Weird Tales is and always has been a tangle. Nobody ever seems to know who owns the magazine, the licensing for it, its title, or its contents. Many issues of Weird Tales are apparently in the public domain. Likewise for many of the stories and much of the art. Who wants to dive into this tangle, though? In its original run, there were 279 issues and hundreds, if not thousands, of stories and articles. There were also many hundreds of illustrations. A person could spend his whole working life trying to untangle all of it. Apparently some have already had a go at it and have posted whole issues on line. So, if you want to read whole issues of Weird Tales, you might try these websites:
A well-organized website with scores of whole issues available, not only of Weird Tales but also of other science fiction, fantasy, and weird fiction magazines.
A jumble of titles and issues, but keep looking--the looking might be worth your effort.
Includes a few whole issues of Weird Tales from 1935-1939.
The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection
http://www.unz.com/print/WeirdTales/
The Unz Review: An Alternative Media Selection
http://www.unz.com/print/WeirdTales/
I have used this website before. Sometimes I could read the thing I was looking for and sometimes not. I think it could have to do with copyrights in our respective countries. (The Unz Review is based in New Zealand.) Anyway, if you can get through, you will find whole issues from 1942 to 1954. Thanks to Carrington Dixon for the addition.
If anyone has additions to make to this list of links, please let me know either by commenting below or by emailing me at:
Update (April 26, 2020): Here is another website provided by Line-Faced Scrivener in the comments section below:
Weird Tales Issues: 1923-1954
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GNCfBzO4NcbvjE8XsNlpAjYPpA5rf25PulI7RpVBkhU/edit#gid=0
An online spreadsheet presenting links to whole issues in tabular format by year. Simply click on a cell, and when the link appears below, just click on the link. That link will take you to a website called Internet Archive where you can page through facsimiles of whole issues of Weird Tales. Happy reading, and thanks to Line-Faced Scrivener.
Weird Tales Issues: 1923-1954
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GNCfBzO4NcbvjE8XsNlpAjYPpA5rf25PulI7RpVBkhU/edit#gid=0
An online spreadsheet presenting links to whole issues in tabular format by year. Simply click on a cell, and when the link appears below, just click on the link. That link will take you to a website called Internet Archive where you can page through facsimiles of whole issues of Weird Tales. Happy reading, and thanks to Line-Faced Scrivener.
Update (January 5, 2023): An Anonymous commenter has let us know that Project Gutenberg is posting whole issues of Weird Tales on line. You can access them at the following URL:
Text copyright 2019, 2020, 2023 Terence E. Hanley
Also http://www.unz.com/print/WeirdTales/
ReplyDeleteI stumbled upon this a month or two ago and published it on The Swords of Robert E. Howard. I don't know who created it, nor have I been able to find the location where I was clicking through, but whoever created this did Weird Tales fans a huge service. This is THE GO TO location for Weird Tales Magazines. --Line-Faced Scrivener.
ReplyDeletehttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GNCfBzO4NcbvjE8XsNlpAjYPpA5rf25PulI7RpVBkhU/edit#gid=0&range=E3
Amazing! Thank you, Line-Faced Scrivener! I have updated my posting as of today.
DeleteTH
Hey, I was the person who made this spreadsheet! I'd originally created it as a tie-in to a Youtube video tracing the history of popular horror writers, (https://youtu.be/tcExgGQSeEY?list=PLCuDIDpCTj_t_gjb3yjQ-8RRFvL2GQlGC) and it's been permalinked on the R/Lovecraft subreddit. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Lovecraft/comments/d7za76/a_complete_archive_of_the_first_run_of_weird/)
DeleteExcellent work, Legofan94!
DeleteTH
A good source for many issues of Weird Tales and a lot of other pulp magazines to read online is www.pulpmagazines.org
ReplyDeleteHi, Unknown,
DeleteAlthough I won't discourage anyone from looking, I can't include www.pulpmagazines.org on my list of links just yet. In its most recent posting, it gave the editor of Worlds of If as Frederick Paul, misspelling both his first and last names. A simple mistake is one thing, but to mess up the given name AND surname of one of the most important and prominent of science fiction authors and editors is quite another. The Internet is there in front of us. We should all be checking our information before publishing it. Beyond that, we should all observe common rules of grammar, punctuation, and capitalization, including the creators of that website. I hope they will do better because I think they're on to a worthy project.
Thanks for writing.
TH