Weird Tales from the Renaissance

William Shakespeare
Playwright, Poet, Actor
Born April 1564, Stratford-upon-Avon, England
Died April 23, 1616, Stratford-upon-Avon, England

If you leave out Sir Thomas More's translation of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," Weird Tales printed only six other works from the Renaissance by my count. All were by William Shakespeare, two poems and four excerpts from his plays. Those four excerpts were part of Virgil Finlay's poetry series, which ran from December 1937 to May 1940. The series came to an end with Dorothy McIlwraith's assumption of the editorship of Weird Tales.

William Shakespeare's Works in Weird Tales

"Fairy Lullaby" (poem, Mar. 1927)

"Double, double, toil and trouble" from Macbeth (July 1938)

"Death" (poem, Oct. 1938)

"I can call spirits from the vasty deep" from King Henry IV (Aug. 1939)

"Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night" from King Henry VI (Dec. 1939)

"The graves stood tenantless" from Hamlet (May 1940)

Ghosts? Witches? Monsters? Murderers? The Bard of Avon was also a teller of weird tales.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Harriet A. Bradfield (1899-1953)

Poet, Author, Editor

Born April 13, 1899, La Crosse, Wisconsin

Died March 16, 1953, New York, New York

A prolific author and esteemed editor, Harriet Alma Bradfield lived a tragically short life and died alone in her New York home. Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on April 13, 1899, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1920. Shortly thereafter, Harriet moved to New York and received a certificate of secretarial studies from Columbia University during 1923-1924. Whether she returned to her hometown is unknown, but by 1930, Harriet Bradfield was a permanent resident of New York City.

In an August 1930 article in The Author and Journalist, Harriet was described as an editor "you want to know." She worked at various publications before becoming a columnist and market letter editor with The Writer's Digest in 1932. She spent the rest of her career with that publication and wrote prolifically for romance pulps, including All Story Love Stories, Love Fiction Monthly, Ten-Story Love (whose characters no doubt reached heights of rapture and ecstasy), and other titles. All of her published works appear to have been either non-fiction or romance except for the six poems she sold to Weird Tales between 1948 and 1953. The last, "Suspicion," was published posthumously. Harriet A. Bradfield died on March 16, 1953, at age fifty-three.

Harriet A. Bradfield's Poems in Weird Tales

"The Door" (Nov. 1946)

"Demon Lover" (May 1948)

"Demon Lure" (Nov. 1949)

"Unexpiated" (Nov. 1951)

"Cat-Eyes" (Jan. 1952)

"Suspicion" (Nov. 1953)

Further Reading

If you can find it, I can't think of a source with a more intriguing title than "Editors You Want to Know: Harriet Bradfield" by B. Virginia Lee in The Author and Journalist, August 1930.

The cover of Weird Tales for November 1953, the last issue in which a poem by Harriet A. Bradfield appeared.  It was also the last cover by Margaret Brundage and was recycled from January 1945 when it illustrated Edmond Hamilton's "Priestess of the Labyrinth."

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Anonymous

Anonymous is one of the most prolific authors the world has ever known. He and she have written, drawn, painted, and composed countless works. Not surprisingly, Anonymous contributed to Weird Tales as well. Some of those articles, stories, and poems were probably the work of editors or their associates. Others may have been by writers who did not want their names appearing in a pulp magazine. In any case, here is a list of works by that most mysterious of authors:

Anonymous' Works in Weird Tales

"The Young Man Who Wanted to Die" (Mar. 1923)

"The Closed Cabinet" (May 1923)

"A Soulless Resurrection" (Nov. 1924)

"The Twa Corbies" (a traditional poem, Feb. 1926)

"In Memoriam: Henry St. Clair Whitehead" (article, Mar. 1933)

"From Ghoulies and Ghoosties" (old Cornish litany and part of Virgil Finlay's poetry series, Feb. 1938)
"The Black Art--From Its Birth to Blackout" (article, July 1940)

"Clark Ashton Smith--His Life and Letters" (article, Mar. 1942)

Anonymous' Works in Oriental Stories

"The Tale of Annaya" (Spring 1932)

It's worth noting that most of these works came early in the tenure of a given editor. An editor pressed for time and in need of content might easily turn to his or her own work or the work of friends or associates in order to fill the gaps.

Copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales from Ancient Times

Lucian

Author, Public Speaker

Born ca. A.D. 125, Samosata (located in modern day Turkey)

Died After A.D. 180

Lucian is a figure from the ancient world, known for his comic and satiric works. His True Story or True History is the earliest known work involving a trip into outer space, encounters with alien life forms, and interplanetary warfare. The story is often cited as the first science fiction novel.

Lucian's Philopseudes ("Lover of Lies") is the source of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," reprinted by Weird Tales in a translation by Sir Thomas More (1478-1535) in its October issue, 1939. Lucian's original work is also the inspiration for Goethe's well-known ballad, written in 1797. According to Wikipedia, a line from the poem, "The spirit that I called," has become a cliché, referring to an ally that, once summoned, cannot be controlled. In the early 1930s, Adolf Hitler rose to power and was appointed as chancellor of Germany. Goethe's ideal of a Germany made up of separate principalities was long gone, while the Weimar Republic, which originated in a city bearing his unequalled cachet in German culture, became the first nation to fall to Hitler and his Nazi Party. Hitler--the spirit that was called by the German government and people--of course went out of its control and launched a war in Europe in September 1939, a month ahead of the cover date of Weird Tales in which Lucian's story appeared. A year and a month later, Walt Disney's Fantasia made its debut in a New York theater. One of the highlights of the film is a segment animating Paul Dukas' symphonic poem, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (1897), after Goethe's poem from a century before. The star of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" (the Disney version) is of course Mickey Mouse.

Lucian's Story in Weird Tales

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" translated by Sir Thomas More (Oct. 1939)

Text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Helen Liello (1879-1968)

Née Helen A. Green

Author

Born November 9, 1879, Bergen, New Jersey

Died March 2, 1968, Naples, Italy

Helen Liello, daughter of a clerk and farmer, was born Helen A. Green on November 9, 1879, in Bergen, New Jersey. In 1900, she was living in Thompson, Connecticut, with her widowed father, her sister, and her cousin, Clarence Ward. By 1910, she was boarding in Brooklyn and studying music. That was probably the last time a federal census taker found her living in the United States, for she had by 1920 married and begun her travels abroad.

Helen Liello came by her Italian last name by marrying Giuseppe John Liello (1892-1967). Born in Stromboli, Italy, Liello emigrated to the United States in 1901. Settling in Brooklyn, he became a naturalized citizen in September 1919. A budding painter and graphic artist, Liello studied at the Art Students League and applied for a passport in October 1919--only weeks after becoming a citizen--so that he could study art in Holland and France. With him on that trip was his wife, Helen A. Green Liello. The couple would travel to Europe many more times over the next decade.

During that time, Helen Liello wrote. Weird Tales was one of her markets. She sold just one story to the magazine, "For Sale, A Country Seat," printed in the February 1925 issue. (1) Also during the 1920s, she wrote for Young's Realistic Stories Magazine and Breezy Stories, later for The Yellow Book. Many of her husband's works, created in Europe and Africa, date from the same period.

Over the course of her long life, Helen Liello corresponded with her cousin, Clarence Ward (1884-1973). Born in Brooklyn, Ward earned three degrees from Princeton University (the last in 1914) before landing a position in the art department of Oberlin College. In his three decades at Oberlin, Ward built an impressive résumé: teacher, architect, pastor, founder of the art library, chair of the art department, and director of the Allen Memorial Art Museum. Ward retired in 1947, yet Oberlin College still remembers him with its Annual Clarence Ward Birthday Party and Student Exhibition.

A noteworthy artist and a member of the Society of Independent Artists, John Liello died in Florida in April 1967. His last residence was Altamonte Springs. Less than a year later, on March 2, 1868, Helen Liello died in Naples, Italy, where she had lived for many years. She was eighty-eight years old. Burial was at the British Cemetery in Naples.

Helen Liello's Story in Weird Tales

"For Sale, A Country Seat" (Feb. 1925)

Further Reading

Helen Liello's correspondence with her cousin Clarence Ward is in the collections of Oberlin College.

Notes
(1) The 1925 New York State Census, ostensibly dated June 1, 1925, has John and Helen Liello residing at 261 West 22nd Street, New York. He was an artist, she was a writer.

Giuseppe John Liello and Helen Liello, passport photographs, 1919. Symbolically or not, they are turned away from each other. Did they separate or divorce in later years? 

Rue Tourbet-El-Bey, Tunis (1923), a charcoal drawing by John Liello.

Another work by Liello, from Africa.

Postscript (Dec. 6, 2012): A family member writes that Giuseppe John Liello and Helen Green Liello were indeed divorced and that she returned from overseas, to Brooklyn, and alone, dates unknown. He remarried after that.

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for locating Helen Green's birth record. Thanks to Alan Husby for a correction to publication dates.
Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Harry Noyes Pratt (1879-1944)

Author, Editor, Poet, Lyricist, Museum Curator and Director

Born July 14, 1879, River Falls, Wisconsin

Died May 19, 1944, Sacramento, California

Harry Noyes Pratt was born on July 14, 1879, in River Falls, Wisconsin. As a young man, he worked as a bookkeeper and purchasing agent. By 1920 he was calling himself a "writer of verse" (despite the fact that his middle name is a homonym for "noise"). He earned that title with two volumes of poetry, Mother of Mine and Other Verse (1918) and Hill Trails and Open Sky: A Book of California Verse (1919). As the title of the second book suggests, Pratt made a name for himself in the Golden State. He lived there as early as 1910 with his Californian wife and resided at one time or another in Lodi, Alameda, Berkeley, and Sacramento. Eventually he would become editor of The Overland Monthly, art critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, and curator and/or director of the Haggin Museum in Stockton and the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. His poetry and short stories were published in Ace-High Magazine, All-Story Love Stories, Argosy, and Short Stories, as well as in anthologies of verse. As a California poet of the 1910s-1930s, Pratt may very well known Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). (Update: See the comment below.) The title of Pratt's operetta Atlantis (1926) implies that the author had an interest in the fantastic. His story for Weird Tales confirms that. Called "The Curse of Ximu-tal," Pratt's was the cover story for the August 1930 issue of the magazine. The cover and interior illustrations were by Hugh Rankin. Harry Noyes Pratt died on May 19, 1944, in Sacramento, two months short of his sixty-fifth birthday.

Harry Noyes Pratt's Story in Weird Tales

"The Curse of Ximu-tal" (Aug. 1930)

Further Reading

The Smithsonian Archives of American Art has a collection of Pratt's letters. His verse and non-fiction are still available in works out of print.

"The Curse of Ximu-tal" by Harry Noyes Pratt made the cover of Weird Tales in August 1930, despite the fact that tales by Seabury Quinn, Robert E. Howard, and Edmond Hamilton were also featured in the magazine. Hugh Rankin ("Doak") was the creator of the somewhat muddy cover art.

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Muriel Cameron Bodkin (ca. 1903-?)

Poet, Author, Editor

Born ca. 1903, New York, New York

Died ?

Muriel F. Bodkin was born in about 1903 in New York City, the daughter of immigrants from the British Isles. Her father was a farmer and orchardist, her mother a dressmaker and designer. Between 1908 and 1920, Muriel's mother ran her own firm, the Charlotte Bodkin Company, Inc. (The name "Bodkin" would seem fitting for a clothing maker.) John and Charlotte Bodkin had three children: Muriel, John, and Robert. In 1910 and 1920, they were enumerated in Little Falls Township, Passaic County, New Jersey. In 1930, Charlotte Bodkin was alone in Manhattan with her daughter Muriel, then working for a publisher.

Muriel Cameron Bodkin wrote a single poem for Weird Tales. Entitled "A Witch Passes," it appeared in the March 1933 issue of "The Unique Magazine." She also wrote stories for Love Book Magazine and All-Story Love Stories in the latter part of the decade. Muriel had been writing for some time. As a child, she submitted a story to St. Nicholas and won mention in the magazine's roll of honor. During the 1920s, her poetry appeared in The Forum, a magazine published in New York City. In 1931, she was named head of publicity and advertising at Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, Inc., a New York publishing house. And then her trail goes cold.

Muriel Cameron Bodkin's Poem in Weird Tales

"A Witch Passes" (Mar. 1933)

Further Reading

Poems by Muriel Bodkin:

I Was a Garden

I was a garden

   That grew beside the road

Where sailor man and journeyman

   Made sweet abode.

I gave them drink of crystal spring,

   A posy of heart's-bane,

They gave a gramercy to me

   And went their way again.

There came a youth a-wandering

   To take solace of me. . . .

Alack--he found my well was dry

   Of too much charity.

(From The Forum, 1927)

Chalice

I would make myself 

A crystal chalice for your love,

   And hide myself within some ancient crypt

A frail amphora pregnant of soft wine;

   Until the sweetness of the juice, sipped

By all the nomad breezes of the place

   Floats, one dim stream about the world.

(From The Forum, 1925)

PLEASE NOTE (Oct. 8, 2013): With new information provided by Randal A. Everts, I have updated this posting. You can read the new version at this link:

http://tellersofweirdtales.blogspot.com/2013/10/muriel-cameron-bodkin-1903-1994.html

Thanks to Randal A. Everts for further information on Muriel Cameron Bodkin.

Original text copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley