The New Weird Anthology-Part Four

From December 2017, updated for 2026.

My original program in 2017 was to go one by one through the authors in The New Weird anthology (2008). I didn't get very far in that very long list. Maybe that's one of the reasons I hit pause on this series. Very quickly, though:

M. John Harrison (British, born 1945) was an associate of Michael Moorcock at New Worlds magazine. He appears to have taken the lead on the formulation of "the New Weird."

Clive Barker (British, born 1952) is a prolific and very well-known author of all kinds of works.

Simon Ings (British, born 1965) has collaborated with M. John Harrison.

Kathe Koja (American, born 1960).

Thomas Ligotti (American, born 1953) is an atheist, socialist, and anti-natalist. Despite his evident leftism or progressivism, Mr. Ligotti seems to me a fairly traditional kind of writer and not one to want to throw off the past. I could be wrong.

K.J. Bishop (Australian, born 1972).

Jeffrey Ford (American, born 1955).

China Miéville (British, born 1972), is supposed to have been one of the lead proponents of the so-called "New Weird." He is of course a Marxist. He also holds a Ph.D. That places him on the academic/scholarly side of things instead of on the "self-taught" side.

Jeffrey Thomas (American, born 1957).

Brian Evenson (American, born 1966). He also holds a Ph.D., in his case in literature and critical theory, and so he is not "self-taught," either, as the writers of "the Old Weird" were.

Jay Lake (American, 1964-2014). It's never too late to send condolences, I hope, and so I send them to his family and friends.

Leena Krohn (Finnish, born 1947).

Steph Swainston (British, born 1974). From an interview on the website Clarkesworld: "I prefer not to draw lines between good fantasy and good mainstream literature, but see the whole thing as a continuum." Emphasis added.

Alistair Rennie (Scottish, b. ?) is also a musician.

These are the rest of the authors in the first two sections of The New Weird. As you can see, they are a mix of Baby Boomers and Generation X (with one pre-Boomer, and only if those categories apply in the rest of the world). The youngest of them is now past fifty years old.

Original text copyright 2026 Terence E. Hanley

Clyde Irvine (1899-1948)

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

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

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

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

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

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

All of that was in his first career in Scotland.

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

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

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

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

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

[Update (Apr. 4, 2026): Tracy Irvine Cracraft, comment below, has let us know that her father's "role in the army while in Canada was to teach soldiers jiu-jitsu." Maybe that was a skill he learned in Burma. Thank you, Tracy.]

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

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

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

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

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

Original text copyright 2026 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales & Weird Fiction-Part One

The weird tale is a form, an old form to be sure. Weird fiction is a literary genre of more recent development, as all fiction is when compared to tales, ballads, legends, and so on. In the twentieth century, there became a kind of theory of weird fiction. H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) seems to have been its chief theorist. I think Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940) played his part as well. Now there are weird fiction studies and weird fiction journals.

There were weird tales--tales of fate--long before they were so named. Originating in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, weird fiction is, again, a more recent development than is the older and more traditional weird tale. Weird fiction as a named or circumscribed genre, eventually with some kind of literary theory behind it, seems to have followed close on the heels of the writing and publication of the stories that make up the genre. In other words, the works came first, then they were thrown together into a named genre. That's how it seems anyway. But how did it all develop? I can't say for sure. All I can do is offer some bits of evidence gleaned from newspapers and literature, i.e., the results of searches I have conducted on line and in one lone book--a children's book called Weird! The Complete Book of Halloween Words by Peter R. Limburg (New York: Bradbury Press, 1989). I can't say that any of the following makes for a first. All I can say is that these are the earliest instances that I have found of the terms weird tales or weird tale, weird fiction, and weird (or the weird) as a noun in newspapers and in literary works, all from the late eighteenth and early to mid to late nineteenth centuries, and all from a time when literature for the masses was on the rise.

Weird Tales & Weird Tale

Earliest Use of Weird Tales in a Newspaper:

From the Manchester Times, March 25, 1843 (p. 4) in a review of The Story-Teller, or Table-Book of Popular Literature, A Collection of Romances, Short Standard Tales, Traditions, and Poetical Legends of All Nations, etc., edited by Robert Bell (London: Cunningham and Mortimer, Publishers, 1843). Specifically, the reference is to "the ballads and weird tales of Germany."

(This may be the same book as: The Story-Teller, Or, Minor Library of Fiction, A Collection of the Choicest Tales, Legends, and Traditions of All Nations, etc., Volume 1, edited by Robert Bell [London, 1833].)

Earliest Use of Weird Tales in a Novel or Romance:

From Cranford (1851-1853; 1853) by Mrs. Gaskell (Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell). From Chapter IV:

The room in which we were expected to sit was a stiffly-furnished, ugly apartment; but that in which we did sit was what Mr Holbrook called the counting-house, where he paid his labourers their weekly wages at a great desk near the door. The rest of the pretty sitting-room--looking into the orchard, and all covered over with dancing tree-shadows--was filled with books. They lay on the ground, they covered the walls, they strewed the table. He was evidently half ashamed and half proud of his extravagance in this respect. They were of all kinds--poetry and wild weird tales prevailing. He evidently chose his books in accordance with his own tastes, not because such and such were classical or established favourites.

(Here is an instance of the frequent association of the words wild and weird.)

Earliest Use of Weird Tale in Prose in an American Newspaper:

In "A Plea for Mendota," correspondent Alice Fay, writing from the shores of Fourth Lake, Wisconsin, recounted a "weird tale," told to her in a vision by the spirit of an American Indian woman, this in a letter to the editor of the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison, Wisconsin, August 21, 1856, page 3.

(Note that fay, meaning "fairy," is from the word fate.)

Earliest Use of Weird Tale in Verse in an American Newspaper:

In a poem called "Sending for God" by Mrs. Brooks in the Weekly Atchison Champion, Atchison, Kansas, November 12, 1859, page 1.

Earliest Use of Weird Tale in the Title of a Novel or Romance:

Bruar Castle: A Weird Tale for a Winter Night by Cecilia M. Blake (C.E. Weldon, 1867).

Other Early Uses in Newspapers of Weird Tales or Weird Tale in Reference to Literary Works or Authors:

• In reference to Samuel Taylor Coleridge; 1840s and '50s.

• In reference to "The Enchanted Hare of the Ardennes" by an anonymous author; in Bentley's Miscellany, CCXLI, 1857.

• In reference to the Scottish poems "Tamlane" and "Kemp Owain"; 1858.

• In reference to Sir Walter Scott, of course a Scottish author; 1858, 1859.

• A newspaper item referring to an unnamed "weird tale of a haunted house," in actuality a reference to "The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain," a novelette by Edward Bulwer-Lytton published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, DXXVI, August 1859. Note the Scottish place of publication. "The Haunted and the Haunters" was reprinted in Weird Tales in May 1923. It was the first in a series of reprints called "Masterpieces of Weird Fiction."

• In reference to: Sir Rohan's Ghost, A Romance by Harriet Prescott Spofford (1859, 1860). Harriett Prescott Spofford (1835-1921) was an American author. She is in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, in an entry that you can access by clicking here. I don't know when and where the story is set, but Rohan is a Celtic surname, originally from Brittany. The word itself is similar to rowan, another name for mountain-ash. Rowan is a word used in Scotland and northern England. The rowan tree is said to have magical powers.

• Other references, some to real-life tales of death and fate, 1851 and after.

Use of the terms weird tales and weird tale became more common as the nineteenth century went on. In 1885, Scribner and Welford of New York, New York, and John C. Nimmo of London published Weird Tales by E.T.A. Hoffman. Ten years later, the Henry Altemus Company of Philadelphia began publishing various editions of Edgar Allan Poe's Weird Tales. These were popular editions. I suspect they sold well, and it may have been that by the early years of the twentieth century, no one would have puzzled over the meaning or shrunk from buying and reading a collection of weird tales. It seems to me that the negative connotations of weird came later, after the original meaning of the word as "fate" or "destiny" had fallen away. Now weird is thought of in the sense of "that weird guy over there . . . ," and nobody wants to get near him or the word weird.

* * *

Before going any further, I would like to write about Cecilia M. Blake, who has nothing on the Internet in the way of a biography:

Cecilia M. Blake (ca. 1825-?)

Née Cecilia McKenzie

Aka Mrs. Blake

School Mistress (Perth, 1851), School Principal (Seton Castle, 1861), Annuitant (Pitcaithley House, 1871), Proprietor (Private school, 1881), Annuitant & Authoress (Gartartan Cottage, 1901)

Born ca. 1825, Perthshire, Scotland

Died 1901 or after, presumably in Scotland

Cecilia McKenzie was born in about 1825 in Perthshire, Scotland. She married Thomas Whittet while still quite young. Afterwards she married John Chalmers Blake, with whom she had a daughter, Cecilia Hill Blake, born on March 16, 1855, in Eastwood, Renfrew, Scotland. Cecilia M. Blake was a teacher, school principal, and school proprietor. Annuitant is in reference to her status as the receiver of an annuity, possibly as a widow.

Cecilia M. Blake, also known as Mrs. Blake, was the author of:

• Glenrora: Or The Castle, The Camp, And The Cottage (1864)
• Bruar Castle: A Weird Tale for a Winter Night (1867)
• Cecile Raye: An Autobiography (1868)
• Among the Water Lilies (1895)
• Tephi, An Armenian Romance (The British Girls Library, date unknown) 

I don't know the date or place of her death. It's worth noting that she was a native of Perthshire, in which Birnam Wood and Dunsinane Hill, mentioned in Macbeth, are located.

* * *

Weird Fiction, plus Weird (or the Weird) as a Noun

Earliest Use of Weird Fiction in an American Journal or Newspaper:

In reference to a story called "A Christmas Reminiscence" in the New Orleans Crescent newspaper, Christmastime, 1868, as "a strange, weird fiction." The story, by a pseudonymous author calling herself Hagar and originally published in The Crescent Monthly magazine, concerns Voodoo or Voudou. In the story itself, reference is made to "that weird woman Juba."

Other Early Uses in Newspapers of Weird Fiction in Reference to Literary Works or Authors, 1860s through 1880s:

• In reference to The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851).

• In reference to Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1842).

• In reference to Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo (1866), specifically in reference to a fight with a giant octopus.

Earliest Use of Weird as a Noun in Verse:

• In "Her Answer" by Robert Burns (1795).

• In "Hic Jacet Robin Maroun" by R.H.A., a poem in remembrance of the poet, in the Chester Chronicle, Chester, England, September 28, 1810, page 4:

"hear Robin's weird, wi' trickling tear-- 

He's sunk to ruin."

A glossary to go with the poem defines weird as "fate."

• Peter R. Limburg's book led me to a search of the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. I found six instances of weird in Shelley's complete verse, including in his long poem "Alastor, or The Spirit of Solitude" (1815, 1816). In every instance, weird is used as an adjective, including in this striking line from Canto 9 of "The Revolt of Islam" (1818): "Some said, I was a fiend from my weird cave." I also found weird in Keats' poem "Lamia" (1820), where it is also used as an adjective.

• "The Weird of the Douglas, A Metrical Tale" in Taits Edinburgh Magazine, No. 49, January 1838. Scottish surname, Scottish place name.

Some Uses of Weird (as in the Weird) as a Noun in a Novel or Romance:

• The Weird Sisters, a Novel by William Lane (1794).

• In Bannockburn, A Novel by John Warren (1821), a character called "the weird woman" speaks:

     "Carry the corpse away!" said a hollow voice, "and cry the coronach! The weird is run--the raven croaks--the black banner flies! Oh, happy, happy hour! Vengeance! vengeance! Hour of vengeance! I hail ye--fa' whare ye may!"

Does the weird woman address Fate--"fa'"--when she cries, "I hail ye--fa' whare ye may!"?

• The Weird Woman of the Wraagh, or, Burton and le Moore by Henry Coates (1830).

• From Ralph Wilton's Weird by Mrs. Alexander (Annie French Hector, an Irish/British author, 1871):

"Ah ha, lad!" said Moncrief, in his unmistakable Scotch tones, "you must just 'dree your weird.'"

The meaning of this traditional Scottish expression is to accept and surrender to one's fate.

• Wyllard's Weird, a Novel by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1885). 

The concept of weird fiction as a type, category, or recognizable literary genre seems to have developed in the 1870s or 1880s, certainly by the end of the 1880s. For example:

"Nothing in real life has equalled these Whitechapel murders, the only approach to them is to be found in the weird fiction of Edgar Allan Poe." From "The Whitechapel Murders" in the Spokane Morning Review, October 3, 1888, page 2.

and:

"We have received from the publishers [Vizetelly & Co.] the latest additions to this library of weird fiction--The Golden Tress and Thieving Fingers." (By Fortuné du Boisgobey.) From the Hampshire Telegraph and Naval Chronicle, April 9, 1887, page 9.

So, weird fiction as a category or genre predated science fiction by four decades or more. And of course the first weird fiction magazine, Weird Tales, came before the first science fiction magazine.

* * *

You must have noticed by now three patterns in the use of the expressions weird tales, weird tale, weird fiction, and weird or the weird as a noun:

First, there is without a doubt a connection of weird and the weird to Scotland. That is to be expected, as weird is a word that fell out of use in English but persisted in the Scots tongue, most likely, it seems to me, because it persisted in the Scottish psyche or worldview. Weird returned to English, first by way of Shakespeare's Scottish Play, afterwards--though not exclusively--by its use by Scottish authors or in reference to Scottish authors and their works. The Irish may have saved civilization, but the Scottish saved weird.

Second, and perhaps with some real significance, women authors--Mrs. Gaskell (1851-1853), Alice Fay (1856), Mrs. Brooks (1859), Cecilia M. Blake (1867), the pseudonymous Hagar (1868), Mrs. Alexander (1871), Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1885)--were early users of these expressions in print. That makes me wonder: Is there something in the female psyche or the female experience that is more open to the idea that weird, or fate, is active in human affairs? Or is there a simpler explanation, for Alice Fay and Mrs. Brooks at least, namely, that they picked up on the term weird tale by reading Cranford? As for Mrs. Blake, she was a native Scotswoman born in the country of Macbeth and of the original Weird Sisters. Maybe weird never left her consciousness, just as it never left that of her countrywomen and countrymen, as it did in the rest of the English-speaking world. As for Mary Elizabeth Braddon, her novel is set in Cornwall, another of the Celtic regions of the British Isles and the European Continent. In any case, weird was saved and we have it today.

Third, related to the second, there is more than one "weird woman" in the works I have catalogued here. These may be descended from Shakespeare's Weird Sisters. More likely, the Weird Sisters are descended from an older type, personified in the Fates but also in the more common and familiar type of soothsayer or fortuneteller. The weird woman goes beyond the soothsayer or fortuneteller, though. She seems to be a type that has been lost. We should bring her back. There is a movie called Weird Woman, by the way. Based on the story "Conjure Wife" by Fritz Leiber, Jr. (Unknown Worlds, Apr. 1943), it was released in 1944 as a part of the Inner Sanctum series of movies.

To be continued . . .

English artist Sybil Tawse (1886-1971) illustrated a later edition of Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. Those illustrations led me to this one, entitled "The Sirens of Anthemovsa." Once again, the women are in threes. They are reminiscent of the Fates.

Sybil Tawse is not in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. That seems like an oversight that should be corrected. I had not heard of her before finding her illustrations on line in my preparation of this series. An Irish blogger and artist named Dara Theodora featured her on her Wordpress blog on June 20, 2018. You can see what she posted by clicking here.

Universal Pictures released Weird Woman in 1944. I haven't seen this movie, but descriptions indicate that the title character is considered a witch. That may be based on an interpretation of Shakespeare's Weird Sisters as witches. In doing the research for this article, however, I have found that the original "weird woman" seems not to be a witch at all. Instead, she seems to be a teller of the weird, or fate, of a given person or persons. The word weird was once almost lost. Now it seems the original meaning of the word has been lost instead. And because of that, the weird woman as a type has been lost. Like I said, we should bring her back. First, though, we need to understand the original Anglo-Saxon or Celtic or Scottish concept of weird or the weird. If we can reach that kind of understanding, then maybe we can bring back the weird woman, not as a stock character or stereotype but as a fuller character. Before that can happen, I guess, we have to back away from our current worship of materialism, atheism, and Scientism. We also have to learn once again to respect women. And before we can do that, we have to acknowledge that there is only one, inviolable definition of woman, only one category woman--and you don't have to be a biologist to know what they are. All of that seems like a pretty tall order at this late date.

In thinking and writing about all of this, I am reminded that Weird Tales had an especial appeal to women--authors, poets, artists, readers, and fans. Editor Dorothy McIlwraith served longer than anyone but Farnsworth Wright as editor of the magazine. That seems fitting. Maybe the unseen host of Weird Tales should have been a woman all along. As for Dorothy McIlwraith: she worked in the United States and was born and educated in Canada, but her family was originally from Scotland. Her associate editor Lamont Buchanan was also from a Scottish family. They, the Buchanans, had at least one weird tale in their Scottish past.

Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley

The Twa Corbies by Anonymous

"The Twa Corbies" ("The Two Crows") is an old and anonymous poem, anonymous in the truest sense of the word, meaning that its author was not trying to hide his or her identity. Instead, the author's name was never recorded and will simply never be known. It seems likely to me that, being a traditional ballad, "The Twa Corbies" is not in its present form the work of just one person but the result of being passed on from one to another. Call it a case of transcription error except that no one knows what was the best version of the poem. Maybe we have the best version after all.

From the Wikipedia article "The Three Ravens":

Written in the Scots language, there is no record of how early "The Twa Corbies" [was] first performed. [Francis James] Child (I, 253) quotes [sic] a letter from Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe to Walter Scott (August 8, 1802): "The song of 'The Twa Corbies' was given to me by Miss Erskine of Alva (now Mrs Kerr), who, I think, said that she had written it down from the recitation of an old woman at Alva." [W]hich [evidence] indicates it was already known in Scotland at that date. It was first published in Walter Scott's Minstrelsy in 1812.

(Boldface added.)

"The Twa Corbies" was reprinted a century later in Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912), illustrated by Vernon Hill (1887-1972). Maybe that was the source for its reprinting in Weird Tales in February 1926.

Below is an illustration for "The Twa Corbies," made by Arthur Rackham (1867-1939). Below that is a reproduction of the original page from the February 1926 issue of Weird Tales.

It's a grim and bitter and ironic poem. It appears to have been based on an earlier ballad, "The Three Ravens," from 1611 or before.

Original text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Abrach (?-?)-Part Two

Abrach, author of "The Plaid" in Weird Tales, July 1952, was very likely a pseudonymous author. As I wrote in the first part of this article, the name Abrach offers clues as to the author's place of origin, for it is a Scottish surname, probably originating in Lochaber, in the west Scottish Highlands.

There are several names in "The Plaid." The story is in the form of a letter (dated June 1, 1941) from a Raymond Sedgwick, serving in "His Majesty's Forces in northern Scotland," to Rolfe Hayter, his friend in London. The story is about a Scottish family, Shemas and Johan MacGillivray and their young daughter Morag. A Mrs. Munro also appears in the story, and there is reference made to "that medium we heard at the Harrisons." Those names may offer further clues as the identity of the author.

Weird Tales was full of Scottish authors, or Canadian or American authors with Scottish surnames. Examples include Estil Critchie, Arlton Eadie, Ainslee Jenkins, and James MacCreigh. It's interesting that all of those names are pseudonyms. Ray McGillivray, who wrote "The Forty Jars" (Apr. 1923) is another example of an author with a Scottish surname. Perhaps significantly, his surname is the same as the family in "The Plaid," only with an Mc instead of an Mac. His Christian name is the same as that of the narrator. So could Ray McGillivray have been the mysterious Abrach? Maybe.

