Alanson Skinner (1886-1925)

Ethnologist, Lecturer, Author

Born September 7, 1886, Buffalo, New York

Died August 17, 1925, North Dakota

Alanson Buck Skinner was born on September 7, 1886, in Buffalo, New York, and studied at Columbia University and Harvard University. Trained as an ethnologist, Skinner was associated with three museums during his short life: the American Museum of Natural History (ca. 1907-1915), the Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation (1915-1920, 1924-1925), and the Public Museum of the City of Milwaukee (1920-1924). He carried out extensive research on Indian tribes in North America, especially the tribes of New York, the Great Lakes Region, and the Northern Plains. Skinner also traveled to Costa Rica to study the Indians in that country. The Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin was his specialty. 

Skinner was a prolific writer, authoring books, pamphlets, and articles on every aspect of Indian life, including folklore. His two stories for Weird Tales, "Bad Medicine" (October 1925) and "The Tsantsa of Professor Von Rothapfel" (August 1926), are perhaps drawn from folklore. They certainly have an ethnological theme. (A tsantsa by the way is a shrunken human head.) Skinner also wrote pieces for Adventure, The Frontier, and Short Stories magazine.

Skinner's life ended when he was killed in an automobile accident in North Dakota. He was on a collecting trip for the Museum of the American Indian at the time. The date was August 17, 1925, making his two tales for "The Unique Magazine" posthumous.

Alanson Skinner's Stories in Weird Tales

"Bad Medicine" (Oct. 1925)

"The Tsantsa of Professor Von Rothapfel" (Aug. 1926)

Further Reading

Despite the fact that he died more than eighty-five years ago, Alanson Skinner's books and other publications are still in print and readily available on the Internet. You can see a collection of photographs of the Menominee Tribe during the 1920s on the website of the Milwaukee Public Museum, here. As for a biography, M.R. Harrington wrote of Skinner's life and death in American Anthropologist, January-March 1926. (Harrington by the way, was also a teller of weird tales, writing under the name "Ramon de las Cuevas.")

"Alanson Skinner and Amos Oneroad in cornfield," a photograph taken by Huron H. Smith near Shawano County, Wisconsin, in 1921-1922. This photograph is in the collection of the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Loual B. Sugarman (1894-1965)

Architectural Draftsman, Graphic Artist, Author

Born May 24, 1894, Little Rock, Arkansas

Died July 2, 1965, Cook County, Illinois

Loual Berthold Sugarman had a singular name and wrote a single story for Weird Tales magazine. It's called "The Gray Death" and it appeared in the June 1923 issue of "The Unique Magazine." According to Robert Weinberg, Sugarman's story, a "tale of a fungus that devoured everything alive that it touched," made readable the issue in which it appeared. Weird Tales editor Farnsworth Wright thought enough of "The Gray Death" that a decade after its first appearance, he reprinted the story in the May 1934 issue of Weird Tales. It was reprinted again in the anthology The Eighth Green Man and Other Strange Folk (1989). A letter from Edwin Baird, the editor of Weird Tales in 1923, indicates that Sugarman's story was heavily edited before going to print. "[I]t was no easy job to whip your story into shape," Baird wrote. In any case, "Ooze," the cover story of the first issue of the Weird Tales, was about a giant amoeba that devoured all in its path (like The Blob of the 1950s). In Sugarman's story, the Kingdom of Fungi got in on the act. Although I have not read the story, it sounds like "The Gray Death" could have inspired H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Colour Out of Space," published in Amazing Stories in September 1927.

Loual B. Sugarman (later just plain "L.B.") was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on May 24, 1894. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and Harvard University (Class of 1915), where he studied to be an architectural draftsman. His young career was interrupted by service in World War I. Enlisting as a private in February 1918, he was promoted to second lieutenant and separated in January 1919. By the early 1920s, he was living in Chicago, and that's probably where he discovered that Weird Tales was looking for submissions. His other titles included "Fool's Gold," "Art for Heart's Sake" (both short stories), "The New Skyline," and "Chicago Puts on Long Pants" (both essays). Sugarman enjoyed a long career in architecture, commercial art, and graphic art. He died in Cook County, Illinois, on July 2, 1965.

Loual B. Sugarman's Story in Weird Tales

"The Gray Death" (June 1923, reprinted May 1934)

Further Reading

"The Gray Death" in The Eighth Green Man and Other Strange Folk, edited by Robert Weinberg (Starmont House, 1989), a very expensive book by the way.

A poor reproduction of an architectural rendering by Loual B. Sugarman, author of "The Gray Death" for Weird Tales magazine. From the Chicago Tribune.

