKbg1PSKfdyW5YYUoH-QhkXZ-zv-pK5hXdIxuhQEWO-uosg2-rTDbarSuGF9IaITakys9LDtl/s612/istockphoto-1348319018-612x612.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="447" data-original-width="612" height="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-U_2nF42SSb0y5taVUciMBxqVQP0OgKhNJ9EnpgxqLdqCxFtvbhPJQwRikqy9dJpMcVpSjfQ09ctkFLvvy0rpuu9L2bsQ7nSlYTxtBZRwJHShxfgmI7LmKbg1PSKfdyW5YYUoH-QhkXZ-zv-pK5hXdIxuhQEWO-uosg2-rTDbarSuGF9IaITakys9LDtl/w559-h409/istockphoto-1348319018-612x612.jpg" width="559" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></p></div>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-1237890295337922572023-11-17T16:30:00.008-05:002024-01-12T10:16:44.417-05:00Edgar Allan Poe in the First Year of Weird Tales<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is a very long essay, but as it is about Edgar Allan Poe, I think I should offer it to you all in one piece so that, if you're able, you can read it in one sitting.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">* * *</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In early 1809, two men were born who would change the nation, though in different realms and at different scales. The first-born of them came into the world in a great eastern city. The second was born on the American frontier. The first was born in the North but grew up in the South. The other made the opposite kind of journey. Both were orphaned in their childhood. Both were frequent failures and had great tragedy in their lives. Both men served in the military, though only for a short time. Both were known for their writing, their words, and their sense of humor.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Both of these men of 1809 died too young, the second-born by violence, the first perhaps also by violence. They died within forty miles of each other, though their deaths were separated by sixteen years and more. The second died in spring, when lilacs bloomed in the dooryard. His death was mourned by millions, and millions witnessed the passing of his funeral train to the final resting place of his earthly body. The second died in autumn. His body was placed in a simple coffin and only a few attended his funeral. The service lasted all of three minutes on a "dark and gloomy [. . . a] raw and threatening day," according to one of the attendees. The headstone of the departed lacked even his name. Only decades after his death did his grave receive proper attention. Now both men are renowned all over the world and both graves are well visited.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first-born was conservative. In his work, he explored, among other things, the afflicted psyche of the modern man. The other was liberal. He warred against the ancient institution of slavery. The first was one of our greatest writers. There is a professional football team named after one of his poems. The second was one of our greatest presidents. You will see his visage on pennies, five-dollar bills, and the face of Mount Rushmore. It's strange to think that </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Abraham Lincoln</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> and </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Edgar Allan Poe</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> were born just twenty-four days apart.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was and is justly revered in America. There have probably been more books written about him than anyone else in our history. From the moment of his death, the Rail-Splitter, our Great Emancipator, has never been forgotten and is always close in our thoughts as we contemplate the history and meaning of our country. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) on the other hand was slandered at his death, and though his works were still in print for many years afterwards, there were long periods during which he seems to have been almost forgotten, or at least relegated to a minor place in American letters.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That changed as the nineteenth century went on. If you look at the list of collections by Poe in the <i>Internet Speculative Fiction Database</i>, you will see big gaps--1856 to 1869, 1871 to 1878--begin to narrow as the turn of the century approached. And every year or almost every year from about 1888 to today, there has been a collection of Poe's works published somewhere in the world. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/01/whats-in-title-part-one.html" target="_blank">One of those collections, a fairly early one in fact, was entitled <i>Weird Tales</i> (1895)</a>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/09/jacob-clark-henneberger-on-campus.html" target="_blank"><b>Jacob Clark Henneberger</b> (1890-1969)</a>, cofounder of <i>Weird Tales</i> magazine, is a curious case. He helped bring <i>Weird Tales</i> to life in 1923 and helped keep it alive in 1924 and after. He seems to have been devoted to the magazine and to weird fiction in general, and yet we have almost nothing from his own hand on any subject at all. He seems to have been almost an invisible partner in the whole affair and to have essentially disappeared after the 1920s. But in a letter dated April 14, 1969, exactly seven months before his death, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2014/10/they-should-have-been-in-weird-tales.html" target="_blank">he wrote to <b>Joel Frieman</b></a> about his adolescent encounter with Poe:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;">As a lad of 16 I attended a military academy in Virginia. The English department was headed by one Capt. Stevens, a hunchback who was a rather chauvinistic chap in that he favored Southern writers. One entire semester was devoted to Poe! You can imagine how immersed I became in him. . . . (Ellipses in the original source, <i>WT 50: A Tribute to Weird Tales</i>, edited by <b>Robert A. Weinberg</b>, 1974, page 6.)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/01/whats-in-title-part-one.html" target="_blank">The school of which Henneberger wrote was Staunton Military Academy in Staunton, Virginia. Capt. Stevens was <b>Captain</b> <b>Luke Leary Stevens</b> (1878-1944)</a>, who, in addition to being a teacher, was a farmer, a school superintendent, and a state representative of his home county.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Note that Henneberger wrote that he became "immersed" in Poe. There is a suggestion but not quite an affirmation that he was in fact a fan of Poe. There is a general lack of information--a lack of being entirely forthcoming--in Henneberger's letter that I find frustrating. Why not tell us the name of the school? Why do we have to "imagine how immersed" in Poe he became? And how exactly did he feel about Poe? Why doesn't he say? But then Henneberger founded and stuck with a magazine based on Poe--or at least I believe that it was based on Poe--and so we should assume, I guess, that he was a fan not only of the author but also of weird, mysterious, and fantastic fiction in general.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>H.P. Lovecraft</b> (1890-1937) was much more direct. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-first-of-lovecraft.html" target="_blank">In his first letter printed in "The Eyrie" (Sept. 1923), he wrote:</a></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-first-of-lovecraft.html" target="_blank">"My models are invariably the older writers, especially Poe, who has been my favorite literary figure since early childhood."</a></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This is how you do it, J.C.!</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Henneberger and Lovecraft were contemporaries. They were born a little more than six months apart, Lovecraft in an old, Waspish New England city, Henneberger in rural and small-town Pennsylvania Dutch country. Both grew up in the 1890s. Both would presumably have been exposed to Poe's stories and poems by way of collections published during that mauve decade. Both, too, would have turned the golden age of twelve years old in 1902, when several collections, including a 787-page edition of <i>Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque</i>, were published, all in one year. </span><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/01/whats-in-title-part-one.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As I've written before, I think that the most likely source of the title </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales</i></a><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/01/whats-in-title-part-one.html" target="_blank"> is in the Poe collection <i>Weird Tales</i>, published in 1895 by Henry Altemus Company of Philadelphia</a>. Henneberger was "immersed" in Poe at age sixteen. Poe was Lovecraft's "favorite literary figure since early childhood." Many of Lovecraft's early stories, including <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2021/12/100-years-of-outsider.html" target="_blank">"The Outsider" (<i>Weird Tales</i>, Apr. 1926)</a>, are very Poesque. <i>Weird Tales</i> itself would seem to have been a revival of and a venue for Poesque tales of mystery and imagination. Maybe its companion title, <i>Detective Tales</i>, was intended to follow in the footsteps of the man who wrote the first detective story in our literature.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Other early contributors to <i>Weird Tales</i> were also Poe fans and Poe admirers. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/03/anthony-rud-1893-1942-first-cover-story.html" target="_blank">Poe's name was mentioned frequently in early letters to "The Eyrie," including in the very first one, submitted by <b>Anthony M. Rud</b> (1893-1942), author of the very first cover story as well and published in that same first issue, March 1923</a>. Rud, then, was the first reader of <i>Weird Tales</i> to mention Poe in its pages. Many others followed in their letters to "The Eyrie," including:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/06/readers-respond-to-first-issue-part-one.html" target="_blank"><b>Dr. Vance J. Hoyt</b>, <b>S.O.B.</b>, <b>C.P.O.</b>, and <b>E.E.L.</b> in April 1923</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/08/weird-tales-may-1923-part-four.html" target="_blank"><b>Earl Leaston Bell</b>, <b>Edward Schultz</b>, and <b>A.L. Richard</b></a> (who commented on <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/05/walter-scott-story-1879-1955-first.html" target="_blank">"The Sequel" by <b>Walter Scott Story</b>, <i>Weird Tales</i>, Mar. 1923</a>) <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/08/weird-tales-may-1923-part-four.html" target="_blank">in May 1923</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-eyrie-julyaugust-1923.html" target="_blank"><b>Henry W. Whitehill</b> and <b>H.M.</b> in July/August 1923</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-eyrie-september-1923.html" target="_blank"><b>Curtis F. Day</b>, H.P. Lovecraft, <b>Charles White</b>, and <b>Maxine Worthington</b> in September 1923</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/10/the-eyrie-october-1923.html" target="_blank"><b>Dr. Henry C. Murphy</b> in October 1923</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/11/the-eyrie-november-1923.html" target="_blank"><b>Walter F. McCanless</b> in November 1923</a>.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>G. Peyton Wertenbacher</b> in January 1924.</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Walter F. McCanless</b> again in March 1924.</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/05/walter-f-mccanless-1876-1965.html" target="_blank">Walter F. McCanless (1876-1965)</a> was a Southern author. Like Captain Stevens, he hailed from North Carolina, and, like Stevens, who was two years his senior, he was a teacher. Maybe the two men knew each other. In any case, McCanless had a long letter in <i>Weird Tales</i> in March 1924. Part of his letter is a complaint about the short story "The Autobiography of a Blue Ghost" by <b>Don Mark Lemon</b> (1877-1961), which had appeared in <i>Weird Tales</i> in September 1923. In his letter, McCanless also urged the editor, <b>Edwin Baird</b>, not to print "The Transparent Ghost" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/04/isa-belle-manzer-1872-or-1873-1944.html" target="_blank"><b>Isa-belle Manzer</b> (1872-1944)</a>, and for about the same reason that he objected to Lemon's tale, namely, that it would make a farce of <i>Weird Tales</i>. (He was too late: the serialized story "The Transparent Ghost" was already in its second part by then.) McCanless moved on to his main point:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;">"We, of the South, believe in Edgar Allan Poe. To have it said of one that 'He writes like Poe' is, to our minds, the highest compliment that can be paid one. (By the way, 'The Crawling Death' by <b>P.A. Connelly</b> [<i>sic</i>; <i>Weird Tales</i>, Nov. 1923] is, in my opinion, equal, for thrills, to anything Poe ever wrote.) We, therefore, should hate to see a publication parody his best known style of writing. Poe, however, attempted humor of a sort (example, 'Why the Frenchman Wears His Arm in a Sling'), but with no very great degree of success, since he is best known for horror and mystery stories. To see these parodied by a publication would result in making such a publication taboo in the South. We turn to joke books that do not hurt our pride."</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Poe may have been born in Boston, but Southerners, including Luke Leary Stevens and Walter F. McCanless, claimed him as one of their own, and I think rightly so. They were and are protective of Poe. <b>Manly Wade Wellman</b>, an adopted North Carolinian, wrote a story called "The Devil Is Not Mocked" (<i>Unknown Worlds</i>, June 1943). Well, McCanless wanted us to know that people of his region would not stand for Poe or the Poe-like story to be mocked either. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">By the way, we have probably all noticed that fans of fantasy, including comic book fantasy, take their subject seriously. They don't want it to be made fun of or mistreated in any way. That desire for seriousness goes back at least as far as 1924 and McCanless' letter.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first editorial mention of Edgar Allan Poe in <i>Weird Tales</i> is in the blurb for <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/05/walter-scott-story-1879-1955-first.html" target="_blank">"The Sequel" by Walter Scott Story (1879-1955), in the first issue of March 1923</a>. That blurb reads:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Walter Scott Story offers a new conclusion to Edgar Allen [sic] Poe's "Cask of Amontillado"</i></span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">(You'd think that a magazine based on Poe would spell his name right.)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'll tell you right off that I think "The Sequel" was a needless effort, one that completely alters the meaning and undoes the intent of Poe's original. Story should have left well enough alone. An overly sensitive reader might even think of his tale as insulting towards Poe or even towards the art of literature in general. That's probably beside the point, which is that early tellers of weird tales were fully conscious of Poe. Some, like Walter Scott Story, wrote imitations, homages, or pastiches. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Poe's influence upon certain other authors was more subtle.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Walter McCanless was getting at something when he wrote that Poe "</span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">is best known for horror and mystery stories,</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;">" </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">and it seems to me that very many of the early stories in </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> were one of those two types. Both <i>horror</i> and <i>mystery</i> are broad terms. In a narrower sense, in the case of some of Poe's stories, <i>horror</i> can be taken as <i>psychological</i> horror, an account of the workings of one man's diseased mind, sometimes told from within that mind. "The Tell-Tale Heart" (1843) is an example. As for mystery, we now think of that term in a narrow sense and as the name of a literary genre. There are other kinds of mysteries to be sure. But, again, Poe is credited with having invented the mystery genre, also called the detective story, with his first tale of C. Auguste Dupin, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/08/weird-tales-june-1923-part-one.html" target="_blank">"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (1841)</a>. Both of these examples were reprinted in <i>Weird Tales</i> as <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/11/masterpieces-of-weird-fiction.html" target="_blank">"Masterpieces of Weird Fiction."</a></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Poesque horror story and the Poesque detective tale come at things from two opposite ends. One is a tale of passion, feeling, irrationality. The other is dispassionate, reasoning, scientific. Remember that Poe called his detective stories "tales of ratiocination." He collected several stories of certain other types in <i>Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque</i> (1840), the title perhaps inspired by <b>Sir Walter Scott</b>'s essay, </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition </i>(1827). I take <i>grotesque</i> and <i>arabesque</i> not as opposites but as two kinds of more or less the same thing. "William Wilson" (1840) and "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839), two stories of what I think you can call psychological horror, are included in Poe's contents.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The protagonist of the horror story is flawed--physically, mentally, or morally weak or deficient, if not insane. Maybe he is in a long line descended from <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2021/01/utopia-dystopia-in-weird-tales-part.html" target="_blank"><b>Jack Williamson</b>'s Egyptian-Hebraic hero</a> and a progenitor of the weird-fictional hero of the twentieth century. The Poesque detective, on the other hand, possesses a level and piercing intellect. Later American detectives, being flawed antiheroes, have more in common with the weird-fictional hero. British detectives, perhaps their French counterparts, too, also some prissy Americans, are at a higher level of society. In any event, the tale of ratiocination can be seen as the beginning not only of the detective story but also as <i>a</i> beginning of the science fiction story with its strong, able, and triumphant hero, a man who applies science and reason to all problems, thereby solving them. The bad part about all of that is that there may be very little of the human in the problem and especially in the problem-solving. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/dr-dorp-by-otis-adelbert-kline.html" target="_blank"><b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b>'s Dr. Dorp</a>, for example, is basically nonhuman. It's worth noting here that in an essay entitled "Edgar Allan Poe," <b>D.H. Lawrence</b> wrote:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"> But Poe is rather a scientist than and artist. He is reducing his own self as a scientist reduces a salt in a crucible. It is an almost chemical analysis of the soul and consciousness. (p. 111)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That essay was published in 1923 of all years. (It was reprinted in <i>The Recognition of Poe</i>, edited by <b>Eric W. Carlson</b> and published in 1966, which is my source for the quote above.) If you read Poe, you might be struck by a lack of moral sense. Maybe he was more a scientist than artist after all. On the other hand, if his subject was himself, then he was both the rational scientist and the tormented and passionate individual placed on the examination table or under the microscope, in other words, a human being and perhaps an artist after all.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So Poe had his horror stories or weird tales and his detective stories or tales of ratiocination. Under J.C. Henneberger and his business partner <b>John M. Lansinger</b> (1892-1963), <i>Detective Tales</i> came first, on October 1, 1922, to be precise. <i>Weird Tales</i> followed of course in March 1923. There was and is crossover between weird fiction and mystery or detective fiction. Batman for example is both a detective and a weird-fictional hero. And as I've written before, "The Call of Cthulhu," doubtless a piece of weird fiction, can also be considered a detective story. (As in "Ooze," see below, the murderer in Lovecraft's story is not human, or at least some of the murders are committed by the nonhuman Cthulhu.) If, in 1923 and after, you had wanted straight science and no horror or weirdness in your literature of choice, you could have read <b>Hugo Gernsback</b>'s radio magazines. Or you could have waited until <i>Amazing Stories</i> came along in April 1926, the same month, by the way, in which<i> Weird Tales</i> printed one of Lovecraft's most Poesque stories, "The Outsider." Shortly after that, Lovecraft began writing "The Call of Cthulhu" (<i>Weird Tales</i>, Feb. 1928), a mostly Lovecraftian story of some length, although it now occurs to me that it bears some similarity to "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" (1838) by Poe.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first story in the first issue of <i>Weird Tales</i> is <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2014/11/willard-e-hawkins-1887-1970.html" target="_blank">"The Dead Man's Tale" by <b>Willard E. Hawkins</b></a>, a decidedly Poesque story of psychological horror, even if Hawkins was inspired by <i>The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde</i> by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/10/weird-tales-from-victorian-age.html" target="_blank"><b>Robert Louis Stevenson</b> (1886)</a>. The story is told in the first person by a man deranged by his love for a woman. The first detective story is <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/04/hamilton-craigie-1880-1956.html" target="_blank">"The Chain" by <b>Hamilton Craigie</b></a>, which is ten stories into that inaugural issue. Although there is a somewhat weird element in Craigie's story, it's essentially a tale of ratiocination, and its hero is very nearly without flaw or weakness.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In between those two stories is <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/03/anthony-rud-1893-1942-first-cover-story.html" target="_blank">"Ooze" by Anthony M. Rud</a>, a proto-science-fictional tale of the South but also one involving some detective work, carried out by an urban-dwelling Northerner. (In "Ooze," the Southerners are generally low characters, the Northerners high, or at least medium-high.) In this case, the murderer is a giant amoeba rather than an orangutan, as in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." As for the first ape in <i>Weird Tales</i>, see <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-extraordinary-experiment-of-dr.html" target="_blank">"</a></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-extraordinary-experiment-of-dr.html" target="_blank">The Extraordinary Experiment of Dr. Calgroni" by </a></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-extraordinary-experiment-of-dr.html" target="_blank"><b>Joseph Faus</b> and <b>James Bennett Wooding</b></a>, also from March 1923 and also a story of super-science. And maybe at this point we should consider that all <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/11/gorillas-on-cover-of-weird-tales.html" target="_blank">ape and gorilla stories</a> are descended from "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" and that that was the real <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/05/weird-tales-gorilla-connection.html" target="_blank">gorilla connection in <i>Weird Tales</i></a>. By the way, Poe paired "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" with another of his stories in a one-bit pamphlet published in 1843. The other is a story called "The Man That Was Used Up" (1839). If you substitute one relative pronoun for another, you get "The Man <i>Who</i> Was Used Up," and so maybe we have another first for Edgar Allan Poe: he wrote the first story with the title construction "The Man Who . . .". The irony is that the pronoun <i>who</i> is used in reference to people, while <i>that</i> is used in reference either to people or things. So who--or what--is the title subject of Poe's story? Is he a man or is he something else?</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm not sure that Poe was the first literary figure to treat a narrative from the viewpoint of a diseased, depraved, insane, or dysfunctional narrator, in other words, to turn a story upside down by making the villain his protagonist and to try, at least, to make him appear sympathetic, though in a perverse way. There may have been precedent for that in <b>Shakespeare</b>, for example in <i>Othello</i>. I think Poe took a lot from Shakespeare, and I would like to read about parallels in their work. Remember that <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/01/whats-in-title-part-two.html" target="_blank">the word and concept <i>weird</i> may have come to us through Shakespeare</a>. <b>Thomas De Quincey</b> (1785-1859) and his confessions were a more immediate precedent perhaps. The hero or antihero of Gothic fiction and weird fiction, <b>Nelson Algren</b>'s man with a golden arm, the Angry Young Men of postwar British literature--on and on they go--all may very well be descended from Poe's defective protagonists. So just remember the next time you're watching a movie or TV show and find yourself rooting for the thief, the murderer, or the drug addict: you may just be the latest consumer of a Poesque brand of fiction.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The narrator of "The Cask of Amontillado" is named Montresor. Like Iago, he has a complaint against his hapless victim, poor Fortunato. (Or <i>Un</i>fortunato.) You could call him a killer, but killing isn't exactly his aim. Instead, it's a perverse and depraved kind of revenge--or worse. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/05/walter-scott-story-1879-1955-first.html" target="_blank">Walter Scott Story's "Sequel"</a> picks up where Poe left off. Story's story is overtly Poesque, a kind of pastiche in fact. Other Poesque tales are more subtle. However, the discerning reader can tell one when he or she sees it. For example, in the </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-eyrie-julyaugust-1923.html" target="_blank">July/August 1923 installment of "The Eyrie,"</a> <b>H. M.</b> of New York, New York, remarked upon the similarity of "The Devil Plant" by <b>Lyle Wilson Holden</b> (<i>Weird Tales</i>, May 1923) to "The Cask of Amontillado." I have a feeling that if you were to study the first few years of <i>Weird Tales</i> contents, you would find many more parallels--which might be a polite word for <i>ripoffs</i>. We have seen the same thing during the past century regarding Lovecraft and <b>Robert E. Howard</b>. (Not that I've been around for the past century.) That doesn't seem to be the case with <b>Clark Ashton Smith</b>, but how would you ever rip off CAS? With his language, imagery, and vast vocabulary, he seems to have made his work ripoff-proof.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The first mention of Poe in a nonfiction item in <i>Weird Tales</i> is in the first installment of <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/11/weird-crimes-by-seabury-quinn.html" target="_blank">"Weird Crimes"--its subject "Bluebeard"--by <b>Seabury Quinn</b></a>. That was in October 1923. The first mention in a story is in the March 1924 issue, in </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Fine Art of Suicide" by <b><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/12/howard-rockey-1886-1934.html" target="_blank">Howard Rockey</a></b> (p. 19). Poe is also mentioned and even quoted in</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> "Draconda" by <b>John Martin Leahy</b>. (p. 65; p. 70).</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rockey wrote:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;">"Some day," he would muse in his lighter moments, "an inspired genius will actually live or die a real story for me--with all the trimmings that even a Poe could desire--and I won"t have to fake a single detail!"</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Leahy followed Rockey in his invocation of Poe, but at greater length:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;">"You know," I said, "things come crowding into my mind--visions, memories, words spoken or written, some long forgotten. Among the words penned, induced no doubt by what has just been said, this haunting sentence of Poe's:</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;"> "'No thinking being lives who, at some luminous point of his life of thought, has not felt himself lost amid the surges of futile efforts at understanding or believing, that any thing exists <i>greater than his own soul</i>'."</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;"> "So you waded through <i>Eureka</i>. What did you get out of it?"</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;"> "Not much; that and a few others. This, for instance:</span></blockquote><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;"> "'We walk about, amid the destinies of our world-existence, encompassed by dim and ever present <i>Memories</i> of a Destiny more vast'." (p. 65)</span></blockquote><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab; font-size: medium;">Her figure was tall and slender and willowy. In her depthless eyes, and on and about her full lips, was a look the like of which I had never seen in all my life. It reminded one of sadness, and yet it was not an expression of sadness. If I were to say that it was one of deep experience, there would come, I believe, an idea of harshness or even cruelty perhaps; but there was neither harshness nor cruelty in the eyes of Draconda. It was, I fancy, an expression very like that in the orbs of Poe’s Ligeia: "I have felt it in the ocean--in the falling of a meteor." (p. 70)</span></blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm not sure that it really means anything, but <i>Eureka</i> (1848) is supposed to have been a work of ratiocination, while "Ligeia" (1838) is a horror story or weird tale.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">May/June/July 1924 was past the one-year anniversary of <i>Weird Tales</i>. Nonetheless, I'll point out that Poe's name is mentioned ten times in <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2021/12/why-weird-tales.html" target="_blank">Otis Adelbert Kline's manifesto-of-sorts "Why Weird Tales."</a> Poe is the first author and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" the first story mentioned therein. Kline called "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" "[t]he greatest weird story and one of the greatest short stories ever written."</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Edgar Allan Poe had fourteen stories and four poems in <i>Weird Tales</i>. Five of the stories were reprinted in the first year of the magazine in the series <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/11/masterpieces-of-weird-fiction.html" target="_blank">"Masterpieces of Weird Fiction."</a> They were:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (the cover story of the June 1923 issue)</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Pit and the Pendulum" (Oct. 1923)</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Tell-Tale Heart" (Nov. 1923)</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Black Cat" (Jan. 1924)</span></li><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Never Bet the Devil Your Head"(Mar. 1924)</span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Poe's next story reprinted in <i>Weird Tales</i> was "The Mask [<i>sic</i>] of the Red Death," in March 1926. The last was "The Fall of the House of Usher" in August 1939. <b>Farnsworth Wright</b> was editor during those years. <b>Dorothy McIlwraith</b> took over his post in 1940. I believe she emphasized new stories, but even she eventually turned to reprinting previously published works. But no more of Edgar Allan Poe.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One last thing regarding Poe and <i>Weird Tales</i>. In his lecture "House of Poe" (1959), poet <b>Richard Wilbur</b> remarked on Poe's repeated use of spirals and vortices in his work. These are in "MS. Found in a Bottle," "Descent into the Maelstrom," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "Metzengerstein," and "King Pest." Wilbur's speculation was that spirals and vortices "had some symbolic value for Poe." His conclusion: "What the spiral inevitably represents in any tale of Poe's is the loss of consciousness, and the descent of the mind into sleep." (<i>The Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe</i>, p. 257). There were <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/12/circles-and-spirals-on-cover-of-weird.html" target="_blank">circles and spirals on the cover of <i>Weird Tales</i></a>, but I think these went beyond the symbolism of Poe's stories and sleep was not at their end.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOWaFPO0rVQqvcqO8g3_c8xbQc8D0SvNh1KY4NrZ8hgdTO5csKhpFDoBBEthwrCK9gHvqSoSlwSPxkmxxwXqsEGG7y1mXpFlxFv4T9bdgdLjQmEj6jQORx04aTbgPsM9_xCF0Q6TpnS4UHg0WMTqWaSRvwKYq6hAGLoDSMxZxbZEhcO0bgYOsDuH_rsPKJ/s586/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1939-09.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOWaFPO0rVQqvcqO8g3_c8xbQc8D0SvNh1KY4NrZ8hgdTO5csKhpFDoBBEthwrCK9gHvqSoSlwSPxkmxxwXqsEGG7y1mXpFlxFv4T9bdgdLjQmEj6jQORx04aTbgPsM9_xCF0Q6TpnS4UHg0WMTqWaSRvwKYq6hAGLoDSMxZxbZEhcO0bgYOsDuH_rsPKJ/s16000/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1939-09.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Edgar Allan Poe on the cover of <i>Weird Tales</i>, September 1939, with cover art by <b>Virgil Finlay</b>.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This will have to do until later in the month or maybe into December when I will wrap up this series on the 100-year anniversary of <i>Weird Tales</i>. Until then:</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Courgette; font-size: x-large;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">Happy</span><span style="color: #783f04;"> Thanks</span><span style="color: #274e13;">giving!</span></b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-78907623947800302802023-11-13T06:00:00.267-05:002023-11-13T06:00:00.144-05:00Masterpieces of Weird Fiction<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span><i>Weird Tales</i> began reprinting classic tales of weird fiction in the May issue of 1923. The series is called "Masterpieces of Weird Fiction," and although the last entry is numbered six, there are actually seven entries. (The miscounting began with entry number five.) Five of the seven are by <b>Edgar Allan Poe</b>. We should remember that the co-founder of the magazine, <b>Jacob C. Henneberger</b>, was a great fan of Poe. </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Ambrose Bierce</b> and <b>Edward Bulwer-Lytton</b> had one entry each in the series.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>The first reprint was "</span><span style="text-align: left;"><span>The Haunted and the Haunters; or The House and the Brain" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, </span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span>originally in <i>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, Vol. DXXVI, August 1859. Also in the May 1923 issue was "The Closed Cabinet," ostensibly by an anonymous author but actually by <b><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/08/lady-gwendolen-cecil-1860-1945.html" target="_blank">Lady Gwendolen Cecil</a></b> and originally in <i>Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine</i>, Vol. CLVII, No. DCCCLI, January 1895. <b>Edwin Baird</b>, the editor of <i>Weird Tales</i>, probably got both stories from <i>Old-Time English Stories</i> (1909), a volume in the series <i>Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories</i>, which I think was also called and/or reprinted as <i>The Lock and Key Library</i>. "The Closed Cabinet" was not named as one of the series, but it might as well have been. All of the others were by male authors.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The next entry in the series was "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by Edgar Allan Poe. It was the cover story for the June 1923 issue of <i>Weird Tales</i> and originally in <i>Graham's Magazine</i> in April 1841. Some people call it the first detective story. Poe called it a tale of ratiocination. It was the first story by Poe to appear in the magazine that was probably named after his posthumous collection from 1895. The cover illustration for that June issue was by <b>William F. Heitman</b>. Unfortunately, it turned out pretty poorly.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Masterpieces of Weird Fiction" number three was "The Damned Thing" by Ambrose Bierce. Bierce's story was first in <i>Town Topics: The Journal of Society</i> on December 7, 1893, and reprinted in <i>Weird Tales</i> in September 1923. It was Bierce's only story in <i>Weird Tales</i>.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>Edgar Allan Poe returned in the October 1923 issue with "The Pit and the Pendulum," first published in </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span><i>The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843</i> (1842). Although it was named as part of the series, "The Pit and the Pendulum" was not numbered. The same held true in November 1923 with the reprinting of Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart." It was originally in the first issue of <b>James Russell Lowell</b>'s magazine <i>The Pioneer</i> in January 1843.</span></span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Masterpieces of Weird Fiction" number five was "The Black Cat," again by Poe and originally in <i>The Saturday Evening Post</i>, August 19, 1843. "The Black Cat" was in <i>Weird Tales</i> in January 1924. Poe's "Never Bet the Devil Your Head" followed in March 1924. It was numbered as the sixth in the series but was actually number seven. The story was originally in <i>Graham's Magazine</i> as "Never Bet Your Head: A Moral Tale," in September 1841.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">As far as I can tell, the next reprint in <i>Weird Tales</i> didn't come along until the issue of July 1925. A new series started then. Called "Weird Story Reprints," it ran for many years and included not just weird tales from the past but also reprints of stories that had originally appeared in <i>Weird Tales </i>itself.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'm not sure that "Masterpieces of Weird Fiction" can be called a feature. I have used the word <i>series</i> instead. Nonetheless, I have included it in "<i>Weird Tales</i> Features" in the list of labels on the right.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>"Masterpieces of Weird Fiction" in <i>Weird Tales</i>, May 1923 to March 1924</b>:</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">No. 1--<span style="text-align: justify;">"</span><span><span>The Haunted and the Haunters; or The House and the Brain" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/10/weird-tales-from-victorian-age.html" target="_blank">Edward Bulwer-Lytton</a> (May 1923)</span></span></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span><span style="font-family: georgia;">No. 2--"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/07/edgar-allan-poe-1809-1849.html" target="_blank">Edgar Allan Poe</a> (June 1923)</span></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">No. 3--"The Damned Thing" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/10/ambrose-bierce-1842-part-1.html" target="_blank">Ambrose Bierce</a> (Sept. 1923)</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[No. 4]--"The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe (Oct. 1923)</span></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">[No. 5]--"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe (Nov. 1923)</span></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">No. 5 [actual No. 6]--"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe (Jan. 1924)</span></span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">No. 6 [actual No. 7]--"Never Bet the Devil Your Head" by Edgar Allan Poe (Mar. 1924)</span></span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnmSUI7h-MNwyGzMakb89NVNlYaIHF1bWzGTJzijvIGXgTTh4RvbFcqoTrKQBf58cF6uxrEqaHanHiIP8evwSMJcqhPE-nvp3FrxASeFVqEVWFsxuZvHQtkFcCGNBtj1DjoPOG8yD9h8MXh-OrVtwO3K9-tnX2O-3Q74_1IIZvjTlsWSVRjdJuF91k2iPV/s598/The%20Haunters%20and%20the%20Haunted-1963.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="598" data-original-width="374" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnmSUI7h-MNwyGzMakb89NVNlYaIHF1bWzGTJzijvIGXgTTh4RvbFcqoTrKQBf58cF6uxrEqaHanHiIP8evwSMJcqhPE-nvp3FrxASeFVqEVWFsxuZvHQtkFcCGNBtj1DjoPOG8yD9h8MXh-OrVtwO3K9-tnX2O-3Q74_1IIZvjTlsWSVRjdJuF91k2iPV/s16000/The%20Haunters%20and%20the%20Haunted-1963.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"The Haunted and the Haunters" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton was in <i>The Haunters and the Haunted and Other Ghost Stories</i>, published by Corgi books in 1963. The artwork on the cover is signed, but this image is too poor for the signature to be legible. Can someone help?</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></span></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-8058028904620762552023-11-10T06:00:00.101-05:002023-11-10T08:09:19.820-05:00Weird Crimes by Seabury Quinn<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">You could say that in its first two years in print, <i>Weird Tales</i> was actually three magazines overseen by three different editors: <b>Edwin Baird</b> from March 1923 to April 1924; an uncredited <b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b> for just one issue, May/June/July 1924; and <b>Farnsworth Wright</b> from November 1924 onward. (There weren't any issues in August through October 1924.) <b>Seabury Quinn</b> had the second feature to appear in <i>Weird Tales</i>, not counting "The Eyrie," the regular letters column. That feature, called "Weird Crimes," was in all three versions of <i>Weird Tales</i> and was published under all three editors.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Seabury Quinn (1889-1969) wrote more stories than anyone in <i>Weird Tales</i>. He also wrote fourteen non-fiction articles for the magazine. Half of those were in the series "Weird Crimes." The entries in this series are partly documentary and partly dramatic. You might describe them as historical reenactments, like what you would see today on TV.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The subjects of "Weird Crimes" are mostly serial killers, before <i>serial killer</i> was a term. That makes me wonder whether Quinn was the first author in <i>Weird Tales</i> to write about the serial killer. There is also necrophilia in the seventh and last installment of "Weird Crimes," but by the time it was published in November 1924, that very lurid and sensationalistic subject had already been treated in the magazine, in <b>C.M. Eddy</b>'s short story "The Loved Dead," in May/June/July 1924.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The sixth installment of "Weird Crimes" is called "The Werewolf of St. Bonnot." I believe that was the first use of the word <i>werewolf</i> in the title of a story or article in <i>Weird Tales</i>. The subject is a serial killer, not an actual werewolf, but I wonder whether Quinn introduced the concept of the werewolf into <i>Weird Tales</i> as well. (Historically, serial killers were often called werewolves or vampires, before the term <i>serial killer</i> was coined.)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Quinn was already in his early thirties when "Weird Crimes" appeared. His career writing stories for popular magazines had begun in 1918 with two entries in <i>Detective Story Magazine</i>. But even by 1923, he had had only five published stories to his credit, this according to the list in <i>The</i> <i>FictionMags Index</i>. Writing "Weird Crimes" must have been a good exercise for him.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Like <b>H.P. Lovecraft</b> (1890-1937), Seabury Quinn seems to have been waiting for a magazine like <i>Weird Tales</i> to come along. He had his first story in the magazine in October 1923, the same issue in which "Weird Crimes" made its debut. Entitled "The Phantom Farmhouse," it proved popular and enduring and was even adapted to a second-season episode of <i>Rod Serling's Night Gallery</i> in 1971-1972. October 1923, one hundred years past, must have been a good month for Quinn in his budding career as a published author.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>"Weird Crimes" by Seabury Quinn, <i>Weird Tales</i>, October 1923 through November 1924</b>:</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"No. 1--Bluebeard" (Oct. 1923)--In the first installment of "Weird Crimes," Quinn wrote of <b>Gilles de Laval</b> (ca. 1405-1440), who is supposed by some to have been the inspiration for the fairy tale character Bluebeard. Quinn's account runs to nearly six pages in the magazine and closes with a note associating Gilles de Laval with <b>Jack the Ripper</b> as victims of "that form of insanity known to modern scientists as algolagnia."</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"No. 2 The Grave Robbers" (Nov. 1923)--The second installment of "Weird Crimes" is a little less than two pages long. Its subjects are <b>Benjamin Shermerkey</b> of Chicago; <b>Samuel Deutsch</b> of New York; and <b>Samuel F. Ware</b> of Atlanta. I did a quick search for these names in newspapers and came up empty on all counts.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"No. 3 The Magic Mirror Murders" (Jan. 1924)--<b>Andrew Bichel</b> (ca. 1760-1809), an nineteenth-century Bavarian killer, is the subject of the third installment, which runs to a little more than four pages. The title refers to a crystal ball or looking glass that Bichel used to entice his victims. </span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"No. 4 Swiatek, the Beggar" (Feb. 1924)--The subject of the fourth installment of "Weird Crimes" is referred to only by the name <b>Swiatek</b>. Like Andrew Bichel, he was a serial killer, also of the nineteenth century, in his case in Galicia. His story fills almost three pages.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"No. 5 Mary Blandy" (Apr. 1924)--<b>Mary Blandy </b>(1720-1752) knowingly or unknowingly poisoned her father, and for that she was hanged on Easter Monday, April 6, 1752. Seabury Quinn told her story in four pages and more of the April 1924 issue of <i>Weird Tales</i>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"No. 6 The Werewolf of St. Bonnot" (May/June/July 1924)--The sixth installment of "Weird Crimes" appeared in the jumbo-sized triple issue of May/June/July 1924. Its subject is <b>Gilles Garnier</b> (d. 1573), another serial killer, whom Quinn categorized yet again as "a victim," in this case of zoomania, or loupomania. It looks as though Seabury Quinn took a scientific view of murder and psychopathy. The explanation seems to be that serial killers are not responsible for their actions, as they are afflicted with mental illness. Quinn's account runs to three pages, plus his closing note.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"No. 7 The Human Hyena" (Nov. 1924)--The November 1924 issue, the first after a hiatus of half a year, was also a jumbo-sized issue. It ran to 194 pages in all. "The Human Hyena" was the last installment of "Weird Crimes." I suspect it had been ready for publication earlier in the year and was simply held over during the months that <i>Weird Tales</i> was not in print. The case of the Human Hyena--<b>François Bertrand</b> (1823-1878)--was one of the most sensationalistic in the series. In 1924, Quinn could not have gone into detail very much regarding Bertrand's crimes. Suffice it to say, the term <i>necrophilia</i> was coined because of what Bertrand had done in the cemeteries of Paris. I wonder if Bertrand's story could have been an influence on C.M. Eddy in his writing of "The Loved Dead."</span></li></ul><p></p><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSdSKadNZm2e1JHN1hMGN5atv9gD4mN3WbLv2KsCMvxGiqvXgXErbh_2rWBocq18bMuH9jDskyfcniB-eUDh7VebvY1Ptq9HgSXv3adA2L-WS6Z1ObEzo3ajFFTsxD08KHdCF3MEEDPyGc2e4K7ahNRQXW4GSf0ThsWUrw7_3Kiph9Jd5KXQTtN6KnfeKs/s1063/Francois%20Bertrand-De%CC%81tective%20Magazine.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSdSKadNZm2e1JHN1hMGN5atv9gD4mN3WbLv2KsCMvxGiqvXgXErbh_2rWBocq18bMuH9jDskyfcniB-eUDh7VebvY1Ptq9HgSXv3adA2L-WS6Z1ObEzo3ajFFTsxD08KHdCF3MEEDPyGc2e4K7ahNRQXW4GSf0ThsWUrw7_3Kiph9Jd5KXQTtN6KnfeKs/w482-h640/Francois%20Bertrand-De%CC%81tective%20Magazine.png" width="482" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">An illustration of François Bertrand reproduced in the French magazine <i>Détective</i>, Number 410 (Sept. 3, 1936). I swiped this image from <i>Wikipedia</i>, who swiped it from somebody else. Here's the caption as it appears in <i>Wikipedia</i>:<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><i>Le Vampire</i>, gravure extraite des <i>Mémoires de M. Claude, chef de la police de sûreté sous le second Empire</i> (Paris, Jules Rouff, vers 1880) et reproduite dans la revue <i>Détective</i>, n° 410 (3 septembre 1936).</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></div>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-23548489198978874302023-11-07T09:10:00.003-05:002023-11-07T11:09:32.343-05:00"The Eyrie," November 1923<p></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;">There are nineteen letters in <i>Weird Tales</i> for November 1923. It looks like the magazine was gaining pretty rapidly in popularity as 1923 went on. Beyond that, there were some very enthusiastic readers and fans aborning, people who praised and admired <i>Weird Tales</i>, passed issues around to their friends, looked for it on the newsstand every month, and began collecting and keeping issues instead of discarding them. (How many popular magazines went into the trash bin or incinerator in those days!)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of the first <i>Weird Tales</i> controversies began in November 1924 when the editor, <b>Edwin Baird</b>, printed a letter by <b>Mrs. D.M. Manzer</b>, also known as <b>Isa-belle Manzer</b>, of Amarillo, Texas. The letter is practically illiterate. I can't imagine what the original manuscript would have looked like. Baird asked readers if he should publish the story based on Mrs. Manzer's letter and his brief description of her story. Evidently they said yes, for "The Transparent Ghost" was published as a three-part serial in February, March, and April 1924.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The writers of letters to "The Eyrie," November 1923:</div></span><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/04/isa-belle-manzer-1872-or-1873-1944.html" target="_blank"><b>Mrs. D. M. Manzer</b> (1872 or 1873-1944)</a>, aka <b>Isa-belle Manzer</b>, of Amarillo, Texas, who wrote a kind of cover letter for her story submission, "The Transparent Ghost."</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">Eighteen-year-old <b>Homer O(ldham) Peterson</b> (b. June 12, 1905, Valparaiso, Indiana; d. Dec. 18, 1978, New Castle, Indiana) of Delaware, Ohio, who commented on several stories in previous issues. Peterson went on to become a high school teacher in Ohio and Indiana. He taught English, French, and journalism and was also a champion chess player.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">Twenty-year-old <b>Cecil John Eustace</b> (b. June 5, 1903, Walton-on-Thames, England; d. 1992) of the Bank of Montreal, St. Catherines, Ontario, who remarked that the August issue of <i>Weird Tales</i> was the first that he had seen in Canada. He was a recent arrival in Canada, having immigrated in August 1922 from his native England. Eustace was a writer of short stories and novels for popular and pulp magazines, including "Ten Days to Live" in <i>Amazing Stories Quarterly</i>, Summer 1928. Later he was an editor at J.M. Dent and Sons in Canada, retiring in 1967. He wrote a dozen books, some of which are novels, others non-fiction. He also collaborated with his daughter, <b>(Elizabeth) Mary Eustace</b>, on a musical. Cecil John Eustace was a Catholic author by the way.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/10/austin-hall-1880-1933_20.html" target="_blank"><b>Austin Hall</b> (1880-1933)</a>, author of the recently published serial "The People of the Comet."</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Charles G(ilbert) Kidney</b> (1892-1945) of Cleveland, Ohio, who greatly admired Hall's story. Born in Chicago and having died in Ohio, Kidney was buried in the in-between state of Indiana.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Sidney E. Johnson</b> of Joplin, Missouri, who predicted that "the fiction center of the United States is going to shift from New York to Chicago." Presumably this was <b>Sidney Evans Johnson</b> (1882-1963). Johnson was like <b>Johnny Appleseed</b>: in his letter he wrote that he scattered copies of the magazine in an effort to grow more readers. Johnson had a second letter in <i>Weird Tales</i> in March 1925.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Mrs. Elizabeth Purington</b> (dates uncertain--believe it or not, there were and are several Elizabeth Puringtons in America) of Santa Ana, California, who wrote about a dream she had had.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/05/joseph-faus-1898-1966-first.html" target="_blank"><b>Joseph Faus</b> (1898-1966)</a> of Miami, Florida, who, with <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/05/james-bennett-wooding-1897-1954-first.html" target="_blank"><b>James Bennett Wooding</b> (1897-1954)</a>, had had a story called "The Extraordinary Experiment of Dr. Calgroni" in the March 1923 issue of <i>Weird Tales</i>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">World War I veteran <b>Ralph S. Happel</b> (1892-1963) of Albany, New York.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Thomas J. Harris</b> (dates unknown) of Brooklyn, New York.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/05/walter-f-mccanless-1876-1965.html" target="_blank"><b>Walter F. McCanless</b> (1876-1965)</a> of Wadesboro, North Carolina. He had a story, "The Phantom Violinist," in the same issue and would have two more letters in "The Eyrie" in 1924.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Godfrey Lampert</b> (1898-1968) of Jasper, Indiana, who wrote a letter full of questions. Lampert was an artist, druggist, and city councilman in Jasper, a city known as a maker of office furniture.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Lee Andrews</b> (1902-1977) of Indianapolis, Indiana.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Mrs. F. Wickman</b> (1885-1942) of Duluth, Minnesota. Mrs. Wickman, aka <b>Rosella (Cole) Wickman</b>, really liked "The Gorilla" by <b>Horatio V. Ellis</b>, as well she should have, for the author, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/11/horatio-v-ellis-1895-1945.html" target="_blank"><b>Horatio Vernon Ellis</b> (1895-1945)</a>, was her son. And so we have an answer to the question of "Who was . . ?" so commonly encountered when it comes to tellers of weird tales. </span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">Thirteen-year-old <b>Ralph Fingle</b> (dates unknown; his name may have been misspelled in print) of Long Beach, California, who took a quarter from "a very nearly empty bank" so that he could buy a copy of <i>Weird Tales</i> and read "The People of the Comet."</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Mrs. Thomas Earl Davison</b> (dates unknown) of Chicago, Illinois, who commented on stories from way back in the first issue. She thought of "The Basket" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/01/herbert-j-mangham-1896-1967.html" target="_blank"><b>Herbert J. Mangham</b> (1896-1967)</a> as "rotten." Believing she could do better, she submitted a story with her letter. I assume that her story is lost forever.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Edith Lyle Ragsdale</b> (ca. 1878-?) of Centralia, Illinois, who liked weird stories and went on to write three of her own published in <i>Weird Tales</i> in 1924-1926.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>E. B.</b> (dates unknown) of West Point, Maine.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Gertrude (Carey) Strauss</b> (1866-1929) of Puyallup, Washington, an artist and poet.</span></li></ul><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Writers of letters were real people who lived real lives. They were not just ghosts with addresses. Maybe we forget that. Isa-belle Manzer notwithstanding, many of the readers of <i>Weird Tales</i> read and wrote at a high level, evidence that pulp magazines were not necessarily trash. And of course many of those readers knew what is weird fiction or a weird tale, and they sought out that genre. Many also liked what they called "the scientific story," or what we would call science fiction, or at least science fantasy. There wasn't yet a name for that type a story--<i>science fiction</i> as a term did not appear in print until 1929--but they sought out that type of story, too, and asked for more.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have read only a few of the stories published in <i>Weird Tales</i> in 1923, but I sense that in a brief eight months, from March to November of that first year, their average quality improved, while authors were reaching towards just what makes weird fiction, science fiction, and science fantasy. And of course in that first year, <b>H.P. Lovecraft</b>, <b>Clark Ashton Smith</b>, <b>Seabury Quinn</b>, <b>Otis Adelbert Kline</b>, <b>Frank Owen</b>, <b>Anthony M. Rud</b>, and other returning authors made their debut in the magazine. <i>Weird Tales</i> could have died in its first year or two. But there were enough people who believed in it and wanted it to go on--readers included--that it was able to survive. And again, here we are one hundred years later and able to hold in our hands a newly printed issue of "The Unique Magazine," the magazine that never dies.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhssGJlUXAbt-sJ-0-F5oLDkHOj5V17ugae-JxFA3zXssrQTq4RfI-FTT1wzxgfwonPbkwRrgHUcCf_thAfL0UjfiWsXrwBJO589SREyjNrACURzMhRFrMGurPxOV23z1bFBC8FDGIvFzgpvGAcCioZYvYSpA0q_vFZYLzK9X8Njj0X_2REPrd-dAYIB9NE/s2121/Peterson,%20Homer%20O.-Photograph,%201958.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1379" data-original-width="2121" height="390" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhssGJlUXAbt-sJ-0-F5oLDkHOj5V17ugae-JxFA3zXssrQTq4RfI-FTT1wzxgfwonPbkwRrgHUcCf_thAfL0UjfiWsXrwBJO589SREyjNrACURzMhRFrMGurPxOV23z1bFBC8FDGIvFzgpvGAcCioZYvYSpA0q_vFZYLzK9X8Njj0X_2REPrd-dAYIB9NE/w600-h390/Peterson,%20Homer%20O.-Photograph,%201958.png" width="600" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Homer O. Peterson (1905-1978), far right, in a photograph from the <i>Indianapolis Star Magazine</i>, November 9, 1958, whole page number 153.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFK2nL5H9q6HHQqquuu0HwjaOPf2zz3lbTZ6BiUr25KRVQHg8u3XPIpCgclvUPSeDNx5FYLeKrdI6wvlVlZac4_ZZpBmLV7ltW0oTfPfada8L7bnR-IW_F2_XnXWGGdA31TxBa3HVfqZRj7WckkeLAPA7fVjGR-N_uaiECStKLZIv-XUQbaKT7CSLdKGJI/s1455/Eustace,%20Cecil%20J.-Photograph,%201929.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1455" data-original-width="848" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFK2nL5H9q6HHQqquuu0HwjaOPf2zz3lbTZ6BiUr25KRVQHg8u3XPIpCgclvUPSeDNx5FYLeKrdI6wvlVlZac4_ZZpBmLV7ltW0oTfPfada8L7bnR-IW_F2_XnXWGGdA31TxBa3HVfqZRj7WckkeLAPA7fVjGR-N_uaiECStKLZIv-XUQbaKT7CSLdKGJI/w234-h400/Eustace,%20Cecil%20J.-Photograph,%201929.png" width="234" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cecil John Eustace (1903-1992), from an article called "New Novel Written as Short Stories" in the <i>Toronto Star</i>, March 9, 1929, page 32.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1n3xHB-sHPSE3DhaMQIWYLU2fTPSEaTlfYGobShY2KLEtfR8NFTSmNVDvrJC4OX6eFo69PcfBxshyBXbGDEbq57Gwr7eb9DCBNOcpDaPykRGKuASbGfrcpZcY1hK3LPJifKVcA1wq-CfzNxTQEwJF65vlvFFnwpWZTSMKWVvtc6PehA4fGGgsqY1kRZYB/s2328/Estace,%20Cecil,%20&%20Daughter-Photograph,%201974.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2328" data-original-width="1444" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1n3xHB-sHPSE3DhaMQIWYLU2fTPSEaTlfYGobShY2KLEtfR8NFTSmNVDvrJC4OX6eFo69PcfBxshyBXbGDEbq57Gwr7eb9DCBNOcpDaPykRGKuASbGfrcpZcY1hK3LPJifKVcA1wq-CfzNxTQEwJF65vlvFFnwpWZTSMKWVvtc6PehA4fGGgsqY1kRZYB/w396-h640/Estace,%20Cecil,%20&%20Daughter-Photograph,%201974.png" width="396" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Forty-five years later, Cecil Eustace with his daughter Mary in the same newspaper, the <i>Toronto Star</i>, November 23, 1974, whole page number 119. Photograph by <b>Dick Darrell</b>.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS74EIsLEDtmgCOdGzPFtYy5rZkFMwJCU84S1mFn885a2RBO0VVtKf3rlxh8wbqoExocEfKNkUs-WgOw85Qfl1VtTJzhjYKdCNOk0EyukmUVPEfi646UFxdy9HV0AduCoTiAkFAd0cZPYayEzKh1GB6bTK5xFFoBSTCQfm1eDXxCAX7c8OYoTx-iq3-DKs/s1894/Lampert,%20Godfrey-Photograph,%201955.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1439" data-original-width="1894" height="459" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS74EIsLEDtmgCOdGzPFtYy5rZkFMwJCU84S1mFn885a2RBO0VVtKf3rlxh8wbqoExocEfKNkUs-WgOw85Qfl1VtTJzhjYKdCNOk0EyukmUVPEfi646UFxdy9HV0AduCoTiAkFAd0cZPYayEzKh1GB6bTK5xFFoBSTCQfm1eDXxCAX7c8OYoTx-iq3-DKs/w604-h459/Lampert,%20Godfrey-Photograph,%201955.png" width="604" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Godfrey Lampert (1898-1968), third from the left (in the dark suit), from the Jasper, Indiana, <i>Herald</i>, December 31, 1955, page 1.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="text-align: left;">Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></div></span>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-85725636999898358812023-11-05T09:30:00.001-05:002023-11-05T13:30:47.650-05:00Sunday Swipes No. 4<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Not long ago, I found a series of European comic books called <i>Chica</i>. In an issue called <i>Chica: A Horse Angel Special</i>, from 2007, I saw a sequence that looked familiar:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEE1OEMnRx8UudLr29m9O4DbEo64vGV9ZSyEbkHMtUbe1T54l4FV4wXxfnQO4ruHH7cCJf_A0qO5lblHO1lOos1i1wcTPnTlYBBphOHXQleZ5VAc08UU8Bwp39gFBao2yF-gwSnRNTjsaK6TU1_bRn43gMxxjYusjp2Ybf6LQBsn-oN-X6f9gm3Xz0LZC6/s2924/Chica-Horse%20Is%20Saved.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2924" data-original-width="2116" height="701" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEE1OEMnRx8UudLr29m9O4DbEo64vGV9ZSyEbkHMtUbe1T54l4FV4wXxfnQO4ruHH7cCJf_A0qO5lblHO1lOos1i1wcTPnTlYBBphOHXQleZ5VAc08UU8Bwp39gFBao2yF-gwSnRNTjsaK6TU1_bRn43gMxxjYusjp2Ybf6LQBsn-oN-X6f9gm3Xz0LZC6/w508-h701/Chica-Horse%20Is%20Saved.png" width="508" /></a></div><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I can't fairly call it a swipe, but the sequence shown above is very similar to the one shown below, by <b>Frank Frazetta</b>:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX6Lk447UswN_xqRitetX9Vb2HrEJ1NbjVGPfZHY7Ycq-UXnSElVHS702XEPkUTQ5r6EJchiNgwt_PvwEaZnBuV_IYFtZcfh1IswD2aAQIMWmLfiI64wO5uVXcazRoc6GVOuM4S_n4ZWOIhTDhlw16AsoUb5zHkSisvesWllWjdH6tpZawHIfvPdbYIRFQ/s2859/Frazetta,%20Frank-Cindy%20Is%20Saved-p.%202.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2859" data-original-width="1972" height="738" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX6Lk447UswN_xqRitetX9Vb2HrEJ1NbjVGPfZHY7Ycq-UXnSElVHS702XEPkUTQ5r6EJchiNgwt_PvwEaZnBuV_IYFtZcfh1IswD2aAQIMWmLfiI64wO5uVXcazRoc6GVOuM4S_n4ZWOIhTDhlw16AsoUb5zHkSisvesWllWjdH6tpZawHIfvPdbYIRFQ/w510-h738/Frazetta,%20Frank-Cindy%20Is%20Saved-p.%202.png" width="510" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><p style="text-align: justify;">I have scanned this image from <i>The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta</i>, published by Bantam Books in 1975. That first Frazetta book is justly famous and well sought after. The uncredited artist on <i>Chica</i> may never have seen it, but it's pretty conceivable that he or she would have seen it and to have been inspired by it.</p></span><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></p><p></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-59646119386860368872023-11-01T08:45:00.001-04:002023-11-01T08:47:58.816-04:00Weird Tales, November 1923<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are seventeen stories in the November 1923 issue of <i>Weird Tales</i>, plus "The Eyrie," the second installment of the feature "Weird Crimes" by <b>Seabury Quinn</b>, and eleven uncredited non-fiction fillers. The cover art was by the as yet unidentified artist <b>Washburn</b>, his or her only cover for "The Unique Magazine." Once again, all of the interior art was by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/04/william-f-heitman-ca-1879-1945.html" target="_blank"><b>William F. Heitman</b> (1878-1945)</a>.</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Draconda," part one of a six-part serial by <b>John Martin Leahy</b> (1886-1967), an artist and writer of Washington State. "Draconda" would prove to be one of the longest serials to appear in<i> Weird Tales</i>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Crawling Death" by <b>P. A. Connolly</b> (dates unknown), according to <i>The FictionMags Index</i>, a revised version of "Crawling Hands," originally in <i>The Thrill Book</i>, May 15 and June 1, 1919.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"A Heroine of the Black Hole," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Closed Room" by <b>Maebelle McCalment </b>(ca. 1878-1950) of Missouri.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Phantom Violinist" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/05/walter-f-mccanless-1876-1965.html" target="_blank"><b>Walter F. McCanless</b> (1876-1965)</a> of North Carolina.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Girl, Gypsy All Her Life, Turns from Wilds," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span>"Gas Bombs to Check Forest Fires," </span>non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Lucifer" by <b>John D. Swain</b> (1870-1952), a native New Englander.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Wife Slayer Drives All Night with Body in Auto," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Spider" by <b>Arthur Edwards Chapman</b> (1898-?).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton," part two of a two-part serial by <b>Effie W. Fifield</b> (1857-1937) of Minnesota.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Iron Room" by Irish-Welsh-British author <b>Francis D. Grierson</b> (1888-1972), starring his series character Paul Pry, a London-based detective.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"World-Famed 'Blue Man' Dies," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author. The "blue man" of the title was <b>Fred Walters</b>, who was said to have worked in a silver mine in Australia. If he was poisoned with silver, then he had something in common with <b>Evangeline Walton</b> (1907-1996), a later teller of weird tales.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Prisoners of the Dead" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/07/weird-tales-april-1923-part-two.html" target="_blank"><b>J. Paul Suter</b> (1884-1970)</a>. It was Suter's third story for <i>Weird Tales</i>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Death Pit" by<b> <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/04/two-belgian-authors.html" target="_blank">Oscar Schisgall </a></b><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2016/04/two-belgian-authors.html" target="_blank">(1901-1984)</a>, a foreign-born author then probably living in New York City.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Wax Image," called "A Weird Chinese Story" and written by <b>Burton Harcourt</b> (dates unknown).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"'Devil's Grip' Spreading," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Poisoned" by <b>Farnsworth Wright</b> (1888-1940), his fifth and last story published under his own name in <i>Weird Tales</i>. Wright became editor of the magazine a year later, beginning with the November 1924 issue.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"New Mecca for Divorce Hunters," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"British Missionaries Slain by Chinese Bandits," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Magic Mirror" by <b>Mary S. Brown</b> (dates unknown).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Invisible Monster" by <b>Sonia H. Greene</b> (1883-1972) and an uncredited <b>H. P. Lovecraft</b> (1890-1937). The two had met in 1921. Four months after the publication of their short-story collaboration, on March 3, 1924, they were married in Manhattan.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Pebble Prophecy," a Halloween story by <b>Valens Lapsley</b> (dates unknown). I suspect that Valens Lapsley was a pseudonym. If I look for meaning, I see that <b>Valens</b> was the name of a Roman emperor. The word <i>valens</i> is from the Latin, meaning "strength" or "to be strong." In Spanish, <i>valen</i> means "to have value." If I look for the surname Lapsley, I find a woman named <b>Mary Lapsley Caughey</b> (1899-1964), who was a scholar, poet, teacher, translator, and novelist from Pennsylvania. Her two early short works, "Theocritus" and "The Priest and Pan," are on classical themes and subjects. After attending Sewickley Preparatory School, Vassar College, and Bryn Mawr College, she studied Spanish and French at the University of Brussels in the early 1920s. If Valens Lapsley was a pseudonym, then I would look at her as a good candidate as the writer behind the name.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Tell-Tale Heart" by <b>Edgar Allan Poe</b> (1809-1849).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Grave Robbers," the second installment of "Weird Crimes" by <b>Seabury Quinn</b> (1889-1969).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Saved from Fiery Death by Locomotive Bell," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"$600,000 for Study of Spiritualism," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Survivor," "A Five-Minute Tale" by <b>Edwin G. Wood</b> (1864-1934). <b>Edwin Goodenow Wood</b> was the brother of <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/12/theodore-snow-wood-1877.html" target="_blank"><b>Theodore Snow Wood</b> (1877-1940)</a>, who had had a story, "People vs. Bland," in the July/August 1923 issue of <i>Weird Tales</i>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Will Use Tear Gas on Bootleggers," non-fiction filler by an uncredited author.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Eyrie."</span></li></ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That November issue was the last of 1923. In all, there were eight issues of <i>Weird Tales</i> published in its first calendar year, from March to November 1923. The publication schedule would pick up again in January 1924 and run through the triple-issue of May-June-July 1924. Crisis struck then, and <i>Weird Tales</i>, which came close to dying in mid 1924, returned in November and a thirty-year run under the editorship of Farnsworth Wright (from 1924 to 1940) and <b>Dorothy McIlwraith</b> (from 1940 to 1954). And of course <i>Weird Tales</i> is still in print in 2023, its centennial year.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9cBMNlBtFBnsFJ-0yJMMYUvu4xysFojsiargakMkhRujo-3FtD3vGgFC80wWyWW6PwQ7lYuZEn7gMtnZNc-fHkyfuxamBSnH4q1w7ZLzotlltudQTFjNHW_M9-vDbEk3AiNsMeYZUGDQzM-p_DxJNJBxGuluKzQVI0KR28dtvUadcMyN0u29rwspmtL1j/s556/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1923-11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="556" data-original-width="420" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9cBMNlBtFBnsFJ-0yJMMYUvu4xysFojsiargakMkhRujo-3FtD3vGgFC80wWyWW6PwQ7lYuZEn7gMtnZNc-fHkyfuxamBSnH4q1w7ZLzotlltudQTFjNHW_M9-vDbEk3AiNsMeYZUGDQzM-p_DxJNJBxGuluKzQVI0KR28dtvUadcMyN0u29rwspmtL1j/s16000/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1923-11.jpg" /></a></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></div><p></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-27692587043187539262023-10-29T06:00:00.005-04:002023-10-29T06:00:00.147-04:00"The Eyrie," October 1923<p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are only a few letters in the October 1923 issue of </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Weird Tales</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, but some are long. <b>H.P. Lovecraft</b> (1890-1937) wrote again for the second time in two months. There are three excerpts from his long letter in this issue, including his first verse published in <i>Weird Tales</i>. Letter writers were:</span></div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>An Old Fashioned Woman</b> of Hayward, California, a discerning reader with a good memory who noticed the similarity of:</span></li></ul><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Invisible Terror" by <b>Hugh Thomason</b> (dates unknown) in <i>Weird Tales</i>, June 1923, to "The Damned Thing" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/10/ambrose-bierce-1842-part-1.html" target="_blank"><b>Ambrose Bierce</b> (1842-1914?)</a>, which was reprinted in <i>Weird Tales</i> in September 1923;</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Gray Death" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/05/loual-b-sugarman-1894-1965.html" target="_blank"><b>Loual B. Sugarman</b> (1894-1965)</a> in <i>Weird Tales</i>, June 1923, to "The Silver Menace" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/05/before-golden-age-murray-leinster.html" target="_blank"><b>Murray Leinster</b> (1896-1975)</a> in <i>The Thrill Book</i>, September 1 and September 15, 1919; and</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Penelope" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/07/weird-tales-may-1923-part-two.html" target="_blank"><b>Vincent Starrett</b> (1886-1974)</a> in <i>Weird Tales</i>, May 1923, to "Phoebe" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/10/o-henry-1862-1910.html" target="_blank"><b>O. Henry</b> (1862-1910)</a> in <i>Everybody's Magazine</i>, November 1907.</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>J. L.</b> of Jersey City, New Jersey.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2022/12/richard-presley-tooker-1902-1988.html" target="_blank"><b>Richard P. "Dick" Tooker</b> (1902-1988)</a> of Minneapolis, Minnesota, who, like Lovecraft, had his second letter in two months and would have more--plus a short story--in future issues.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Joel Shoemaker</b> (1862-1937) of Seattle, Washington. Called "Reverend," he was an Indian fighter, newspaperman, politician, public speaker, and conservationist. A month after his letter was published, Shoemaker got into a tussle with <b>Morris S. Brown</b>, Seattle's "tallest policeman," who was trying to kidnap Shoemaker's three-year-old grandson, <b><a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/90619474/billings-brown" target="_blank">Billings Brown</a></b>. Shoemaker's daughter, <b>Mrs. Nannie S. Brown</b>, fired a pistol at her ex-husband, while Joel Shoemaker "belabored his victim with an old hickory cane he has carried for 30 or 40 years." Brown should have known better than to mess with an old Kentuckian carrying a hickory cane, or with that old Kentuckian's wife, <b>Luella Billings Shoemaker</b>, who "rushed" the pistol to her daughter, ready for the firing. You can read all about it in "Brown Facing Prison Term" in the <i>Seattle Star</i>, November 28, 1923, page 3.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Lee Torpie</b> of San Francisco, California.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Dr. Henry C. Murphy</b> (1862-1932) of Brooklyn, New York. He was a long-practicing medical doctor whose father was also a medical doctor. In response to his letter, editor <b>Edwin M. Baird</b> wrote:</span></li></ul><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Zilla Slab;">The foregoing was written by Dr. Henry C. Murphy of Brooklyn; and, before we comment upon it, we rise to remark that WEIRD TALES seems to offer a special appeal to physicians and surgeons. They like to read our sort of stories, and they like to write 'em. There is scarcely a day that we don't get at least one weird story written by a doctor. Doctors, it seems, encounter some weird adventures.</span></p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I have written before about medical doctors. Very often, my writing about doctors has gone along with my writing about psychopaths and serial killers. Click on the menu items on the right to read more.</span></p></blockquote><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-first-of-lovecraft.html" target="_blank"><b>H. P. Lovecraft</b> (1890-1937), who wrote a long letter and excerpted two of his own poems therein</a>.</span></li></ul><br /><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxZQIKjsC6Ygxp_8byocx47S6qyz9JefYc_S-rrDiHaMYPcmlsAeHzveOLCRk1fzI_geT-m9RW84J66qgtQGfGMz6ofXtxJcT3Xo6jcc1G1yFbIupLpT9lXmGYm7sKGFFYDR60p3PzRM2RCiNxYKYDEbcCOWHNh88qWoh19TcNiN7LF5ClXTdrKb0JQlkM/s912/Home%20Brew-1923-01.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="912" data-original-width="604" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxZQIKjsC6Ygxp_8byocx47S6qyz9JefYc_S-rrDiHaMYPcmlsAeHzveOLCRk1fzI_geT-m9RW84J66qgtQGfGMz6ofXtxJcT3Xo6jcc1G1yFbIupLpT9lXmGYm7sKGFFYDR60p3PzRM2RCiNxYKYDEbcCOWHNh88qWoh19TcNiN7LF5ClXTdrKb0JQlkM/w424-h640/Home%20Brew-1923-01.png" width="424" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">H.P. Lovecraft started out the year 1923 with the publication of his serialized novelette "The Lurking Fear" in the magazine <i>Home Brew</i>. <i>The Internet Speculative Fiction Database</i> lists nine issues of <i>Home Brew</i>, five published in 1922 and four in 1923. "The Lurking Fear" ran in all four of the issues for 1923, from January through April.<br /><br />I wondered the other day whether "Dagon" was Lovecraft's first illustrated story in</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"> a national magazine. I guess it depends on what you think of as a national magazine, but "The Lurking Fear" in <i>Home Brew</i> was also illustrated, by <b>Clark Ashton Smith</b> of all people.<br /><br /><i>Home Brew</i> was edited and published in New York by <b>George Julian Houtain</b> (1884-1945) and his second wife, <b>Elsie Dorothy (Grant) McLaughlin Houtain</b> (1889-?). They were members of the National Amateur Press Association (NAPA), and she served as the second female president of the organization. I have always thought of <i>Home Brew</i> as an amateur publication and, as such, not a national magazine. On the other hand, "America's Zippiest Pocket Magazine" was available as far west as Cincinnati.</span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br /><br />I have read a reference to <i>Home Brew</i> that it was discontinued in 1924. Lovecraft was published in its pages in 1922-1923. <i>Weird Tales</i> must have come along at just the right time for him. "The Lurking Fear," by the way, was reprinted in <i>Weird Tales</i> in June 1928.<br /><br />Note the blurb on the cover regarding CAS: "the Artist Who Illustrated Edgar Allan Poe."</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large; text-align: justify;"></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></div><p></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-50664259509021907832023-10-26T06:00:00.006-04:002023-10-27T18:22:10.400-04:00Weird Tales, October 1923<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The October 1923 issue of <i>Weird Tales</i> has fourteen stories, three features, and five uncredited non-fiction fillers. The features are "The Eyrie," "The Cauldron," and "Weird Crimes." The cover story is the first part of a two-part serial called "The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton" by <b>Effie W. Fifield</b>. The cover art was by <b>R.M. Mally</b> and all of the interior illustrations by <b>William F. Heitman</b>. Firsts include the first stories in <i>Weird Tales</i> by Seabury Quinn, H.P. Lovecraft, and Frank Owen, also the first installment of the feature "Weird Crimes" by Quinn.</span></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton," part one of a two-part serial by <b>Effie W. Fifield</b> (1857-1937).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Aged Man Kills Wife, Self and 'Other Woman'," uncredited non-fiction filler.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"World Ice to Wipe Out Continents," uncredited non-fiction filler.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Phantom Farmhouse" by <b>Seabury Quinn</b> (1889-1969). This was Quinn's first story in <i>Weird Tales</i>. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/11/who-wrote-most-stories-for-weird-tales.html" target="_blank">He would go on to write more stories and other pieces in <i>Weird Tales</i> than any other author</a>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Sight Without Eyes," uncredited non-fiction filler.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Genoese Riviera Damaged by Waterspout," uncredited non-fiction filler.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Dagon" by <b>H. P. Lovecraft</b> (1890-1937). <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/09/the-first-of-lovecraft.html" target="_blank">I recently wrote about this story, Lovecraft's first in "The Unique Magazine," and wondered whether <b>William F. Heitman</b>'s drawing was the first published illustration of a story by Lovecraft</a>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Man Who Owned the World" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/06/frank-owen-1893-1968.html" target="_blank"><b>Frank Owen</b> (1893-1968)</a>. This was Frank Owen's first story for <i>Weird Tales</i>. The title is of course in the now familiar form of "The Man Who . . .".</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Grey Sleep" by <b>Charles Horn</b> (dates unknown).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The People of the Comet," part two of a two-part serial by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/10/austin-hall-1880-1933_20.html" target="_blank"><b>Austin Hall</b> (1880-1933)</a>, a native Californian.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Sign from Heaven" by <b>A. Havdal</b> (dates unknown).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Inn of Dread" by <b>Arthur Edwards Chapman</b> (1898-?).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Hairy Monster" by <b>Neil C. Miller</b> (1898-1975) of Sioux City, Iowa.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Devil Manor" by <b>E. B. Jordan</b> (dates unknown).</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Case of the Golden Lily" by an Irish-Welsh-English author, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/11/francis-d-grierson-1888-1972.html" target="_blank"><b>Francis D. Grierson</b> (1888-1972)</a>. Known for his mystery, crime, and detective stories, Grierson wrote in "The Case of the Golden Lily" of his series character Paul Pry.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Bluebeard" by Seabury Quinn, the first in a non-fiction series called "Weird Crimes."</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Weird Snake Dance of Hopis May Be Tabooed," uncredited non-fiction filler.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"An Adventure in the Fourth Dimension" by <b>Farnsworth Wright</b> (1888-1940). "An Adventure in the Fourth Dimesnion" is an alien invasion story. It appears to have been influenced by <i>Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions</i> by <b>Edwin Abbott</b> (1884), also by recent developments in Einsteinian physics. Wright's aliens are depicted (see below) as small and with pointed ears, not very much different from the so-called gray aliens of today. That makes me think that gray aliens are really just an iteration of the elves, brownies, and other little people of European folklore. Of course I'm not the first person to think that way. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/08/the-moon-terror-and-other-stories.html" target="_blank">Reprinted in <i>The Moon Terror</i> in 1927</a>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Pit and the Pendulum" by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2012/07/edgar-allan-poe-1809-1849.html" target="_blank"><b>Edgar Allan Poe</b> (1809-1849)</a>. This was the second reprint of a story by Poe in <i>Weird Tales</i>.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"After the Storm" by <b>Sarah Harbine Weaver</b> (1880-1965), a writer of Ohio, New York, and California.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Cauldron," conducted by <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/05/preston-langley-hickey-1900-1962.html" target="_blank"><b>Preston Langley Hickey</b> (1900-1962)</a> in its last installment in the magazine.</span></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Eyrie."</span></li></ul><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYcXlTWYAQuynhGTaw05PbWvi-pkOQ47-egJu98UZ_Z7WTvk_zgTibHVJYfThSXeDT6XIN6wIVbkMTZmPBLd-Wzj0GiHjCPNXQ8nVmli3zCHLMj-JaqiYefxym_le4DJAIHibUJx-7RtgK3wWubtigpU5OHu2sn2I6TYaCadfaIsgfH4dMnf4X6CpTMgND/s2709/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1923-10.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2709" data-original-width="2032" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYcXlTWYAQuynhGTaw05PbWvi-pkOQ47-egJu98UZ_Z7WTvk_zgTibHVJYfThSXeDT6XIN6wIVbkMTZmPBLd-Wzj0GiHjCPNXQ8nVmli3zCHLMj-JaqiYefxym_le4DJAIHibUJx-7RtgK3wWubtigpU5OHu2sn2I6TYaCadfaIsgfH4dMnf4X6CpTMgND/w480-h640/Weird%20Tales%20Cover-1923-10.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>Weird Tales</i>, October 1923, with a cover story, "The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton" by Effie W. Fifield and cover art by R.M. Mally.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL_jUPFr_HfbBCcVjREN-fy-yJPy_jNlKLGz5cMkAhSiAz30QfuoLg4CPY3DL-BPnlbP6Ag-4An4XwMCX5QEvsyBdQeNwiCl_yYVqvNyTlXC25x7h_dBAgS4qQWAdjWdOjSpm-hhCpFnlMDNDa7na90Nq0URwmX_p590SgXe6IJ6l4uGayksv7rsxWQv6J/s565/Heitman,%20William%20F.-Illustration%20for%20An%20Adventure%20in%20the%20Fourth%20Dimension%20by%20Farnsworth%20Wright.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="416" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL_jUPFr_HfbBCcVjREN-fy-yJPy_jNlKLGz5cMkAhSiAz30QfuoLg4CPY3DL-BPnlbP6Ag-4An4XwMCX5QEvsyBdQeNwiCl_yYVqvNyTlXC25x7h_dBAgS4qQWAdjWdOjSpm-hhCpFnlMDNDa7na90Nq0URwmX_p590SgXe6IJ6l4uGayksv7rsxWQv6J/w472-h640/Heitman,%20William%20F.-Illustration%20for%20An%20Adventure%20in%20the%20Fourth%20Dimension%20by%20Farnsworth%20Wright.png" width="472" /></a></div><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div><br /></div><div>Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</div></span></div><p></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-35922362355991491962023-10-20T18:15:00.007-04:002023-12-09T08:18:55.823-05:00Gertrude M. Barrows Bennett (1883-1948)-Part Seven<p><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Photographs & Misconceptions</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There have been misconceptions and inaccurate pieces of information about <b>Gertrude Barrows Bennett</b> for a very long time now. Our use of the Internet was supposed to have taken care of these things. Instead, bad information spreads like wildfire, while the facts lag far behind. Maybe facts--and ultimately truth--are analog rather than digital.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Birth Year</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">I'll start with her birth year. It was 1883, not 1884. The Minnesota state census of 1885 made that clear. </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Wikipedia</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is wrong.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Middle Name</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Next is her middle name. Some people think it was Mabel, and some Myrtle. I used Mabel for a while, but that was based only on what others had written before me. I haven't found any record showing her actual middle name. For all we know, it could have been </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Minnesota</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, the place of her birth.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There is this, though: in looking for Mabel Barrows in Minnesota, I came up empty, except for several articles about an actress and stage director named <b>Mabel Hay Barrows</b> (1873-1931). But in looking for <i>Myrtle</i> Barrows, I found two articles mentioning a girl at just the right age and in just the right place for her to have been our subject:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">In the 1890s and into the early 1900s, the <i>Minneapolis Journal</i> had a feature called "Journal Juniors." The idea, I think, was for young readers to submit their drawings and essays to the newspaper in hopes of winning prizes. On May 16, 1896, the <i>Journal</i> announced the winners of a drawing contest. Young <b>Myrtle Barrows</b> won honorable mention. Her drawing was not shown. We should note here that Gertrude Barrows had wanted to become an artist but was forced to go to work as a stenographer in order to support her mother following the death of her father and her two brothers. On June 5, 1896, "Journal Juniors" listed the winners of an essay contest on "The History of a Patched Garment." Myrtle Barrows of 1005 University avenue SE, a pupil at Marcy school, won third place in that contest. Gertrude Barrows was of course a writer. If she was a writer in adulthood, why not also in childhood? Anyway, later that year, at Christmastime, Gertrude Barrows' brother, <b>Reginald Barrows</b>, shot himself, and so any happy times in the Barrows family may have come to an end, at least for a while.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So was the Myrtle Barrows of that spring season in 1896 simply Gertrude Barrows, then aged twelve, going by her middle name? It all seems to fit, but I can't say for sure. By the way, the band <b>Marcy Playground</b> is named after Marcy school.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Parents' Death Dates</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gertrude Barrows' father, </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Charles A. Barrows</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, died in 1892, not at around the time of World War I. It was her mother, </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Caroline "Carrie" Pierson (Hatch) Barrows</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, who died at that time, on August 10, 1918, to be exact.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>First Husband's Name</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gertrude's first husband was named </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Charles Montgomery Stuart Bennett</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, sometimes </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">C.M. Stuart Bennett</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> or just </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Stuart Bennett</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">. His name was not </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Stewart</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> Bennett. Once again, </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Wikipedia</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> is wrong.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Lovecraft & Merritt</b></span><br /><b style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2018/03/augustus-t-swift-1867-1939.html" target="_blank">Augustus T. Swift</a></b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> was not </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">H.P. Lovecraft</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> writing under a pseudonym. He was actually his own person. People have claimed that Gertrude Barrows, writing under her </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">nom de plume</i><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Francis Stevens</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, was an influence upon both Lovecraft and </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">A. Merritt</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> or that they were admirers of her work. I haven't seen any evidence of that. I wouldn't say that there isn't any evidence. It's just that I haven't seen it. I kind of doubt that anybody has. In his introduction to </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">The Heads of Cerberus</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">, </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Lloyd Arthur Eshbach</b><span style="font-family: georgia;"> wrote: "Gertrude Bennett, by the way, was an admirer of A. Merritt." (Dover, 2014, p. 15.) So maybe the admiration went the other way around, at least at first.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Religion</b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gertrude Barrows Bennett was almost certainly a Christian. There is strong evidence in her work for such a conclusion, especially in "Serapion" and "The Citadel of Fear." </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">That she was a Roman Catholic, as I have speculated, is far less certain. Two of her heroes, </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Terence "Terry" Trenmore in "The Heads of Cerberus" and Colin O'Hara in "The Citadel of Fear," are Irish Catholics. That's about all of the evidence that I have for my speculation. In any case, it's clear that she was not a nihilist. In fact, she made a nihilist, Archer Kennedy, her human villain in "The Citadel of Fear," one of her most powerful and insightful works. Kennedy shouts, "</span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I worship nothing! Do you understand me? Nothing!" If Gertrude Barrows Bennett was a nihilist, why ever would she have made one of her worst villains a person of that idiotic creed? </span></span></p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gertrude's maternal grandparents, <b>Charles Hatch</b> (1808-1850) and <b>Clymene (or Clymena) Rebecca (Pierson) Hatch</b> (1813-1899), came out of the "burned-over district" of central and western New York State during the Second Great Awakening in America. Charles Hatch was an abolitionist. Abolitionism in America was, to be sure, a Christian movement. </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">I don't know anything about the religion of Gertrude Barrows' parents, but the body of her mother, </span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">Caroline</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">, was cremated and interred at what is now Chelten Hills Cemetery in Philadelphia. I take that as evidence that she was not Catholic, but then I never thought that she was. More likely, she and her husband were Protestants, possibly in a mainstream denomination, but then again, maybe not.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Finally, Gertrude Barrows Bennett's only child, <b>Josephine Christy Bennett</b>, later <b>Constance B. "Connie" Wilson Osborne</b> (1910-2001), </span></span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">was a member of Self-Realization Fellowship in California, World Unity-England, and <b>Edgar Cayce</b>'s </span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) of </span><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Virginia Beach, Virginia. I can't say that these are religious institutions, but they are or may be, in one way or another, associated with religious or spiritual belief systems. So maybe there was searching in the Hatch and Barrows and Bennett families, a kind of treasure-hunting that led them from one end of the country to the other. Constance Bennett remained in her native state, Pennsylvania. Gertrude Barrows Bennett, on the other hand, finally made it to California, the Golden State, that land of milk and honey, finally completing the journey that her grandfather had begun fourscore years before her, a journey that came to grief near the banks of a lonely Wyoming river.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">* * *</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are things that are factual and things that are not factual. Nonfactual things can be lies, but they may also be merely inaccurate or incorrect. The Internet is full of nonfactual things. We all saw that for ourselves the other day when American and European media unquestioningly repeated a horrific lie--a kind of blood libel--regarding the murder in Gaza of hundreds of people by a bunch of terrorists, their coreligionists. Even the next day, even when the whole world knew better, National Public Radio (NPR), which is basically a fount of lies, by commission and omission, was calling it a "bombing." There was no bombing. Those poor people were killed by an errant rocket meant to murder Jews. NPR and everyone else who repeated and peddled that lie ought to be ashamed of themselves. But we live in world without shame, embarrassment, remorse, or regret, and so the whole lot of them go blithely on . . . on to the next lie. <i>Gaza</i>, by the way, is from a Hebrew word. Tell us all again who was there first.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">So there is the factual versus the nonfactual. Then there are opinions and interpretations. A person can say (as <i>Wikipedia</i> does) that Gertrude Barrows Bennett "has been credited as having 'the best claim at creating the new genre of dark fantasy'." It's not factual to say that she created so-called "dark fantasy." It's also not nonfactual. It's really just an opinion or an interpretation. I think it's actually a misreading and misinterpretation of her work, but that's my opinion. But I can also say that that specific claim, originally made by <b>Gary Hoppenstand</b>, is internally contradictory, to wit: in his introduction to <i>The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy</i> by Francis Stevens (University of Nebraska Press, 2004), Dr. Hoppenstand wrote:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;">Dark fantasy is nihilistic fiction in its prediction (directly or indirectly) of a terrible end to our world that we inhabit in blissful ignorance. (p. xxiv)</span></blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">If dark fantasy is nihilistic fiction, and Francis Stevens did not write nihilistic fiction, then Francis Stevens did not invent dark fantasy. QED. Beyond that, as I've already pointed out and as everybody ought to know by now, dark fantasy was not named until late in the twentieth century, it has not been adequately defined by anybody, and there isn't any wide acceptance of any particular definition of that term, or even whether there is such a thing. For example, the online <i>Encyclopedia of Science Fiction</i> doesn't even have an entry on this supposed genre or sub-genre or sub-sub-genre of fantasy fiction. Although, in his definition, Dr. Hoppenstand echoed H.P. Lovecraft in "The Call of Cthulhu"--"</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">our world that we inhabit in blissful ignorance"--I would say that it's more likely that he, Gary Hoppenstand, invented dark fantasy, and not anybody else, least of all Francis Stevens. He, after all, has defined it and described it. It's his genre. Or sub-genre. Or sub-sub-genre. We should note that Dr. Hoppenstand dedicated his book to <b>Karl Edward Wagner</b>, one of the namers and I guess practitioners of what is called "dark fantasy." Wagner was a nihilist. The other namer of dark fantasy, <b>Robert M. Price</b>, is an atheist. I don't know where Dr. Hoppenstand stands.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Anyway, all of this looks to me like an exercise in resume-building, with the resume-builder trying to get all of the rest of us to go along with his own interpretations. On top of that, I would call it a pretty bad misreading and misinterpretation of Francis Stevens' fiction, misreading or misinterpretation being perhaps the first sin of the literary critic. And I would say that Dr. Hoppenstand's introduction as published should never have gotten by his editor, so the University of Nebraska Press is also at fault. I suspect that his introduction was never peer-reviewed, as papers are in the sciences. (Even the sciences are a wreck these days.) But I guess that if you're a professor in the liberal arts, your expectation is that you can put out anything you want and people will go for it because, being an academic, you're "an expert" in your field.* Or at least the people at <i>Wikipedia</i> will go for it. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">But at least Dr. Hoppenstand did the good work of assembling Francis Steven's stories and at least the University of Nebraska Press issued them in an affordable edition. We should be thankful to both of them for that.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">-----</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">*As people say, full disclosure: I'm a graduate in the liberal arts, too.</span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">* * *</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The nonfactual claims about Francis Stevens keep rolling in. There are more regarding her photographic image, if there actually is one in existence:</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiksInFwZl9cDvuWlgBE91FtrldXi5Z5QCctTQMnAHL1zeOKd0XV1roaaLOzgpGmZs7SABQrRSTAHRJnsah6dVypaHwlkkZihm5LXKjPThCyXNTEXrNtMuBGaunjinrsxSs_QCTmV5wj8uwsJWDlH-1RX8xqEJo17iZ8kUJaPCwEilJtePUWbzsWb_NWWU-/s582/Hancock,%20Joy%20Bright-Photograph.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="582" data-original-width="350" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiksInFwZl9cDvuWlgBE91FtrldXi5Z5QCctTQMnAHL1zeOKd0XV1roaaLOzgpGmZs7SABQrRSTAHRJnsah6dVypaHwlkkZihm5LXKjPThCyXNTEXrNtMuBGaunjinrsxSs_QCTmV5wj8uwsJWDlH-1RX8xqEJo17iZ8kUJaPCwEilJtePUWbzsWb_NWWU-/s16000/Hancock,%20Joy%20Bright-Photograph.png" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This is NOT Gertrude Barrows Bennett. This is actually a photograph of <b>Joy Bright Hancock</b> (1898-1986), taken in February 1918, coincidentally in the same year that Gertrude's story "Friend Island" was published in <i>The Argosy</i>. Joy Bright Hancock attended school in Philadelphia. During World War I, she enlisted in the U.S. Navy as a Yeoman (F), (F) for female. This picture has appeared on the Internet in association with "Friend Island," I guess because it shows a woman in the navy.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAWPaIaMmU29zV9SenIZjhuFwfTh9gN9MW4uGpE9FEmQzfDS8gD6fS6AN7u65lZiyEn4WhbCQK4U3_jtLVizMc4ftD4PLUZ4HfPy4Qg5y5l_pMqIySt5Pflya7LcEim8lJaLtRBnMSvQQh6jnSM24MsO8BCVqQvkbEQOm9zOClqCXK_DpB_imHtdojCNbg/s893/Bennett,%20Gertrude-Actress-Publicity%20Photo-Altered.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="893" data-original-width="605" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAWPaIaMmU29zV9SenIZjhuFwfTh9gN9MW4uGpE9FEmQzfDS8gD6fS6AN7u65lZiyEn4WhbCQK4U3_jtLVizMc4ftD4PLUZ4HfPy4Qg5y5l_pMqIySt5Pflya7LcEim8lJaLtRBnMSvQQh6jnSM24MsO8BCVqQvkbEQOm9zOClqCXK_DpB_imHtdojCNbg/w434-h640/Bennett,%20Gertrude-Actress-Publicity%20Photo-Altered.png" width="434" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">This is NOT Gertrude Barrows Bennett. Instead it's a picture of the American movie actress <b>Gertrude Bennett</b> (1899-1985). A different picture of her appears on the front cover of a "book" published in 2020. The subtitle of that book repeats the misconception that Francis Stevens invented "dark fantasy." I have altered this image from the original that I found on the Internet.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP_68WFo7IY_MKpLLZ_VDbXy9_6BkRFZE7F7DHh1NCjet57NKnYDLXobtNNfnup8MKpGW2s-mvf2iygNlcJarG0U_lBz-2u2cwl334i5qkGUy-5Mnwxe-Ady9r_NBl3C95TEmt_x_PtMMnEtAkycjUcXVuK0vDUmnn8nf8aGPUH2k3j_RcS82QXq8fAUVP/s955/Bennett,%20Gertrude-Actress-Cigarette%20Card.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><img border="0" data-original-height="955" data-original-width="634" height="473" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgP_68WFo7IY_MKpLLZ_VDbXy9_6BkRFZE7F7DHh1NCjet57NKnYDLXobtNNfnup8MKpGW2s-mvf2iygNlcJarG0U_lBz-2u2cwl334i5qkGUy-5Mnwxe-Ady9r_NBl3C95TEmt_x_PtMMnEtAkycjUcXVuK0vDUmnn8nf8aGPUH2k3j_RcS82QXq8fAUVP/w315-h473/Bennett,%20Gertrude-Actress-Cigarette%20Card.png" width="315" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Here's another image of the actress Gertrude Bennett, this one on a cigarette card.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgd_OOBJwL_w1FVn5gkbxqcbsTHMrCw9QrsKmwIReoXEuO1lIvtU8-4bnv0jBGrWh1Fs1g-ePKQaZSLNBI2dKfxd1YfCJrkG2Af4sgv0UWCHvZT49v9IW7Hpb35NAZqRHN4PZ1TeoBsJxB6kCQMSYgG9wavqKic6SxN-AhDZ7eqvBlf6HGZ3x1AQek9K2p/s210/Bennett,%20Gertrude%20Barrows%3F-Photograph%201.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="210" data-original-width="150" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgd_OOBJwL_w1FVn5gkbxqcbsTHMrCw9QrsKmwIReoXEuO1lIvtU8-4bnv0jBGrWh1Fs1g-ePKQaZSLNBI2dKfxd1YfCJrkG2Af4sgv0UWCHvZT49v9IW7Hpb35NAZqRHN4PZ1TeoBsJxB6kCQMSYgG9wavqKic6SxN-AhDZ7eqvBlf6HGZ3x1AQek9K2p/s1600/Bennett,%20Gertrude%20Barrows%3F-Photograph%201.png" width="150" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">On October 7, 2023, <b>Kevin L. Cook</b> left a long and very informative comment on this blog under <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2023/10/gertrude-m-barrows-bennett-1883-1948_0784788861.html" target="_blank">the second part of this series on Gertrude Barrows Bennett</a>. Mr. Cook wrote: "First, the two common published photographs of Mrs. Bennett were supplied by her daughter, Constance Osbourne, to <b>Robert Weinberg</b> in 1988." Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what two photographs he was referring to. I can only assume that they are the ones shown above and below. You can find both on the Internet. As far as I can tell, none of the sources of these images gives an original source or provenance for them. So are they of Gertrude Barrows Bennett? I don't know. You'd think we would know for sure. And you'd think that we would have better, larger, and higher-quality images than those shown here. But we don't. So I will remain skeptical until someone can come up with some good supporting evidence. Whoever has Robert Weinberg's papers is a place to start. A member of Gertrude's or Constance's family would be another.<br /></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><br />In any case, the image above is obviously older than the one below. I base this on the dress. They may or may not be of the same woman. It's hard to tell. If the image above is of Gertrude Barrows, I would guess that it's a graduation picture, possibly from around 1900 or 1901. Unfortunately, we don't know where she went to high school, nor whether she went to some kind of business school. Either way, it would almost certainly have been in Minneapolis.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirM7F25_Ftz2W4u5hvODW_PSssuCcXwz7WAXssvx2TgAnJ0GkS7oJ7z4PCY5xJJ689VsiJ75Zpgql-o-NZALQjFEaACbj_BQ7a_UkodOZvOrUaKozeGZYn-TbphqFRzndgVeptHwxhzzDAPUk7cB1plwrNe-3vluM0Lp6zzciS9iCKUyGTPVXWHz_a4Fu0/s257/Bennett,%20Gertrude%20Barrows%3F-Photograph%202.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="246" data-original-width="257" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirM7F25_Ftz2W4u5hvODW_PSssuCcXwz7WAXssvx2TgAnJ0GkS7oJ7z4PCY5xJJ689VsiJ75Zpgql-o-NZALQjFEaACbj_BQ7a_UkodOZvOrUaKozeGZYn-TbphqFRzndgVeptHwxhzzDAPUk7cB1plwrNe-3vluM0Lp6zzciS9iCKUyGTPVXWHz_a4Fu0/s1600/Bennett,%20Gertrude%20Barrows%3F-Photograph%202.png" width="257" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">Here is the image that appears on the <i>Internet Speculative Fiction Database</i>. The source is a Russian website. So why do Russians have the better or more likely image of Francis Stevens? Don't ask me. This world is full of mysteries. Anyway, judging from the dress, especially the hat, I would guess that this picture was taken as early as the World War I years, possibly in the 1920s, and possibly as late as about 1930. If this is Francis Stevens, is she looking to the west? Towards California and the place in the Lower Forty-Eight where you can watch the sun set over the encircling sea?</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-60390130201164368002023-10-17T06:00:00.540-04:002023-10-17T06:00:00.135-04:00Gertrude M. Barrows Bennett (1883-1948)-Part Six<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;"><b>Conclusion</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><b>Charles Montgomery Stuart Bennett</b> (1874-1910) was supposed to have been a writer for magazines. Maybe a shared interest in writing is how he and <b>Gertrude M. Barrows</b> (1883-1948) met. I have looked for his name in <i>The FictionMags Index</i> and have come up empty. I have also looked for different versions of his name and found an author named <b>Charles Stuart</b> who wrote several stories published in British story magazines in 1910-1911. Was he our man? Who can say?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Gertrude M. Barrows wrote a story under her own name published in 1904. As far as anyone knows, she did not have another of her stories published until 1917, and then only under the pseudonym <b>Francis Stevens</b>. Could she have collaborated with her husband in the time in between? Or if he was an author of stories for magazines, could she have actually been his ghostwriter?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">In his introduction to <i>The Heads of Cerberus</i> by Francis Stevens, <b><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/05/before-golden-age-lloyd-arthur-eshbach.html" target="_blank">Lloyd Arthur Eshbach</a></b> wrote: "He [C.M. Stuart Bennett] had been a newspaper reporter, a fact which probably led his widow to contribute feature articles to the newspaper" (Dover, 2014, p. 14). What newspaper? And if she wrote feature articles for newspapers, is that how she could have met <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-merritt-1884-1943-part-one.html" target="_blank"><b>A. Merritt</b> (1884-1943)</a>, who worked as a journalist at the <i>Philadelphia Inquirer</i> and <i>The Sunday Supplement</i> and/or <i>The Sunday American Magazine</i>, forerunner to <i>The American Weekly</i>, of which he was later the editor? Again, who can say?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Speculations . . .</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One of the themes in the fiction of Francis Stevens is that of old gods returning to earth after having been banished for many centuries, if not millennia. Her </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">stories with this theme and the gods in them are:</span></div><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">Nacoc-Yaotl in </span><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-stories-of-francis-stevens-citadel.html" target="_blank">"The Citadel of Fear" (<i>The Argosy</i>, September 14-October 26, 1918)</a></li></ul><ul><li>The scarlet archangel in <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-stories-of-francis-stevens-claimed.html" target="_blank">"Claimed" (<i>The Argosy</i>, March 6-March 20, 1920)</a></li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-stories-of-francis-stevens-serapion.html" target="_blank">Serapion in "Serapion" (<i>The Argosy</i>, June 19-July 10, 1920)</a></li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These are dark gods, but they do not triumph in the end. For them to have triumphed would have been uncharacteristic of Francis Stevens, whom I feel certain did not work in the ill-defined, late-twentieth-century sub-genre or sub-sub-genre of dark fantasy. If you're looking for a triumphant old god, see Cthulhu in <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/07/weird-tales-books.html" target="_blank"><i>Strange Eons</i> by <b>Robert Bloch</b> (1978)</a>. By the way, <i>The Exorcist</i> (1973), fifty years old this year, also involves the theme of the return of an old god, in this case the ancient Mesopotamian deity Pazuzu. Both "Serapion" and <i>The Exorcist</i> are about demonic possession.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Other motifs and recurring themes and settings in the work of Francis Stevens are those of treasure hunting, shipwrecks, and islands. Francis Stevens' stories in that vein include:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-stories-of-francis-stevens-nightmare.html" target="_blank">"The Nightmare" (<i>All-Story Weekly</i>, April 14, 1917)</a></span></li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-stories-of-francis-stevens-friend.html" target="_blank">"Friend Island" (<i>All-Story Weekly</i>, September 7, 1918)</a></li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-stories-of-francis-stevens-citadel.html" target="_blank">"The Citadel of Fear" (<i>The Argosy</i>, September 14-October 26, 1918)</a></li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-stories-of-francis-stevens-avalon.html" target="_blank">"Avalon" (<i>The Argosy</i>, August 16 to September 6, 1919)</a></li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-stories-of-francis-stevens-claimed.html" target="_blank">"Claimed" (<i>The Argosy</i>, March 6-March 20, 1920)</a></li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-stories-of-francis-stevens-sunfire.html" target="_blank">"Sunfire" (<i>Weird Tales</i>, July-September 1923)</a></li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In "Friend Island," there is an Ancient Mariness who tells her tale and about her relationship with the eponymous island, which is actually a living being. I wonder if Gertrude Barrows Bennett could have known one of her husband's other wives, <b>Marie La Ton</b> (ca. 1886-?), who was a boat pilot and went with C.M. Stuart Bennett on one of his treasure hunting expeditions to the Carolina coast. If the Ancient Mariness was based on Marie La Ton, then maybe she comes by her feelings about men naturally, as Bennett seems to have been a real scoundrel, specifically when it came to women.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is a group of treasure hunters in "Sunfire," Francis Stevens' only story in <i>Weird Tales</i>. Here I wonder if one of them could have been a portrait of her drowned husband. There would have been precedent for such a thing in fantasy and science fiction: I think of Victor Frankenstein as having been based in part on the authoress' husband, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2011/10/weird-tales-from-romantic-era.html" target="_blank"><b>Percy Bysshe Shelley</b> (1792-1822)</a>. He drowned, too, by the way, probably also by misadventure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/03/francis-stevens-1883-1948.html" target="_blank">I first wrote about Francis Stevens on March 10, 2015</a>. In that posting, I listed her stories, the titles of the magazines in which they were published, and their dates of publication. Her career as a published author lasted a scant six and a half years, from 1917 to 1923, with a prior story having been published in 1904. This is the 100th anniversary year of the close of her career, which came when she was just forty years old. Francis Stevens' stories were rediscovered in the 1940s, though, and were reprinted during that decade, from January 1940 to November 1949 and as late as September 1950, in various pulp magazines. <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-merritt-1884-1943-part-one.html" target="_blank">A. Merritt</a> is supposed to have had a hand in that. The last two reprints were posthumous.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The writer behind the pseudonym, Gertrude Barrows Bennett Gaster, last wrote to her daughter, <b>Constance Bennett Wilson</b>, on September 1, 1939, coincidentally the day that Nazi Germany invaded Poland, thus setting off World War II. Thus also, Francis Stevens' stories were first published during World War I and in its aftermath, then published again during World War II and in its aftermath.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gertrude Gaster lived in California during the 1940s, all or most of that time in San Francisco. If she was paid for her work, then payments would presumably have gone to her at her home in the Golden State. Would any payments made after her death, which came on February 2, 1948, have gone to her husband, <b>Carl F. Gaster</b>? Or to her daughter?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">More speculations.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It appears that in writing his introduction to <i>The Heads of Cerberus</i>, <a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/05/before-golden-age-lloyd-arthur-eshbach.html" target="_blank">Lloyd Arthur Eshbach</a> was in contact with Constance, whom he called "Connie," quotation marks included. The whereabouts of Gertrude Gaster were then unknown, and only Connie could have told him the details of her mother's writing habits or about where and how they had lived in her childhood. Eshbach wrote that the stories of Francis Stevens have "a strong leaning toward the mysterious" (Dover, 2014, p. 13). She seems to have had the same kinds of leanings in her own life, for why ever would she have remained out of contact with her daughter for her last nine years on this earth? Did Constance see that her mother's stories were once again in print during the 1940s? Could she have tracked down Gertrude by going to the editors or publishers of the magazines that did the reprinting? And did Gertrude herself see that her stories were once again in print? Then in her fifties and sixties, could she have taken some final pride and satisfaction in that?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A last coincidence: Lloyd Arthur Eshbach's introduction to <i>The Heads of Cerberus</i> was dated February 1952, the same month in which Gertrude's widower, Carl F. Gaster, was found dead in his home on the other side of the country, in Portland, Oregon.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I have one more part in this series, inspired by a comment from a couple of weeks ago made by one of the readers of this blog.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div></span><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Francis Stevens' Story in <i>Weird Tales</i></b></span><br /><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Sunfire" (two-part serial, July/August-September 1923)</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Further Reading</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Introduction" to <i>The Heads of Cerberus</i> by Francis Stevens, introduction by <b>Lloyd Arthur Eshbach</b>. I have the Dover edition from 2014.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"The Woman Who Wrote 'Citadel of Fear'" by <b>Sam Moskowitz</b>, his introduction to <i>The Citadel of Fear</i> by Francis Stevens (Paperback Library, 1970).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy</i> by Francis Stevens, edited and with an introduction by <b>Gary Hoppenstand</b> (2004).</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Navigating the Weird Mind of Gertrude Barrows Bennett--the Mother of Dark Fantasy (pt. 1)" by <b>Taylor</b>, on the website <i>Fandomentals</i>, March 19, 2020, at the following URL:</span></li></ul><div style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.thefandomentals.com/gertrude-barrows-bennett-1/">https://www.thefandomentals.com/gertrude-barrows-bennett-1/</a></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Taylor's title repeats what I see as a misreading and misinterpretation of Francis Stevens as the inventor of what is called dark fantasy.</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">"Fantascienza, un genere (femminile). Gertrude Barrows Bennett, alias Francis Stevens" by <b>Laura Coci</b>, on the website <i>Vitaminevaganti</i>, December 5, 2020, at the following URL:</span></li></ul><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div style="font-family: georgia; text-align: center;"><a href="https://vitaminevaganti-com.translate.goog/2020/12/05/fantascienza-un-genere-femminile-gertrude-barrows-bennett-alias-francis-stevens/?_x_tr_sl=it&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc" style="font-family: georgia;"></a><a href="https://vitaminevaganti-com.translate.goog/2020/12/05/fantascienza-un-genere-femminile-gertrude-barrows-bennett-alias-francis-stevens/?_x_tr_sl=it&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc">https://vitaminevaganti-com.translate.goog/2020/12/05/fantascienza-un-genere-femminile-gertrude-barrows-bennett-alias-francis-stevens/?_x_tr_sl=it&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc</a></div></blockquote><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">There are other websites and blogs that discuss Francis Stevens, some of which are Italian. It looks as though she and her works are of special interest to Italian fans and researchers. </span></li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBLGpwI8qHt1gCc7AEv0_YythY69_kkHXaZbRYU38g1A9QEPgScc-lHMqV-I8DeafrnHwGgb1OhUVjOn6SGsaR_MAkUd0DcD00z1qGBsUkmWat6mpKN1FYnU_T01HSCBJw7LTMLmUusWoLDH3PHN-JPgC2udrq7hs4_hx5N6_GzRwRkjb3r6Vh7o1u1Dvg/s3030/Louis%20Edouard%20Fournier,%20The%20Funeral%20of%20Shelley,%201889.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1830" data-original-width="3030" height="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBLGpwI8qHt1gCc7AEv0_YythY69_kkHXaZbRYU38g1A9QEPgScc-lHMqV-I8DeafrnHwGgb1OhUVjOn6SGsaR_MAkUd0DcD00z1qGBsUkmWat6mpKN1FYnU_T01HSCBJw7LTMLmUusWoLDH3PHN-JPgC2udrq7hs4_hx5N6_GzRwRkjb3r6Vh7o1u1Dvg/w612-h369/Louis%20Edouard%20Fournier,%20The%20Funeral%20of%20Shelley,%201889.jpg" width="612" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">"The Funeral of Shelley" by <b>Louis Édouard Fournier</b>, 1889.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></p>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-54778675938625561882023-10-14T06:00:00.009-04:002023-10-15T08:23:05.145-04:00Gertrude M. Barrows Bennett (1883-1948)-Part Five<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><b>Second Husband</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>Gertrude M. Barrows Bennett</b>'s second husband was <b>Carl Franklin Gaster </b>(1892-1952). He was born on November 7, 1892, in San Luis Obispo, California, to <b>George Reed Gaster</b> (1857-1916) and <b>Rachel Isabel (Packwood) Gaster</b> (1857-1927). Carl F. Gaster grew up on his parents' farm in Santa Barbara County, California. In 1900, he was in San Francisco with his parents, then, in 1910, in the household of his aunt, <b>Eliza Scott</b>. At age twenty-seven, Gaster had already been married and divorced.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Rather than write a narrative about Gaster's life and career, I'll just give some bullet points:</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1911, in Vallejo, California, Gaster stole from a man in an adjoining hotel room. He was arrested and put on probation.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1917, he was a l</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">ocomotive inspector with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1917, Gaster lived in San Francisco with his wife,<b> Minnie Gaster</b>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">On November 21, 1919, Gaster applied for a seaman's certificate with the U.S. Department of Commerce. He had by then graduated from the U.S. Shipping Board Marine Engineering School.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1920, Gaster lived in San Francisco and worked as a marine wiper. Once again, he was divorced.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">In March 1927, Gaster was arrested in Bellingham, Washington, for drunken larceny and illegal possession: he had stolen some bedding from a hotel while drunk.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gaster was otherwise employed from June 22, 1921, to July 5, 1927, as a 3rd assistant engineer, 2nd assistant engineer, and junior engineer aboard various oceangoing vessels.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">On March 27, 1930, Gaster was enumerated in the U.S. Census of merchant seamen. He was occupied as a 4th assistant engineer and based at Bayonne, New Jersey. His unnamed wife was in Merced, California. Twelve days later, on April 8, 1930, Gertrude Bennett, widowed, was enumerated in Mill Valley, California, where she was working at a trucking (?) company. So it looks like the two had not yet married.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1933, Carl F. Gaster and his wife Gertrude were living in San Francisco, thus they must have married in the period 1930-1933. In 1933, Gertrude Barrows Bennett Gaster turned fifty years old. Her new husband turned forty-one that year.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">On June 12, 1938, Gaster wrote to U.S. Local Inspector of Boilers in San Pedro, California, requesting a record of his sea service. He explained that he needed that record in order to apply for a civil service job. He wrote with a return address of 642 9th Avenue, Prospect Park, Pennsylvania. Two years later, on April 16, 1940, Gertrude Barrows Bennett's daughter, then going by the Christian name of Constance and her married name of Wilson--<b>Constance Wilson</b>--was enumerated at that same address with her husband <b>Walter Wilson</b> and their children. So I wrote the other day stating that Gertrude and her daughter presumably never lived together again after the 1920s, but did they after all? On the other hand, a return address and a residence are not necessarily the same thing. In any case, Gertrude and Constance were presumably still in contact with each other as of June 1938. That same year, Gertrude Gaster was listed in the Sacramento, California, city directory, working in that city as a stenographer. According to <b><a href="https://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/05/before-golden-age-lloyd-arthur-eshbach.html" target="_blank">Lloyd Arthur Eshbach</a></b> in his introduction to <i>The Heads of Cerberus</i>, she wrote a final letter to her daughter from California on September 1, 1939, promising a longer one. It was either never written, never sent, or never arrived. I have not found either Gertrude Gaster or her husband in the census of 1940. She was very near to disappearing from the earth.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">On September 10, 1940, Carl Gaster arrived in New Orleans from Aruba, Dutch West Indies. He was then working as a machinist on board the <i>Esso Bayway</i>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1942, Gaster was in U.S. Army Transport (U.S.A.T.) Service at Fort Mason in San Francisco, afterwards with the Hawaiian Dredging Company in Honolulu, Hawaii. His wife was </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gertrude Gaster, who had an address of 1351 Ellis Street, San Francisco.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">On November 21, 1944, Gaster arrived in Los Angeles from Honolulu on board the <i>Makiki</i>.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">From February to May 1947, Gaster appears to have made a trip by sea from Honolulu to Shanghai and back.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">Gertrude M. Barrows Bennett Gaster died on February 2, 1948, in San Francisco. It looks like she was Gaster's fourth wife.</span></li></ul><ul><li><span style="font-family: georgia;">In 1952, Gaster worked as a Merchant Marine fireman.</span></li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Finally, on February 26, 1952, the body of Carl Franklin Gaster was found at 216 NW 3rd Avenue, in Portland, Oregon. He was fifty-nine years old at his death. He had a blood alcohol level of 0.13. A complete autopsy also found that there was "[m]arked coronary arteriosclerosis." However, no cause of death was found. There is also no indication of how long his body may have lain undiscovered. Both he and his wife died in the same month of the year, in February, and so he followed her to the grave shortly after the anniversary of her death.</span></div><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Carl F. Gaster was buried at Greenwood Hills Cemetery in Portland, Oregon.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b>To be continued . . .</b></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkTc8HG0vRLobda1DYqtP-HYHcX4WqmnbHKrAXi_4u8xNDxrA-c94HNeuasuYBxL0giWHo3EXRBAvRbf4bO2Z5C5goKJMRpNkFMBNo5NJP28eN6n9w5ZhoSPuT9XvEAL1AYR-ktT6JYeKwEIRmtbQhJMQsLckmJKYWPwieoUlXpHg-nRJ1PpR4JmwcuEHl/s1958/Gaster,%20Carl%20F.-Photograph%20and%20physical%20description.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1958" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkTc8HG0vRLobda1DYqtP-HYHcX4WqmnbHKrAXi_4u8xNDxrA-c94HNeuasuYBxL0giWHo3EXRBAvRbf4bO2Z5C5goKJMRpNkFMBNo5NJP28eN6n9w5ZhoSPuT9XvEAL1AYR-ktT6JYeKwEIRmtbQhJMQsLckmJKYWPwieoUlXpHg-nRJ1PpR4JmwcuEHl/w587-h240/Gaster,%20Carl%20F.-Photograph%20and%20physical%20description.png" width="587" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A photograph and physical description of Carl Franklin Gaster, from his application for seaman's certificate, November 21, 1919. Out of all of the principals in the life of Gertrude Barrows Bennett--herself, her parents, her brothers, her first husband <b>Charles M. Stuart Bennett</b>, her daughter--only Gaster is represented on the Internet with a photographic image.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></div>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3852401976091776228.post-50373406355308105772023-10-11T06:00:00.441-04:002023-10-15T08:22:43.747-04:00Gertrude M. Barrows Bennett (1883-1948)-Part Four<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; text-align: justify;"><b>First Husband</b></span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"><b>Gertrude M. Barrows</b> (1883-1948) was married twice, first to <b>Charles Montgomery Stuart Bennett</b> (1874-1910), then to <b>Carl Franklin Gaster</b> (1892-1952). She probably met her first husband on the East Coast and her second on the West. Her first drowned near Key West, Florida. Her second lies at rest on almost the exact opposite end of the country, in Portland, Oregon. It looks like liquid played a part in his death as well.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">Charles Montgomery Stuart Bennett</b><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;"> was b</span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">orn in the period April-May-June 1874 in West Derby, Lancashire, England. His parents were <b>Henry Mellor Bennett</b> (1847-1938), an ironfounder like his father before him, and <b>Catherine</b> <b>"Kate" (Stuart) Bennett </b>(1850-1922). Both lived and died in England. Whether they ever came to America is open to question.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">C.M. Stuart Bennett arrived in the United States possibly in the 1890s or about 1896. On October 6, 1897, he married <b>Madeline A. Hobson</b> (1872-1961) in Bristol, Virginia. According to a contemporaneous newspaper article, "The groom came to Bristol a few months ago with his parents, who recently completed a tour around the world." That article continued: "Mr. Bennett is a young man who has seen much of the world, but whose habits and manners are still those of the genial Englishman." The couple was to live in a newly purchased home in nearby Paperville, Tennessee. (<i>Chattanooga Daily Times</i>, Oct. 8, 1897, p. 3.) They had two daughters, <b>Catherine "Kate" (Bennett) Burton Bachman</b> (1898-1984) and <b>Helen Marguerite (Bennett) Biden</b> (1900-1988). I can't help but see omens in that newspaper article from 1897.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: justify;">I haven't found the young Bennett family in the U.S. Census of 1900, but it's clear that their marriage didn't last long, for on</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> August 3, 1904, Bennett married <b>Luella Wilson Stewart</b> (1881-1965), daughter of <b>Sylvester Noble Stewart</b> and <b>Nannie (Wilson) Stewart</b> (then deceased), at the Madison Avenue (Dutch) Reformed Church in New York City. ("Married" in the <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i>, Aug. 7, 1904, p. 13.) By 1910, the couple were divorced.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Bennett's marriages kept coming. There are three more to go.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">According to her friend, <b>Emma Diffenderfer</b>, <b>Marie La Ton or Laton</b> (ca. 1886-?) of Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Manhattan married Charles M. Stuart Bennett in about 1909. Presumably that was in New York or New Jersey. Marie La Ton was supposed to have been the first woman to take out a boat pilot's license or skipper's license in Philadelphia. In 1909, she piloted a boat for her husband, then or later called "Captain," on a treasure-hunting expedition off the Carolina coast. That effort came to grief, and Marie returned to New York City, promising her stepmother that she would never again attempt such a thing. ("Manicurist Says That Laton [<i>sic</i>] Girl Had Given Up Search" in the <i>Press of Atlantic City</i>, Dec. 29, 1910, p. 1+.) On April 18, 1910, Marie La Ton was enumerated in the U.S. Census at 19 East Thirty-Second Street in Manhattan. She was the proprietress of a restaurant, the name of which we know by a later newspaper article was Dixie Kitchens. She was divorced at the time. A month later, on May 12, 1910, C.M. Stuart Bennett became a father again with the birth of his daughter, called <b>Josephine Christy Bennett</b> (1910-2001). The newborn's mother was Gertrude M. Barrows Bennett, whom Bennett had married in New Jersey in 1908. I guess that means that if he and Marie La Ton really were married in about 1909, he was a bigamist. Either that or he and Gertrude had divorced by the time he and Marie were married, and Josephine, later called Constance, was born out of wedlock. Or maybe the year 1908 is in error. Or maybe they were married twice and divorced once. Or twice.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It sure looks like Charles M. Stuart Bennett was what people called in those days a scoundrel. The name Constance would have been in strong contrast to his habits.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Despite Marie's promise to her stepmother, the treasure hunting continued, and on Christmas night, December 25-26, 1910, it came to an end when C.M. Stuart Bennett, also called Stuart Bennett, was drowned after his 45-foot launch, called the <i>Lebra</i> (referred to in some accounts </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">as the </span><i style="font-family: georgia;">Phra</i><span style="font-family: georgia;">), was wrecked against the west jetty or northwest jetties near Key West, Florida. There were six people all together on the boat. Three were rescued the morning after the wreck, while a fourth, </span><b style="font-family: georgia;">Herman Parker</b><span style="font-family: georgia;">, drifted or swam to a nearby key and was thereby saved (or saved himself). Bennett was the first drowning victim that night. His wife, who clung to a mast of the wrecked boat but after six hours slipped into the water, was the second. Bennett's body was found near the western banks the day after the wreck. Hers was never found. He is supposed to have been buried at Key West city cemetery.</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Emma Diffenderfer felt sure that the Mrs. Bennett who was lost was not Marie La Ton, even though she had not seen her in five months. For a time there were reports that it was Bennett's newer wife, Gertrude Barrows Bennett, who had drowned. Then, on December 29, 1910, <b>Mrs. Jessie (Newnham) Pillault</b> (1869-1952) of Jacksonville, Florida, came forth with word that it was her daughter, <b>Beatrice Pillault Bennett</b> (1890-presumably 1910), who had drowned. The Bennetts had been married in June without Mrs. Pillault's knowledge and had gone around in Florida by boat before setting off on that fateful voyage. Mrs. Pillault, by the way, was also English and also a proprietress, in her case of an ice cream parlor and/or a small bakery. ("Find Mother of Woman Lost in Key West Wreck" in the <i>Miami News</i>, December 29, 1910, p. 1.)</span></p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: justify;">Christmastime must have been a sad and stressful time of year for Gertrude Barrows Bennett. Her older brother <b>Reginald "Reggie" Barrows</b> (1880-1896) had killed himself on December 23, 1896, in Minneapolis, where the Barrows family were living at the time. (There isn't any mention of her in newspaper accounts of his suicide, but at age thirteen, she must have been at home when the newspaper reporters came around with their terrible news.) And now, in 1910, with her only daughter not even a year old, she learned that her husband, by then obviously a philanderer and possibly a bigamist, had drowned while on a treasure-hunting adventure . . . like her grandfather sixty years before.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Next: The Second Husband</b>.</div></span></div></span><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpk0GjbXZmnHlvAOpNfG5972t3irnkp14-4bWhyPLPUX7DKj08AHCdb_rSluOWomBNrPYuFDdVfc96IhfHF6aB4zxfTeGY9PCNQuBJuuDJS5eVURGKE35sijsNushj_EZjxs-jX_7eAgldnh3gWoKDuAWNtITH-k9ebaTrF1hAHMILAg84Ix96sFk5Uvjg/s1208/Map%20of%20Key%20West%20and%20Area-1921.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1208" height="377" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpk0GjbXZmnHlvAOpNfG5972t3irnkp14-4bWhyPLPUX7DKj08AHCdb_rSluOWomBNrPYuFDdVfc96IhfHF6aB4zxfTeGY9PCNQuBJuuDJS5eVURGKE35sijsNushj_EZjxs-jX_7eAgldnh3gWoKDuAWNtITH-k9ebaTrF1hAHMILAg84Ix96sFk5Uvjg/w594-h377/Map%20of%20Key%20West%20and%20Area-1921.png" width="594" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">A map of Key West and the area to the west, presumably the location of the foundering of the <i>Lebra</i>, "Captain" Charles M. Stuart Bennett's boat, on the night of December 25-26, 1910. Look for "West Jetty" in the upper left of this map from 1921.</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley</span></div>Terence E. Hanleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08268641371264950572noreply@blogger.com0