Here's a wrench in the works of that idea: According to the website Author and Book Info.com, Ray McGillivary was a pseudonym used by the American author Anthony Melville Rud (1893-1942). Rud also wrote for Weird Tales. His story "Ooze" was the cover story in the first issue of the magazine (Mar. 1923). He also had a story in the second issue, "A Square of Canvas" (Apr. 1923), the same issue in which "The Forty Jars" appeared. In the pulp fiction era, it was common for magazines to use pseudonyms so as to seem to offer a greater variety of authors to their readers. The problem here is that Rud's supposed pseudonym, Ray McGillivary, has a different spelling than the name of Ray McGillivray, the author of "The Forty Jars." The difference is slight, though, and I think negligible. If Anthony Rud was Ray McGillivary, he was probably also Ray McGillivray. Likewise, the name McGillivray, the presumed pseudonym, has a spelling that is slightly different than the name MacGillivray, the family name in "The Plaid." Again, the difference is negligible.

Here's another wrench in the works, though: Anthony Rud died in 1942, after the date in the story, but ten years before it was published. Could he still have been the author, and, for whatever reason, his story was not published until 1952? Could the story have been previously published under a different title and author's name? Weird Tales is known to have dug up old stories and even to have reprinted them with altered titles and authors' names. So, yes, those things are possibilities.

Two more things and then the end: First, Anthony Rud was of Norwegian descent on his father's side, but his mother's family came from Canada. Her maiden name was Piper. Rud used her surname in another of his pseudonyms, Anson Piper. I wonder if he could have used a name from farther back in his family line, namely, Mac or McGillivray or Mac or McGillivary, for his other pseudonym. I don't know that those names appeared in his family tree, though. Second, is the name or clan of MacGillivray related to the name or clan of McIlwraith, Dorothy McIlwraith's family? Both originated in the region of Ayrshire and Lochaber. One form of MacGillivray is MacIlvray, which seems to me awfully close to McIlwraith. Maybe Dorothy McIlwraith dug up the story "The Plaid" from somewhere in Scotland or England among her family, friends, or acquaintances. Or maybe it was in fact the work of Anthony Rud and she cottoned to it because of its relationship to her family, clan, region, or nation.

The mystery of Abrach shows few signs of clearing.

Next: Anthony M. Rud and the Tango Dancer Murder

Copyright 2016, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Abrach (?-?)-Part One

Author

Born ?

Died ?

In my last entry, I wrote about how easily unanswered questions are being answered in this Internet age. Well, not so fast.

Abrach was the author of one story in Weird Tales, "The Plaid," from July 1952. The name is almost certainly a pseudonym. If you're looking for some deeper meaning to the word Abrach, you might think that it's made up of the first few letters of the magic word Abracadabra, with an h on the end of it. That doesn't do any good because it doesn't mean anything. Another possibility is that Abrach is related to the Greek magic or mystic word Abraxas or Abrasax, which may also be related to Abracadabra. But again, a magic-word explanation isn't a very good one. There are better clues in the story itself.

"The Plaid" is set in Scotland. It's a weird story rather than a fantasy or horror story or ghost story. In fact, the words weird, wraith, uncanny, eerie, and rowan, all of which are Scottish or Old English in origin and all of which refer to the strange or supernatural, are in it. (1, 2, 3) The Scottish setting, words, and names are clues as to the author's name or place of origin, if not his identity.

As it turns out, Abrach is a Scottish surname, also part of a clan name. (4) Curiously, abrach is also a word used in reference to stones, specifically a kind of millstone or grinding stone. From History of Corn Milling, Volume 1: Handstones, Slaves & Cattle Mills by Richard Bennett and John Elton (1898):

The peculiar term "abrach," applied to these kind of stones, has reference not to their nature or quality, but to their supposed place of origin, the term "abrach," or, more correctly, "aberach,"indicating an origin in Lochaber; though, curiously enough, the stone from which abrach querns were made is not found at Lochaber. As a rule, the abrach was smaller than the ordinary quernstone. (p. 159)

A quernstone is a hand grinding stone, while Lochaber is a region in the west Scottish Highlands. (5) Aberach, like Abrach, is a Scottish surname or clan name originating in Lochaber. The root of the word is aber, meaning estuary or the mouth of a river or the confluence of two rivers. Abrach or Aberach would seem to have originated in a place with just such a body of water, such as in Lochaber. The meaning of the place name Lochaber seems to have been lost. (6) 

So Abrach is a Scottish surname and probably an indication as to its place of origin. Those facts lead me to believe that the author of "The Plaid" was a Scottish author, or a British, Canadian, or American author of Scottish descent or with close ties to Scotland. He or she may have been of the clans from which the Abrachs came, or have had origins in Lochaber. Weird Tales was full of stories from Scottish, British, Canadian, and Scottish-American authors. The editor, Dorothy McIlwraith (1891-1976), was also of Scottish descent. Although she was born in Canada, her grandfather came from Scotland, more precisely from Ayrshire, adjacent to Lochaber. She also received her education, in part, from Scotland, though by correspondence. And she traveled to Scotland at least once. "The Plaid" takes place during the war years, is told in the voice of a man, and is in the form of a letter written by a military man to another man, his friend, who works in government. It tells about things from a man's point of view and in a man's way. I don't think the author was a woman and almost certainly not Dorothy McIlwraith, although I wouldn't rule it out. However, I wonder if the Weird Tales editor got the story from a friend or acquaintance who was in the war and who preferred to remain anonymous for whatever reason. Now that the records and correspondence of Weird Tales are gone, we may never know.

To be concluded . . . 

Abrach's Story in Weird Tales

"The Plaid" (July 1952)

Further Reading

You can read "The Plaid" at UNZ.org, here.

Notes

(1) So is the Scottish word guddling, meaning to catch a fish with the bare hands. The synonym tickling is also used in explanation. I first heard of the practice when I lived in Missouri, where it's called noodling. So I find on Wikipedia that the origin of the word noodling is unknown. Ozark culture came from Appalachian culture as I understand it, and Appalachian culture is Scots-Irish. It seems to me that noodling is close enough to guddling for there to be a connection or derivation.

(2) The name of the stream in the story is Luath, no doubt drawn from the Irish, quick or fast. The names of the characters, Shemas, Johan, and Morag, are all Scottish names with English equivalents, but Morag is also the name given to a purported monster in Loch Morar, Scotland. The woman's name came first. The monster's name Morag is probably a pun on the name of the loch. The last name of the family in "The Plaid" is MacGillivray.

(3) In the story, a rowan tree grows in the yard "to guard the house from evil." Other plants are mentioned, too. All of these are at the beginning of the story. At the end, as a kind of bracket, is mention of a hazel tree. Like the rowan tree, hazel is supposed to possess magical, mystical, or folkloric powers.

(4) For example, the MacDonalds of Glencoe, a West Highland Scottish clan, is also called Clann Iain Abrach. Glencoe, I should note, is a town in Lochaber. The surnames Aberigh, Naverigh, and Naverich are related to Abrach and Aberach.

(5) Quern is another Old English word.
(6) Or at least confused. For a discussion of the place name Lochaber, see Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 1886-1887, Vol. 13, pp. 258-259, here.

Text copyright 2016, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales from Ireland and Scotland

J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Born August 28, 1814, Dublin, Ireland

Died February 7, 1873, Dublin, Ireland

For Weird Tales

"Green Tea" (July 1933)

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was born in Dublin to a family descended from French Huguenots. He educated himself in part from his father's large library and studied law at Trinity College, only to abandon that field in his mid-twenties for a career in journalism. In 1838, he began contributing stories to Dublin University Magazine. His first ghost story, "The Ghost and the Bone-Setter," dates from that same year.

Although Le Fanu wrote stories and novels in many different genres, he is most well known today for his horror stories and mysteries. His novella Carmilla proved a great influence on fellow Irishman Bram Stoker (1847-1912) and on Stoker's Dracula from a quarter century later. Carmilla was published first in the journal The Dark Blue, then in Le Fanu's hardbound collection In a Glass Darkly in 1872. The book includes five stories taken posthumously from the papers of Dr. Martin Hesselius, considered the first occult detective in fiction. "Green Tea," concerning a demonic monkey, also comes from that collection and was reprinted in Weird Tales in July 1933. According to Wikipedia, writer and moviemaker Val Lewton (also a contributor to Weird Tales) was influenced by Le Fanu's indirect manner in dealing with horror and the supernatural. I assume that William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918), creator of the occult detective Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, was also an admirer of Sheridan Le Fanu.

Fitz-James O'Brien

Né Michael O'Brien, aka Fitz James O'Brien

Born October 26, 1826, presumably in County Cork, Ireland

Died April 6, 1862, Cumberland, Maryland

For Weird Tales

"What Was It? A Mystery" (Dec. 1925)

"The Dragon Fang" (July 1927)

"The Diamond Lens" (Apr. 1929)

"The Lost Room" (Oct. 1929)

"The Pot of Tulips" (May 1933)

"The Wondersmith" (July 1935)

"Profligate, prodigal, dashing, versifying" Fitz-James O'Brien was a seminal figure in science fiction. In his brief career, he wrote about invisibility, microscopic worlds, miniature automata, and anti-gravity. Burning his candle at both ends, O'Brien lived a Bohemian life filled with travel, adventure, romance, and literary success--all ending in a Civil War hospital. Magazines in Ireland, Scotland, and England printed his youthful poems and stories. Indifferent to money (he squandered an ₤8,000 inheritance in less than three years) and to convention (he attempted to elope with the wife of a British military officer), O'Brien left (or fled) the British Isles and arrived in the United States in 1851 or 1852. Here he effectively assumed the mantle dropped by Edgar Allan Poe upon his death in 1849. Over the next ten years, O'Brien sold stories, articles, and poems to Lantern, Home Journal, New York Times, American Whig Review, Harper's Magazine, New York Saturday Press, Putnam's Magazine, Vanity Fair, and The Atlantic Monthly, and enjoyed commercial success and a life among the literary crowd in New York City. O'Brien also wrote plays and song lyrics.

Weird Tales reprinted several of Fitz-James O'Brien's most well known and influential stories:

• "What Was It? A Mystery" (1859) is a story of an invisible monster, presaging Guy de Maupassant's "The Horla" (1887), Ambrose Bierce's "The Damned Thing" (1893), H.P. Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space" (1927), and the Invisible Monster from Jonny Quest (1965).
• "The Dragon Fang" was originally published as "The Dragon-Fang Possessed by the Conjuror Piou-Lu" in 1856.
• "The Diamond Lens" (1858) is probably O'Brien's most famous tale. In it, the narrator murders (as a Poe narrator would have) to procure a diamond which he uses to peer into a microscopic world. Ray Cummings in The Girl in the Golden Atom (1919) and Dr. Seuss in Horton Hears a Who (1954) are among the many authors to take up the same theme.
• "The Lost Room" (1858) is the story of a man who returns to his home, only to find it occupied by "carousing couples whom he cannot evict."
• "The Pot of Tulips" (1855) is "a ghost story featuring a return from the grave."
• "The Wondersmith" (1859) is an early incarnation of the science fiction/horror theme of the small, murderous toy or doll. The 1975 film Trilogy of Terror, written by Richard Matheson, directed by Dan Curtis, and starring Karen Black, features a variation on the theme.

When Civil War came to his adopted country, Fitz-James O'Brien joined the 90th Infantry in New York, initially commissioned as a captain. He would eventually see action as a lieutenant on the staff of Brigadier General Frederick West Lander (1821-1862), who was--coincidentally or not--also a poet. On February 26, 1862, Lieut. O'Brien was wounded by Confederate forces in a confused encounter on the battlefield. He lingered until April 6 and died in Cumberland, Maryland, at age thirty-three. (Gen. Lander had preceded him in death by a few weeks.) O'Brien's body was returned to New York City for burial at Greenwood Cemetery.

Notes: The quotes are from Alternate Worlds by James Gunn (1975). The opening quote is from Bruce Franklin, quoted in Mr. Gunn's book. There is some question as to Fitz-James O'Brien's birth year. Various sources give it as 1828. However, when he enlisted in the infantry on August 16, 1861, he gave his age as thirty-two, while his coffin bore the inscription: "Lieut. Fitz James O'Brien, U.S. Volunteers, Died April 6, 1862, aged 33." If both figures are correct, then O'Brien turned thirty-three sometime between August 16, 1861, and April 6, 1862, establishing the date of his birth as in late 1828 or early 1829. Weird Tales researcher Randal A. Everts informs me that the coffin actually reads "Aet. 33," meaning by his interpretation that O'Brien was at the time of his death in his thirty-third year, hence aged thirty-two. If that's the case, then O'Brien was born in either 1829 or 1830. I have found records of three boys named Michael O'Brien born between 1828 and 1830 in Ireland. (You might ask: "Only three Irish Michael O'Briens in three years' time?") The best candidate might be the Michael O'Brien baptized on December 28, 1828, in Killarney, County Kerry. Why? The child's father was named James, hence the name "Fitz-James," or "son of James." On the other hand, the baptism was in a Catholic Church, while O'Brien's funeral service was Episcopal. In any case, the date of baptism would also place his birthdate close to that cited by Wikipedia, which may come from research by science fiction historian Sam Moskowitz. Fitz-James O'Brien is far too interesting a character to cover adequately in a blog posting. Unfortunately, I don't have access to biographies written by William Winter or Francis Wolle. Finally, thanks to Randal A. Everts for pointing out the issue of O'Brien's birthdate. Update (Dec. 5, 2021): Mr. Everts informs me that he has October 26, 1826, as O'Brien's birthdate and a baptismal certificate for a baptism on November 26, 1826, for William O'Brien, son of James O'Brien and Eliza O'Driscoll. That event took place at Cork and Ross Catholic Church, Cork South; also, that James O'Brien was killed in a coach accident in England in 1836 when his son was ten years old.

Bram Stoker

Born November 8, 1847, Dublin, Ireland

Died April 20, 1912, London

For Weird Tales

"Dracula's Guest" (Dec. 1927)

"The Burial of the Rats" (Sept. 1928)

"The Secret of the Growing Gold" (Dec. 1933)

"The Coming of Abel Behenna" (Sept. 1934)

"The Judge's House" (Mar. 1935)

"A Gipsy Prophecy" (Feb. 1937)

Bram Stoker's name still lives in reference to his most famous character, the undead Count Dracula. Published in 1897, Stoker's novel, Dracula, has spawned countless adaptations, spinoffs, and imitations in every genre and medium, from Count Chocula to Blacula to Bunnicula to Count Duckula. Stoker wrote other horror fiction as well, including the novels The Lady of the Shroud (1909) and The Lair of the White Worm (1911).

Dublin-born Abraham "Bram" Stoker was connected to two other Irish writers on this list: he went to school at Trinity College with Oscar Wilde, and, early in his career, Stoker worked as a theater critic on the Dublin Evening Mail, co-owned by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Stoker also married Wilde's old girlfriend, Florence Balcombe (1858-1937). Florence was her husband's fierce champion and literary executor. During the 1920s, she waged a campaign to have copies of Nosferatu (1922), an unauthorized film adaptation of Dracula, destroyed. Luckily for subsequent generations of film and horror fans--moreover, for art's sake and for our own cultural heritage--she failed. The struggle must have seemed important to her then. Now, with Dracula in the public domain, it seems shortsighted and meaningless. Bram Stoker died at age sixty-four and--like a vampire exposed to sunlight--was reduced to ashes, in Stoker's case, by cremation.

Ian Maclaren

Pseudonym of Reverend John Watson

Born November 3, 1850, Manningtree, Essex, England

Died May 6, 1907, Mount Pleasant, Iowa

For Weird Tales

"The Clash of Dishes" (Fall 1973, originally The Windsor Magazine, May 1903)

John Watson, son of John Watson, neither related to Sherlock Holmes' sidekick, was a well-educated minister in the Free Church of Scotland who wrote collections of sermons under his own name and works of fiction under the name Ian Maclaren. His books using the Maclaren name include Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush (1894), The Days of Auld Lang Syne (1895), Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers (1896), and Afterwards and Other Stories (1898). John Watson spent his career speaking from the pulpit or in front of synods. Ironically he died from complications from a case of tonsillitis, far from home in Mount Pleasant, Iowa. His story, "The Clash of Dishes," first appeared in The Windsor Magazine in May 1903 as part of a series of unsolved (fictional) mysteries. Sam Moskowitz wrote an introduction to the story and reprinted it in his Weird Tales revival issue of Fall 1973.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Born May 22, 1859, Edinburgh, Scotland

Died July 7, 1930, Crowborough, East Sussex, England

For Weird Tales

"The Ring of Thoth" (July 1936)

"The Great Keinplatz Experiment" (Oct. 1936)

Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger, was born in Scotland of Irish Catholic parents. Curiously, two of Sherlock Holmes' worst enemies bear Irish surnames: James Moriarty and Sebastian Moran. A Freudian interpretation of that fact might lead to a discussion of Doyle's alcoholic father and even to his adoption of his godfather's surname, Conan. In any case, the biography of Arthur Conan Doyle is readily available in more than one book and on more than one website. Suffice it to say that Weird Tales reprinted two of his stories posthumously, "The Ring of Thoth" and "The Great Keinplatz Experiment," both in 1936. Charles R. Rutledge discusses the former story on his blog, Singular Points, and makes mention of the influence of "The Ring of Thoth" on Universal Pictures' 1932 horror classic, The Mummy, and on the pulp fiction of Robert E. Howard.  

Oscar Wilde

Born October 16, 1854, Dublin, Ireland

Died November 30, 1900, Paris, France

For Weird Tales

"The Young King" (Nov. 1925)

Born in Dublin and eventually an exile in Paris, Oscar Wilde wrote short stories, essays, plays, and a lone novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). His other fantastic fiction includes a number of fairy stories (1) in two collections. "The Young King" is from the second, House of Pomegranates, from 1891. Wilde’s life and works have received plenty of attention from critics, biographers, and historians. I’ll just add that his play, The Importance of Being Earnest, is very funny and well worth watching on stage or film.

(1) It would be both obvious and pointless to make any pun here.

An illustration for Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, drawn by Michael Fitzgerald.

And another showing a similar scene. The sexual overtones in these two illustrations are not accidental. Note the man with the recurved (and subtly phallic) sword, ready to intervene between Carmilla and her sleeping object of desire. This illustration is by David Henry Friston (1820-1906). Friston also created the first illustrations of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes.   

Creepier still, here's an illustration of Madame de la Rougierre from Le Fanu's novel Uncle Silas (1864).

. . . and one from The Fortunes of Colonel Torlogh O'Brien (1847).

Two illustrations from the work of Fitz-James O'Brien (1828-1862), first, from Amazing Stories, December 1926. I believe Frank R. Paul was the artist. 

Second, from Harper's New Monthly Magazine, September 1860. This illustration for "The Sewing Bird" is by Ohio native John McLenan (1827-1865), a near contemporary of the author.

Count von Count, otherwise known as the Count, and Cookie Monster, from Sesame Street. The Count, who loves to count, is one of countless offshoots from Bram Stroker's Dracula (1897).

The cover of Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush by Ian McClaren, aka John Watson (1850-1907).

You should never pass up the chance to display the work of artist James Steranko. Here's an illustration for Sherlock Holmes, the immortal brainchild of Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930).

Doyle wrote more than just mystery stories and weird fiction. Here's an illustration from his historical novel, Sir Nigel, published in book form 106 years ago this month. The illustration is by an unequalled penman, Joseph Clement Coll (1881-1921). From Associated Sunday Magazine, 1906.

Doyle of course wrote about a highly rational man in his stories of Sherlock Holmes, yet the author was gulled by a couple of English girls and their photographs of paper cutouts of the so-called Cottingley Fairies. The only answer can be that we believe what we wish to believe.

A series of stamps issued in honor of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) by his native country.

Updated December 5, 2021.

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for further information on Fitz-James O'Brien.

Text and captions copyright 2012, 2023 Terence E. Hanley