Loual B. Sugarman (1894-1965)

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for the photograph of and other information on L.B. Sugarman.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Page Cooper (1891-1958)

Aka Anice Page Cooper

Author, Editor, Poet, War Correspondent

Born January 7, 1891, Salem, West Virginia

Died January 5, 1958, Charleston, South Carolina

Anice Page Cooper was born on January 7, 1891, in Salem, West Virginia, and attended Ohio Wesleyen University in Delaware, Ohio. She seems to have begun her career as a writer and editor using her full name, but by the time she began contributing to Weird Tales magazine in the early 1940s, she had shortened it to Page Cooper. Page wrote and edited numerous books, many of which were horse stories, including Man o' War (1950) and Amigo: Circus Horse (1955), illustrated by Henry C. Pitz. She was a versatile writer, though, authoring journalistic, biographical, and poetical works as well. During World War II, Page served as a war correspondent in the Pacific Theater, reporting on the experiences of Navy nurses. She continued in her freelance career after the war, writing a number of books for young people. In all she contributed eight poems to Weird Tales between 1942 and 1951. Most have a single word for their titles. Taken together, those eight titles could almost tell a story in themselves. Anice Page Cooper died suddenly on January 5, 1958, in Charleston, South Carolina, two days short of her sixty-seventh birthday.

Page Cooper's Poems in Weird Tales

"The Curse" (Jan. 1942)

"Hunger" (Mar. 1942)

"A Charm" (July 1944)

"Quest Unhallowed" (Mar. 1945)

"Remorse" (Sept. 1945)

"A Curse" (Jan. 1949)

"Incantation" (Sept. 1950)

"My Timid Soul" (Jan. 1951)

Further Reading
Jane Badger Books, A Website on Pony Book Authors and Their Books

Another poem by Page Cooper, from The Bookman:

Wild Goats

by Page Cooper

The moon is full but it won't spill over

And it won't fall out when it hangs askew.

The bees suck honey from tall red clover,

But they won't get drunk of it.

Bees never do.

I gave my heart to a girl with amber

Eyes like the windows the saints shine through.

She dragged it through brambles where wild goats clamber.

But my heart won't break of it.

Hearts never do.

Page Cooper wrote and edited a number of books about horses during the 1940s and '50s. Henry C. Pitz, Wesley Dennis, and Herman D. Giesen were among the illustrators.

Author and poet Anice Page Cooper (1891-1958). Photo from the collection of Randal A. Everts.

Text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Henry Lieferant (1892-1968) & Sylvia B. Saltzberg (1896-1952)

Henry Lieferant

Author, Editor, Playwright

Born January 30, 1892, Przemysl, Austria (now Poland)

Died October 1968, New York, New York

Sylvia B. Saltzberg

Pathologist, Author, Playwright

Born June 17, 1896, New York, New York

Died January 24, 1952, New York, New York

Pulp fiction writers were known for their versatility. Although they may have specialized in one or two genres, many were capable of working in a wider range. Paid a pittance and by the word during the Great Depression, they had reason to write and sell what they could wherever they could. Although Henry Lieferant and his wife, Sylvia B. Saltzberg, wrote mainly romance and confession stories, they also managed to sell one story to Weird Tales magazine.

Henry Lieferant was born on January 30, 1892, in Przemysl, Austria (now Poland), and immigrated to the United States in 1910. He trained in his native land as a military engineer and earned his American citizenship by enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1918. At the time he was selling insurance for a living. After working for a fashion magazine, Lieferant freelanced until 1927, the year he signed on with McFadden Publications in New York. He became an editor on Bernarr McFadden's True Story magazine, which sold nearly two million copies a month in 1929, equalling or surpassing totals for the slick magazines of the day. Lieferant remained with McFadden until 1946. By then he had already written or co-written a number of novels, one of which, Doctors' Wives, was adapted to the silver screen in 1931.

Lieferant's co-writer was his wife, Sylvia B. Saltzberg, a New Yorker born on June 17, 1896, and a child of Russian (or Lithuanian) immigrants. Her name was in print as early as 1909 when she submitted a puzzle to St. Nicholas magazine. She attended Hunter College in New York and became a pathologist for the city in the late 1910s. A strand of popular fiction--the romance between doctor and nurse (or doctor and patient)--may trace back to Sylvia Saltzberg's experiences in the field of medicine.

Sylvia B. Saltzberg and Henry Lieferant met at a summer resort where Sylvia was recuperating. They were married in 1924. One of their early collaborations was for Weird Tales. "A Game of Chance," their only story for "The Unique Magazine," appeared in the January 1924 issue during Weird Tales' first full year in print. Specializing in romance stories and true confessions, the Lieferants contributed stories, serials, and novels to Sweetheart Stories, Five-Novels Monthly, Physical Culture, and other pulp magazines. They also wrote hardbound and paperback novels, including Doctors' Wives (1930), Charity Patient (1939, reprinted as Doctor's Temptation, 1959), Hospital-Quiet Please! (1941, reprinted as Dr. Anders' Dilemma, 1958), and The Gentile (1958). Their play, Hilda Cassidy, was staged in New York in 1933.

The writing careers of Henry Lieferant and Sylvia B. Saltzberg lasted more than three decades, surviving the transition from pulps to paperbacks. Even into the 1960s, you could still find their novels in print. Sylvia Lieferant died on January 24, 1952, at New York Hospital. Henry Lieferant died in October 1968 in New York City after being scalded in his bathtub. 

Henry Lieferant and Sylvia B. Salzberg's Story in Weird Tales

"A Game of Chance" (Jan. 1924)

Further Reading

Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson included a chapter on romance and confession pulps in their book, Pulp Culture (Collectors Press, 1998). You can read more about romance novels in The Look of Love by Jennifer McKnight-Trontz (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002).

The ecstatic nurse in a clinch with the manly doctor--dreams of romance are made of this.

Updated December 11, 2023. (Happy birthday, ASG.)
Thanks to Randal A. Everts for further information on Sylvia and Henry Lieferant.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Arthur Selwyn Garbett (1883-1955)

Author, Editor, Composer, Music Critic, Biographer

Born March 1, 1883, Walsall, Staffordshire, England

Died October 25, 1955, Santa Clara County, California

Composer Arthur Selwyn Garbett wrote just one story for Weird Tales. Not surprisingly, it had a music-related title. Garbett was born the youngest of twelve children in Walsall, England, on March 1, 1883, and emigrated to the United States, perhaps in 1907. Garbett studied violin but a bout with scarlet fever left him deafened, ending his career as a musician. As a young man, he lived in Philadelphia and worked as a composer, biographer, editor for The Etude magazine, and copywriter for the Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey. In 1920, he and his wife--who was suffering from tuberculosis--moved to a milder climate in California. 

Garbett's works included three compilations of biographies of musical figures, Gallery of Musical Celebrities (1909), Gallery of Eminent Musicians (1911), and Gallery of Distinguished Musicians (1913), all published by Theodore Presser, founder of The Etude. Garbett also composed a number of songs and musical pieces, some of which have mythological themes, such as "An Idyl in Arcady" (1909) and "Syren Voices" (1911). His lone work for Weird Tales was a story called "The Devil's Opera," published in the August 1925 issue.

Garbett's wife, Cornelia Baxter Barns, was a woman of note. She was born in Flushing, New York, on September 25, 1888, daughter of the theatrical impresario Charles Barns. She studied at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts under William Merritt Chase and John Twachtman. As a socialist and artist, she became associated with Robert Henri and his circle. In 1914, she joined the staff of The Masses and contributed cartoons and illustrations to that magazine and The New Masses into the 1930s. She also drew pictures for Sunset, Liberator, Woman Voter, and other journals.

The Garbetts lived in San Francisco Bay area after their move. Cornelia contributed to the Oakland Post Enquirer, while her husband continued to write. Garbett worked as a radio station program director, music critic for a San Francisco newspaper, then director of education for the National Broadcasting Company in San Francisco. He retired to Los Gatos, California, where his wife, Cornelia Baxter Barns Garbett, died on November 4, 1941. Arthur Selwyn Garbett followed on October 25, 1955, at age seventy-two.

Arthur Selwyn Garbett's Story in Weird Tales

"The Devil's Opera" (Aug. 1925)

Further Reading

For more information on Cornelia Baxter Barns, wife of Arthur Selwyn Garbett, see: Art for the Masses: A Radical Magazine and Its Graphics, 1911-1917 by Rebecca Zurier (Temple University Press, 1988).

A cover drawing by Cornelia Baxter Barns, wife of composer and author Arthur Selwyn Barnett. A gentle socialist, she "came through the open door of The Masses" wrote Max Eastman, "like a child into a playroom."

A cartoon by Cornelia from the same magazine. Like so many cartoons of its day, this one relies on ethnic humor. And like so many drawings from The Masses, it's dark and heavy, perhaps in the classic style of Daumier or Goya.

Arthur Selwyn Garbett (1883-1955)

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for the photograph and further information on Arthur Selwyn Garbett.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

James O. Causey (1924-2003)

Author of Short Stories and Novels

Born July 12, 1924, Compton, California

Died April 13, 2003, Laguna Beach, California

Bill Blackbeard's collaborator on his first story for Weird Tales was another young writer, James Causey. James Oliver Causey, Jr., was born on July 12, 1924, in Compton, California, and grew up in Long Beach. The first writing credit I can find for him is his first story for Weird Tales, "The Statue," from the January 1943 issue. Half a year later, "Legacy in Crystal" appeared. Finally, in its November 1943 issue, Weird Tales printed Causey and Blackbeard's "Hammer of Cain." Causey was apparently by then serving in the military, having enlisted in March 1943 in Los Angeles. Like millions of men from his generation, his life was interrupted by World War II.

