Gertrude Macaulay Sutton (1887-1979)

Gertrude Forster Macaulay Sutton

Author, Poet

Born October 16, 1887, Québec, Canada

Died September 19, 1979, presumably in Montréal, Québec, Canada

Update (Dec. 5, 2021): I first wrote on Gertrude Macaulay Sutton in 2015 when there was less information about her on line. The picture is a lot clearer now, but I will leave what I wrote before but with some updated information.

[From 2015:] Links in a broken chain:

A Miss Gertrude Macaulay, possessor of a "full and well-trained contralto," received coverage in The Sketch, March 16, 1898, page 322, including a photograph showing her as a full-grown woman, perhaps in her twenties.

Almost certainly the same Gertrude Macaulay, a contralto, having returned from Canada, advertised for singing engagements and to receive and visit students, giving her address as Park Court Mansions, Clapham Park, S.W., [London] in The Musical Times (Vol. 49, 1908).

On July 21, 1908, a Miss Gertrude Macaulay performed at St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, 112a Queen Victoria Street, E.C., [London].

[New information shows that this Gertrude was not our Gertrude. So, more from 2015, with a few pieces of updated information:]

A Gertrude F. Macaulay, age 28 years, 5 months, arrived in New York aboard the Orduna on March 20, 1916, from Liverpool. Given her age and the apparent age of the previously mentioned Gertrude Macaulay, I assume that these were two different women and that the second, the passenger on the Orduna, was the writer for Weird Tales.

A Gertrude Macaulay, daughter of President T.B. Macaulay of the Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, contributed to the war effort during World War I by preparing 700 puddings per week for wounded British soldiers in the Mary Lady Gerhardt Hospital in London. "Broken in health," she retreated to New York, arriving on April 6, 1916. The soldiers had awarded her "the Cuisine Cross de Pudding, the highest military honor conferred on civilians by wounded British soldiers." (From The Insurance Field--Life Edition, Apr. 14, 1916, p. 12.)

T.B. Macaulay--Thomas Bassett Macaulay (June 6, 1860-1942)--was a Canadian actuary, philanthropist, and farmer. According to Wikipedia, "It has been estimated that most of the world's Holstein cattle descend from Macaulay's herd." Macaulay married Henrietta Maria Louisiana Bragg (1857-1910) in 1881. She was a native of Louisiana. Henrietta died in 1910 and was buried in Montréal. The following year, her widowed husband pushed to have Canada annex the Bahamas.

A Gertrude F. Macaulay wrote a piece called "Only a 'Case'" for the journal Nurse (Vol. 5, 1916), in which she seems to have had some familiarity with nursing and hospitals in England during the war.

A Gertrude F. Macaulay of Montreal was listed as a member in Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (Vol. 12, 1918).

A Gertrude F. Macaulay, presumably the same woman, wrote an article called "The Source of Inspiration" in The Editor (May 25, 1918, pp. 345+), quoting from F.H.W. Myers' Human Personality and Its Survival after Bodily Death (1903). Frederick William Henry Myers (1843-1901) was the founder of the Society for Psychical Research in 1882.

June 23, 1923: A wedding announcement from the Vancouver Daily World (June 23, 1923, p. 9): "Sutton-Macaulay--Relatives of Miss Gertrude F. Macaulay here and in New Westminster have received the news of her marriage in Montreal to Mr. Cecil Arthur Sutton, of London, England. The bride, given in marriage by her father, Mr. T.B. Macaulay, wore a French robe of ivory tinted ninon stamped with a design in velvet, enriched by a court train of net embroidered in silver, the draperies, like the veil, caught with knots of orange blossom. Lilies of the valley and Ophelia roses composed the bouquet she carried. There were three attendants: the bride's cousin, Miss Edith Cushing, and her niece, Nancy Hale, and Kathryn Owen, of Detroit. All were dressed alike in almond green crepe sashed with black velvet and wore fillets of tulle. Mr. W. E. MacFarlane was best man. After a honeymoon in the Catskills, Mr. and Mrs. Sutton will live at 4002 Montrose Avenue, Montreal."

In an article from the Winnipeg Tribune (Jan. 31, 1930), Gertrude MacAulay [sic] Sutton was described as "a brilliant, vivid, young Canadian writer, who has in the past two years achieved literary distinction." If she was the passenger on the Orduna, she would have been, in 1930, about forty-two years old.

The FictionMags Index lists the following works by Gertrude F. Macaulay:

• "And the Devil Laughed" in The Smart Set (short story, Jan. 1912)
• "Sated" in The Cavalier (poem, Feb. 3, 1912)
• "A Splash of Scarlet" in The Smart Set (short story, May 1915)
• "The Girl in the Mirror" in The Parisienne (miscellaneous, July 1915)
• "The Sale of a Face" in The Smart Set (short story, July 1915)
• "The Artist" in The Smart Set (poem, Aug. 1916)
• "Her Typical Experience" in The Smart Set (short story, Aug. 1916)
• "Sweet as First Love" in The Smart Set (miscellaneous, Jan. 1918)
• "Her Men" in The Smart Set (short story, Nov. 1918)

and the following by Gertrude Macaulay Sutton:

• "Theft from the Devil" in The Delineator (short story, July 1928)
• "Indifference Is Filthy" in Maclean's (short story, Jan. 1, 1930)
• "Private Angel" in Woman's Home Companion (short story, Feb. 1930)
• "Gesture" in Weird Tales (short story, Sept. 1930)
• "Mrs. Falconer’s Private Conscience" in The Canadian Magazine (short story, Nov. 1930)
• "Beauty Parade" in The Delineator (short story, Sept. 1931)
• "In the House of My Friends" in The Canadian Magazine (short story, Nov. 1932)
• "Husbands Can Be Managed" in Canadian Home Journal (short story, Apr. 1933)
• "No Clue Left" in This Week (short story, July 28, 1935)

"Gesture" was her lone story for Weird Tales. "Theft from the Devil" won her a first prize in a competition for short stories by the Montreal Branch of the Canadian Authors' Association in 1927.

Old St. Andrews Parish Church of Charleston, South Carolina, an Anglican church, had among its parishioners Cecil Arthur Sutton (Oct. 25, 1884-Feb. 25, 1960), "Son of William Francis and Margaret Little Sutton [and] Beloved Husband of Gertrude Macaulay." Sutton was buried in the church cemetery.

And that's all I have found.

Update (Dec. 5, 2021): And now I have more:

Gertrude Forster Macaulay or MacAulay was born on October 16, 1887, in Québec, Canada, to Thomas Bassett Macaulay (June 6, 1860-1942) and Henrietta Maria Louisiana Bragg (1857-1910). Her father was Canadian, her mother American. She attended McGill University, presumably graduating in 1907. In her yearbook, she was described as an "[e]fficient hockey captain" and a "clever reporter." Her home at the time was Westmount, an enclave of wealthy English-speaking people located on the Island of Montreal. She wrote a number of stories, listed above, published in both Canadian and American magazines from 1912 to 1935. She married Cecil Arthur Sutton (Oct. 25, 1884-Feb. 25, 1960) in 1923, and although her writing career continued for at least a dozen years after being married, I have nothing for her after 1935.

Gertrude lived a very long life. I finally have her death date from Randal A. Everts and the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. The latter informed the former that death notices for Gertrude Macauley Sutton appeared in the Montreal Star (p. B5) and The Gazette (p. 41) on September 20, 1979. She had died the previous day, September 19, 1979, at age ninety-two.

Gertrude Macaulay Sutton's Story in Weird Tales

"Gesture" (Sept. 1930)

Further Reading

There is a good deal on the Internet about Gertrude's father, Thomas Bassett Sutton, but only a little about her.

Gertrude Macaulay and friend, 1910, Mount Victoria Farm, Hudson, Quebec. I believe Gertrude is on the left. She was five feet, six or seven inches tall; the woman on the left appears to be the taller of the two.

Update (Dec. 5, 2021): Here is her yearbook picture, from Old McGill, the yearbook of McGill University, 1907. Dorothy McIlwraith (1891-1976), later editor of Weird Tales, also attended McGill University but graduated in 1914, well after Gertrude. I wouldn't rule out that they knew each other, though.

Thanks to Randal A. Everts and the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec for more information on the death of Gertude Macauley Sutton.

Thanks also to Brian Busby (see his comment below) for more information on the young Gertrude.

Text copyright 2015, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Louis B. Capron (1891-1971)

Author, Poet, Merchant, Photographer, Anthropologist

Born July 26, 1891, Menands, Colonie, New York

Died December 16, 1971, West Palm Beach, Florida

Louis Bishop Capron was born on July 26, 1891, in the village of Menands within the town of Colonie, adjacent to Albany, New York. Capron moved to Oneonta, New York, at an early age and became interested in the history of American Indians. At Yale University he studied chemistry, anthropology, and archaeology and participated in the Yale-Andover Archaeological Survey of the Connecticut River Valley. Graduating in 1913, Capron--like his father before him--became a merchant. In 1925, he moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, where he worked for the Palm Beach Mercantile Company until his retirement in 1952.

From 1915 to 1920, Louis B. Capron contributed poems, stories, and vignettes to The Argosy, Breezy Stories, Munsey's, The Saturday Evening Post, The Smart Set, and St. Nicholas. His lone contribution to Weird Tales was the short story "The Soul That Waited" from June 1925.

Louis B. Capron was considered an expert on the Seminole Indians and was a member of historic and anthropological societies, including the American Anthropological Association. Once in Florida, he acquainted himself with the Seminole people and wrote the text of a pamphlet, "The Medicine Bundle of the Florida Seminole and the Green Corn Dance," for the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnography, published in 1953. His article "Florida's 'Wild' Indians: The Seminole" appeared in National Geographic in December 1956. 

In addition to being an author of verse, short fiction, and non-fiction, Louis Capron wrote children's novels, including Golden Arrowhead (1948), White Moccasins (1955), The Blue Witch (1957), and The Red War Pole (1963). The color-coded titles remind me of those of another Florida author, John D. MacDonald.

Capron died at home in West Palm Beach, Florida, on December 16, 1971, at age eighty.

Louis B. Capron's Story in Weird Tales

"The Soul That Waited" (July 1925)

Further Reading

Louis Bishop Capron's papers are at the George A. Smathers Libraries at the University of Florida.

Text copyright 2015, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Frank Owen's Books

The Encyclopedia of Fantasy by John Clute and John Grant (1999) describes Frank Owen as follows:

US author and editor, husband of Ethel Owen. He wrote 10 mildly salacious novels in the 1930s as Roswell Williams, sometimes listed erroneously as his real name. FO is best-know for mannered tales of the Orient. (p. 739)

According to that source, his works fall into the category of fantasy and fable, some with supernatural elements. The Encyclopedia is right in saying that Owen's real name was not Roswell Williams but wrong in saying Ethel Owen was his wife. She was in fact his older sister. Following is an incomplete list of Frank Owen's books:

• Coat Tales from the Pockets of the Happy Giant (with Ethel Owen, collection, New York: The Abingdon Press, 1927)
• The Dream Hills of Happy Country (with Ethel Owen, collection, New York: The Abingdon Press, 1928)
• Games in Rhyme (with Ethel Owen, illustrated by M. Farini, New York: C.R. Gibson and Company, 1929)
• The House Mother (New York: Lantern Press, 1929)
• Pale Pink Porcelain (1929)
• The Wind that Tramps the World: Splashes of Chinese Color (collection, New York: Lantern Press, 1929)
• The Purple Sea: More Splashes of Chinese Color (collection, New York: Lantern Press, 1930)
• Wind Blown Stories (with Ethel Owen, collection, illustrated by George T. Tobin, New York: The Abingdon Press, 1930)
• Della Wu, Chinese Courtezan and Other Oriental Love Tales (collection, New York: Lantern Press, 1931)
• Rare Earth (New York: The Lantern Press, 1931)
• The Blue Highway (with Ethel Owen, collection, illustrated by George T. Tobin, The Abingdon Press, 1932)
• Madonna of the Damned (as by Roswell Williams, 1935)
• Lovers of Lo Fab (as by Roswell Williams, 1935 or 1936)
• Between the Covers (New York: The Macaulay Company, 1938)*
• A Husband for Kutani (collection, New York: Lee Furman, 1938)
• The Scarlet Hill (New York: Carlyle House, 1941)
• Morris the Midget Moose (children's book, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1945)*
• The Porcelain Magician: A Collection of Oriental Fantasies (collection, illustrated by Frances E. Dunn, New York: Gnome Press, 1948)

*I can't be sure that these books were by our Frank Owen, who should not be confused with the Welsh military officer, author, and newspaperman, nor with the American cartoonist (1907-1971) of the same name.

In addition to writing books, Frank Owen was an editor. Many of these books are from the Teen-Age Library series published by Lantern Press and/or Grosset and Dunlap. The following list may or may not be complete:

• The Bedside Bonanza (New York: Frederick Fell Company, 1944)
• Murder for Millions: A Harvest of Horror and Homicide (New York: Frederick Fell Company, 1946)
• Teen-Age Companion (illustrated by Carl Cobbledick, 1946)
• Fireside Mystery Book (New York: Lantern Press, 1947)
• Teen-Age Baseball Stories (1947)
• Teen-Age Outdoor Stories (1947)
• Teen-Age Sports Stories (1947)
• Teen-Age Basketball Stories (1948)
• Teen-Age Football Stories (1948)
• Teen-Age Mystery Stories (illustrated by Carl Cobbledick, New York: Lantern Press, 1948)
• Teen-Age Stories of Action (1948)
• Teen-Age Winter Sports Stories (1949)
• Teen-Age Victory Parade (1950)
• Teen-Age Winter Sports Stories (Grosset Dunlap, 1950)
• Baseball Stories (paperback, Lantern Press, 1964)

Ethel Owen, Frank Owen's sister and sometime co-author, was born in August 1890 in New York, probably in Brooklyn. In addition to writing books with her younger brother, Ethel also wrote books on her own, many about parties for young people, some about more adult topics. Here is a partial list:

• A Book of Original Parties (1925)
• Parties That Are Different (1926)
• The Pumpkin People (1927)
• Hallowe'en Tales and Games (illustrated by Eleanore Mineah Hubbard, Chicago: A. Whitman and Company, 1928)
• Wish for Tomorrow (New York: Robert Speller Publishing Corp, 1936)
• The Abingdon Party Book (1937)
• Romance in the Rain (New York: Green Circle Books, 1937)
• Some One Shall Love Me (New York: Lee Furman, 1939)
• Unwilling Bride (Astro Books #9, 1948)
• Confessions of a Good-Time Girl (Astro Books #10, 1948)
• A Year of Recreation

Ethel Owen died on November 17, 1946, at age fifty-six. Her obituary--an incomplete obituary taken from the online archive of the New York Times--from November 18, 1946:

OWEN, Ethel, on Sunday, Nov. 17, 1946, devoted sister of Frank Owen, Mrs. Andrew Rankine and Mrs. Paul F. Pinkham. Service at her residence, 204 Weirfield St., Brooklyn . . . .

Here are some other sources from the Times on the Owen family. The transcriptions may not be entirely accurate:

Deaths

OWEN, Friday, March 25, 1938, Agnes A., beloved daughter of Henrietta and the late Henry Owen, sister of Margaret, Ethel, Ralph H., and Frank Owen, Mrs. Andrew Rankine and Mrs. Paul F. Pinkham. Services at her residence, 204 Weirfield Ave., Brooklyn. (Mar. 27, 1938)

Wills for Probate

OWEN, AGNES A. (March 25). Estate $4,800 personal. To mother, Henrietta Owen, 204 Weirfield St. Frank Owen, 204 Weirfield St., executor. (Apr. 6, 1938)

And Frank Owen's own obituary:

Frank Owen, Author, 75; Editor of Mystery Books

Frank Owen, an author who also wrote under the pen names Roswell Williams and Richard Kent, died Sunday after a long illness at his home, 21 Adler Place, Brooklyn. He . . . . (Oct. 15, 1968)

So what are we to make of the oeuvre of Frank Owen? He was a very prolific and seemingly reliable author for Weird Tales, yet his stories have very seldom been reprinted during the intervening years. It's true that they appeared in hardbound editions in the 1920s and '30s, even as most of his contemporaries were still hacking their way through the pulp jungle. But most were reprinted for the first and last time more than seventy years ago. Even if your library is well stocked, you might have a hard time coming up with even one of them. According to my recent email correspondent, E. Hoffman Price (another Orientalist) considered Owen "a fine writer," but how are we to know? If nothing else, "The Wind That Tramps the World," Owen's most popular story for Weird Tales, should be generally available. Instead, it has been reprinted only in Weird Tales #3, edited by Lin Carter, from 1981, a book that is hard to come by. (1) Ten authors are ahead of Frank Owen in the number of stories they wrote for Weird Tales. All but Allison V. Harding have had their stories reprinted again and again. (2) Most have their own large following of diehard fans. So what of Frank Owen? Is he a neglected author? Or is there something else going on? These are no mere rhetorical questions. We should know their answer.

Notes

(1) The title by the way is from the poem "Sestina of the Tramp-Royal" by Rudyard Kipling (1896).

(2) Allison V. Harding is a special case. There is reason to believe that stories by that pseudonymous author received special treatment in being published in Weird Tales.

You don't have to take my word for it. Here is an inscription from Ethel Owen:

July 23, 1936
To Frank Owen
My Brother
My Collaborator
My Fellow-Novelist
My Artist
and
A pretty good guy
Ethel Owen

Note: The illustration on the dust jacket of The Purple Sea is initialed "HR." I assume that to have been Hugh Rankin, an illustrator for Weird Tales.

Text copyright 2015, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Frank Owen's Stories and Poems

If The FictionMags Index is accurate and complete, then Frank Owen's writing career began with a story called "Broken to the Halter" in Young's Magazine for January 1915. Owen was then twenty-two years old. Over the next two decades, he wrote thirty stories for Young's, Lippincott's, Snappy Stories, Breezy Stories, Brief Stories, Droll Stories, and other story magazines and pulp magazines. Following is a list taken from The FictionMags Index (with punctuation added):

Frank Owen's Stories in Story Magazines and Pulp Magazines, 1915-1934

• "Broken to the Halter" in Young’s Magazine (Jan. 1915)
• "The Undecided Woman" in Lippincott’s Magazine (Feb. 1915)
• "Without Rehearsal" in Snappy Stories (Sept. #2 1915)
• "Plated Ware" in Young’s Magazine (Nov. 1915)
• "Whirlpools" in Breezy Stories (Jan. 1917)
• "The Yellow Pool" in Brief Stories (Nov. 1923)
• "The Black Well of Wadi" in Brief Stories (Jan. 1924)
• "The Show Girl" in Breezy Stories (June #1 1924)
• "The Exhibition" in Brief Stories (July 1924)
• "The High Note of the Chorus" in Droll Stories (July 1924)
• "A Lady in His Room" in Droll Stories (Aug. 1924)
• "The Meteor" in Brief Stories (Sept. 1924)
• "The Town-Painter" in Droll Stories (Feb. 1925)
• "Short Turns" in Breezy Stories (May #1 1925)
• "His New Model" in Artists and Models Magazine (May 1925)
• "Hard Lines" in Droll Stories (July 1925)
• "My China Girl" in Brief Stories (Aug. 1925)
• "Sleepy Eyes" in Droll Stories (Jan. 1926)
• "Making Emma Bad" in Droll Stories (Mar. 1926)
• "Encore" in Droll Stories (Apr. 1926)
• "Slow Curtain" in Droll Stories (May 1926)
• "Broadwayfarers" in Droll Stories (Apr. 1927)
• "Pale Pink Porcelain" in Mystery Magazine (Apr. 1927)
• "Bubbles’ Troubles" in Droll Stories (May 1927)
• "A Safe and Sane Fourth" in Young’s Realistic Stories Magazine (May 1927)
• "The Settlement Worker" in Droll Stories (June 1927)
• "Hope of Broadway" in Sweetheart Stories (Sept. 6, 1927)
• "The Slip Knot" in Cabaret Stories (Sept. 1928)
• "Divorce Party" in Honeymoon Stories (Dec. 1933)
• "Intrusion" in The Underworld Magazine (Mar. 1934)

About halfway through that stretch, Frank Owen began selling stories and poems to Weird Tales magazine. His first was "The Man Who Owned the World" in the October issue of 1923. His debut in that magazine coincided with the first story by H.P. Lovecraft in Weird Tales, "Dagon," also Seabury Quinn's first story and article.

Frank Owen's career writing for Weird Tales and its companion magazines, Oriental Stories and The Magic Carpet Magazine, is not easy to sort out. He contributed stories and poems to all three titles. In doing so, he used three names, his own, plus "Richard Kent" and the unambiguously obscene "Hung Long Tom." All of his stories for Weird Tales were published under his own name, as were two letters he wrote to "The Eyrie." All his poems for Weird Tales were as by the aforementioned Hung Long Tom. As for Oriental Stories and The Magic Carpet Magazine, there were three stories with the Richard Kent byline, five stories with the Frank Owen byline, and eighteen poems with the Hung Long Tom byline. In the first few issues of Oriental Stories, he had at least two and as many four works in each issue.

So, for Weird Tales, Frank Owen wrote thirty-four stories and five poems. For Oriental Stories and The Magic Carpet Magazine, he wrote eight stories and eighteen poems. All together, then, Frank Owen wrote forty-two stories and twenty-three poems for the three magazines, sixty-five works in all, plus two letters. He was one of few writers to contribute to all three. His thirty-four stories place him as the eleventh most prolific author of stories for Weird Tales, just behind Allison V. Harding, another New Yorker whose work has not very often been reprinted. Here is part of the list from my posting "Who Wrote the Most Stories for Weird Tales?" (Nov. 14, 2011, here):

1. Seabury Quinn, 145 stories and 14 articles
2. August W. Derleth, 101 stories under his own name, plus 13 stories under the pseudonym Stephen Grendon (114 total), plus 22 stories in collaboration with others
3. Edmond Hamilton, 76 stories
4. Robert Bloch, 66
5. Clark Ashton Smith, 63
6. Robert E. Howard, 54
7. H.P. Lovecraft, 49 stories on his own, plus 4 in collaboration with others, not counting revisions and ghost-written stories
8. Manly Wade Wellman, 39 stories on his own, plus 1 in collaboration with others
9. Paul Ernst, 37
10. Allison V. Harding, 36
11. Frank Owen, 34

"The Wind That Tramps the World," from April 1925, was voted the second most popular story of that issue (behind "When the Green Star Waned" by Nictzin Dyalhis). It was reprinted twice in Weird Tales and voted fortieth in popularity of all stories published from 1924 to 1940. It's worth noting that the titles of four of Owen's stories took the form of "The Man Who _____." It's also worth noting that Owen had at least two series characters, John Steppling and Dr. Shen Fu, possessor of an elixir of life. Anyway, here's a list:

Frank Owen's, Richard Kent's, & Hung Long Tom's Stories and Poems in Weird Tales, Oriental Stories, & The Magic Carpet Magazine

(All are stories unless otherwise noted, all are as by Frank Owen unless otherwise noted, and all are in Weird Tales unless otherwise noted.)

1. "The Man Who Owned the World" (Oct. 1923)
2. "The Open Window" (John Steppling, Jan. 1924)
3. "Shadows" (Apr. 1924)
4. "The Man Who Lived Next Door to Himself" (May/June/July 1924)
5. "Hunger" (Feb. 1925)
6. "The Wind That Tramps the World" (John Steppling, Apr. 1925; reprinted June 1929, Fall 1981)
7. "Black Hill" (June 1925)
8. "The Lantern-Maker" (Aug. 1925)
9. "The Yellow Pool" (Oct. 1925)
10. "The Fan" (John Steppling, Dec. 1925)
11. "The Silent Trees" (May 1926)
12. "Seven Minutes" (Oct. 1926)
13. "The Dream Peddler" (Jan. 1927)
14. "The Blue City" (Sept. 1927)
15. "The Purple Sea" (Feb. 1928)
16. "The Tinkle of the Camel's Bell" (Dec. 1928)
17. "The Desert Woman" as by Richard Kent in Oriental Stories (Oct./Nov. 1930)
18. "Singapore Nights" in Oriental Stories (Oct./Nov. 1930)
19. "Flower Profiles" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Oct./Nov. 1930)
20. "The Yellow River" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Oct./Nov. 1930)
21. "The Burning Sea" as by Richard Kent in Oriental Stories (Dec. 1930/Jan. 1931)
22. "The China Kid" in Oriental Stories (Dec. 1930/Jan. 1931)
23. "The Rose" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Dec. 1930/Jan. 1931)
24. "The Rug" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Dec. 1930/Jan. 1931)
25. "Scoundrels by Night" as by Richard Kent in Oriental Stories (Feb./Mar. 1931; reprinted in Short Story Magazine #18, 1946)
26. "Della Wu, Chinese Courtezan" in Oriental Stories (Feb./Mar. 1931)
27. "The Giant" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Feb./Mar. 1931)
28. "Hsun Hsu" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Apr./May/June 1931)
29. "The Mirror" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Apr./May/June 1931)
30. "Song of the Indian Night" in Oriental Stories (Summer 1931)
31. "Yung Chi" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Summer 1931)
32. "The Golden Girl" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Autumn 1931)
33. "Night" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Autumn 1931)
34. "Porcelain" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Autumn 1931)
35. "Yellow Velvet" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Autumn 1931)
36. "The Mystic Rose" as by Hung Long Tom in Oriental Stories (poem, Winter 1932)
37. "The Nanking Road" as by Hung Long Tom in The Magic Carpet Magazine (poem, Jan. 1933)
38. "Gifts" as by Hung Long Tom in The Magic Carpet Magazine (poem, Apr. 1933)
39. "Dancers" as by Hung Long Tom in The Magic Carpet Magazine (poem, July 1933)
40. "The Green Sea" as by Hung Long Tom (poem, Aug. 1933)
41. "Rain" as by Hung Long Tom (poem, Sept. 1933)
42. "The Pool" as by Hung Long Tom in The Magic Carpet Magazine (poem, Oct. 1933)
43. "The Ox-Cart" (Dec. 1933)
44. "Five Merchants Who Met in a Tea-House" in The Magic Carpet Magazine (Jan. 1934)
45. "Rivers" as by Hung Long Tom in The Magic Carpet Magazine (poem, Jan. 1934)
46. "The Lantern" as by Hung Long Tom (poem, Feb. 1934)
47. "Pale Pink Porcelain" (Dec. 1934; 1929)
48. "Tea-Drinking" as by Hung Long Tom (poem, May 1935)
49. "Night Song" as by Hung Long Tom (poem, Sept. 1935)
50. "The Man Who Would Not Die" (Feb. 1936)
51. "The Poppy Pearl" (Feb. 1937)
52. "The Mandarin's Ear" (Aug. 1937)
53. "On Pell Street" (July 1940)
54. "By What Mystic Mooring" (May 1941)
55. "The March of the Trees" (Mar. 1942)
56. "For Tomorrow We Die" (Dr. Shen Fu, July 1942)
57. "The Lips of Caya Wu" (Nov. 1942)
58. "Quest of a Noble Tiger" (Jan. 1943)
59. "The Man Who Amazed Fish" (Dr. Shen Fu, May 1943)
60. "The Street of Faces" (July 1943)
61. "Death in a Gray Mist" (Sept. 1943)
62. "The Long Still Streets of Evening" (Sept. 1944)
63. "The Three Pools and the Painted Moon" (Sept. 1950)
64. "The Old Gentleman with the Scarlet Umbrella" (John Steppling, Jan. 1951)
65. "The Unicorn" (Nov. 1952)

Frank Owen's Letters to "The Eyrie"

May 1943

Sept. 1944

We're not through with the complications just yet. In addition to writing stories published in magazines, Frank Owen also wrote stories published in his own books. I'll start with the books:

The Wind that Tramps the World: Splashes of Chinese Color (New York: Lantern Press, 1929)

• "The Wind That Tramps the World"
• "Pale Pink Porcelain"
• "The Month the Almonds Bloom"
• "The Inverted House"
• "The Blue City"
• "The Frog"
• "The Snapped Willow"

The Purple Sea: More Splashes of Chinese Color (New York: Lantern Press, 1930)

• "The Golden Hour of Kwoh Fan" (reprinted in Avon Fantasy Reader #11, 1949)
• "The Purple Sea"
• "The Silent Trees" (reprinted in Avon Fantasy Reader #3, 1947)
• "The Lantern-Maker"
• "Gobi Interlude"
• "The Perfumes of Chow Wan"
• "The Quaint Manuscript of Wu Wang"
• "The Rice Merchant"
• "Love Letters of a Little House"
• "The Tinkle of the Camel's Bell" (reprinted in Vampire: Chilling Tales of the Undead, ed. by Peter Haining, 1985)
• "The Old Man Who Swept the Sky"

The Porcelain Magician: A Collection of Oriental Fantasies (New York: Gnome Press, 1948)

• Interior artwork by Frances E. Dunn
• Foreword (The Porcelain Magician), an essay by David A. Kyle
• "The Fan"
• "The Inverted House"
• "The Lantern-Maker"
• "The Porcelain Magician"
• "The Purple Sea"
• "The Old Man Who Swept the Sky"
• "Doctor Shen Fu"
• "Pale Pink Porcelain"
• "The Rice Merchant"
• "The Blue City"
• "The Fountain"
• "Monk's Blood"
• "The Golden Hour of Kwoh Fan"
• "The Wind That Tramps the World"

As you can see by comparing titles and dates of publication, some of Owen's stories appeared in Weird Tales and its companion magazines before they were published in hardback, some were published in hardback before appearing in the magazines, some appeared only in magazines, and some appeared only in hardback. (I think. Whew!) In addition, Frank Owen had two stories published in periodicals other than Weird Tales and its companion titles:

• "A Study in Amber" as by Richard Kent in Avon Fantasy Reader #5 (1947)
• "One-Man God" in Avon Fantasy Reader #17 (1951) and in the digest-sized Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader (Jan. 1953)

There have been a few recent re-printings, but all in all, Frank Owen has been largely forgotten by readers of fantasy and weird fiction. I don't know why that should be. Maybe it's time for a new collection of his stories and poems.

Next: Frank Owen's Books

Weird Tales, January 1943, with a cover story by Frank Owen and cover art by A. R. Tilburne.

Copyright 2015, 2023 Terence E. Hanley