Causey's writing career picked up again after the war. At least four of his stories were published in Street and Smith's Detective Story Magazine between June 1945 and March 1947. In the early fifties, Causey tried his hand at science fiction with stories in Galaxy Science Fiction, Science Stories, and Orbit Science Fiction. One of those stories, "Felony," was selected for inclusion in The Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels: 1955, edited by T.E. Ditky (1955). Causey returned to crime fiction in the late fifties with three well regarded novels, The Baby Doll Murders (1957), Killer Take All (1957), and Frenzy (1960). One of his stories was also adapted to an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Called "Deathmate," the episode was written by Bill S. Ballinger and aired on April 18, 1961. Frenzy, by the way was not the same story as in Hitchcock's film, Frenzy (1972).

James Causey died on April 13, 2003, in Laguna Beach, where he had lived for many years. His daughter-in-law Karen Causey called him "[a] man of great wealth with regards to writing and in conversation," adding, "He is greatly missed!" You can read her comments and more on the blog Mystery File, here.

James Causey's Stories in Weird Tales

"The Statue" (Jan. 1943)

"Legacy in Crystal" (July 1943)

"Hammer of Cain," with Bill Blackbeard (Nov. 1943)

Further Reading

Causey's three stories for Galaxy Science Fiction, "Teething Ring," "Felony," and "Competition," are apparently in the public domain and available for free on the Internet. "Teething Ring" also appeared in 50 Short Science Fiction Tales, edited by Isaac Asimov and Groff Conklin (Collier Books, 1963).

Lacking an image from Weird Tales, I offer the cover of one of James O. Causey's novels, Frenzy (1960).

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for James Causey's places of birth and death.
Text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Bill Blackbeard (1928-2011)

Writer, Editor, Anthologist, Comic Strip Historian

Born April 28, 1926, Lawrence, Indiana

Died March 10, 2011, Watsonville, California

Before he amassed what was probably the world's largest collection of newspaper comic strips, Bill Blackbeard was a writer for science fiction fanzines and pulp magazines, including Weird Tales. He was born William Elsworth Blackbeard on April 28, 1926, in Lawrence, Indiana, a town then just northeast of Indianapolis and now engulfed by the city. He started collecting comics as a twelve-year-old boy in California, where he grew up, and he never stopped. His collection eventually amounted to seventy-five tons and an estimated three million or more items. Most of that collection is now housed at Ohio State University, at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum.

Although he never cared much for comic books (at one point he referred to them as "meretricious dreck"), Blackbeard greatly admired the two forms that gave rise to them, comic strips of course, and pulp magazines. Writing under his own name (and perhaps also under a transparent nom de plume as William Teach), Blackbeard authored stories and articles for science fiction fanzines, pulp magazines, and other publications. Only one of those stories appeared in Weird Tales. It may have been his first to see print. The story was called "Hammer of Cain," its co-author was James Causey, and it was published in the November 1943 issue of "The Unique Magazine." Blackbeard was all of seventeen years old at the time. Causey was nineteen. The story's appearance must have been quite a thrill for them (although Blackbeard's name had already seen print in Weird Tales, in a letter to "The Eyrie" from September 1942, while the magazine had published two of Causey's stories earlier in 1943). In any case, Blackbeard's budding career was soon interrupted by service with the U.S. Army in Europe during World War II. After the war, he attended Fullerton College on the G.I. Bill and embarked in earnest on a career as a writer, moreover as a collector--or savior--of American newspaper comic strips. Blackbeard died on March 10, 2011. Announcements of his death and tributes to him are all over the Internet as I write. One tribute of interest is on a blog called "Yesterday's Papers," by cartoonist and writer John Adcock, here.

Bill Blackbeard's Letter and Story in Weird Tales

Letter to "The Eyrie" (Sept. 1942)

"Hammer of Cain," with James Causey (Nov. 1943)

Further Reading

Bill Blackbeard authored or edited 200 or more books, but I have never read his fiction. For his non-fiction, you might start with:

• The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics, edited by Bill Blackbeard and Martin Williams (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press and Harry N. Abrams, 1977)
• Sherlock Holmes in America (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1981)
• The Comic Strip Century, two volumes, edited by Bill Blackbeard and Dale Crain (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: O.G. Publishing, 1995)

Bill Blackbeard in 1971. Photograph by Fitzgerald Whitney, from the Los Angeles Times.

Text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley