Weird Tales: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary-Part One

In January 1940, Weird Tales began as a bimonthly rather than monthly magazine. There were no more April issues, but March and May remained. So in March 1948, Weird Tales celebrated twenty-five years in print with a commemorative cover by Lee Brown Coye and messages inside from the editor, presumably Dorothy McIlwraith, and its two leading contributors, at least in terms of the number of pieces each had published in the magazine. These were August Derleth and Seabury Quinn.

The introduction, from "The Eyrie," March 1948:

Weird Tales, 25 Years

ON this occasion of WEIRD TALES' twenty-fifth birthday, we'd like to share with you the kind comments of Seabury Quinn and August Derleth, especially sent to us for this anniversary. These two have known and contributed to WEIRD from its earliest days; their many superb stories and always-helpful suggestions through the years have contributed in no small way to the magazine’s success. And when we thank them we mean to thank, too, all the other fine contributors and friends who have helped us do the job that is your WEIRD TALES.

To be continued . . . 

Weird Tales, the 25th-anniversary issue, March 1948, with cover art by Lee Brown Coye. The names on the cover were some of the magazine's heavy hitters.

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales: The Sixteenth Anniversary

The May 1939 installment of "The Eyrie" began with these words:

For sixteen years WEIRD TALES has consistently endeavored to give its readers stories that are different from any to be found elsewhere. In addition to the best weird and fantastic stories obtainable, we have sought out and printed other highly imaginative tales, so plausibly told that they seem entirely possible and convincing. That we have succeeded in our purpose of presenting utterly different literary fare is attested by the multitudinous flood of enthusiastic letters from you, the readers, throughout the years this magazine has been published. Such a different story is The Hollow Moon in this issue, the story of a lunar vampire, written by an author [Everil Worrell] whose previous vampire story, The Canal, was acclaimed by no less an authority than the late H. P. Lovecraft himself as one of the greatest vampire tales ever written. The next few months will be particularly rich in such highly original and utterly different tales, notable among them being Giants of the Sky by Frank Belknap Long, Jr., an unusual tale of vast beings in a super-cosmos who made our earth the object of an experiment; King of the World's Edge by H. Warner Munn, an intriguing weird novel of America in King Arthur's Time, with Merlin as one of its principal characters; and Spawn by P. Schuyler Miller, as powerful and strange a tale as it has ever been our good fortune to present to you, our readers.

(Boldface added.) 

Weird Tales, May 1939, with a cover story, "The Hollow Moon," by Everil Worrell and cover art by Harold S. De Lay. Throughout most of 1939, each issue of Weird Tales contained 164 pages. I believe that was as close as it ever came to the very long issues of 1923-1924.

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales: The Fifteenth Anniversary

Weird Tales magazine turned fifteen years old in March 1938. In the anniversary installment of "The Eyrie," from May 1938, the editor allowed readers to speak on the occasion:

Fifteenth Anniversary

Richard H. Jamison writes from Valley Park, Missouri: "Congrats on WEIRD's fifteenth anniversary! You really started something with that March 1923 issue, for with that issue the first (and best) of the fantastics was born. There's been a world of improvement in the lusty youngster since he first saw the light of day fifteen years ago.

The first issue had rough edges, no interior illustrations, and many of the stories were pure and simple detective stories. But now we have smooth edges, the best illustrated magazine on the market, and the stories are uniformly good weird tales with quite a number of little masterpieces among them. I noticed a letter in the Eyrie in which the writer asked who had written the most stories for WT. Seabury Quinn has that distinction, having contributed no less than ninety-two stories since his first appeared in October 1923. He has also had two stories reprinted. His closest competitor is August Derleth with sixty-nine stories, no reprints."

The author of that letter would appear to have been an early cataloguer of Weird Tales, its contents, and the authors who wrote for the magazine. Good for him. Seabury Quinn would remain the all-time champion with 145 stories and fourteen articles published in Weird Tales in its original run. And August Derleth would remain in second place. As for Richard H. Jamison, he was presumably the same man who wrote letters to "The Eyrie" as Richard F. Jamison. If that's the case, then he would also have landed on a list of "Who Wrote the Most . . .?", for Jamison had eleven letters in "The Eyrie" from January 1937 to March 1940, and that would have tied him with six others for eighteenth place on the list.

Letters to "The Eyrie," May 1938, continued:

Back in 1923

Arthur Lincoln Brown writes from Dallas: "For a number of years now I have been reluctant to write you this letter, but today it rived its fetters and escaped to you. Back in 1923, when your magazine first made its appearance on the news stands, it was primarily a magazine daring to open the way to the inexhaustible field of weird fiction. I have watched it grow, expand, and improve until now it has reached the acme of weird fiction. In my estimation, it is today at the pinnacle of success. WEIRD TALES is a piece of literary art founded on the genius of its authors--on the co-operation of its readers--on the receptiveness the editor holds for each new suggestion of improvement. Readers of fiction sometimes are fortunate to discover WEIRD TALES early; others must advance, explore and read their way through numerous cheap and pulpy magazines that litter the news stands before they discover WEIRD TALES. By this I mean that some of us have had to graduate to it before we became satisfied; but once we have perused our first copy we are enmeshed within its realm of weird narratives. It has finally reached the summit of weird fiction, and may we keep it always superb in its unequaled uniqueness."

(Boldface added in both letters.)

Unfortunately, I can't say for sure who Richard H. Jamison and Arthur Lincoln Brown were. But at least we have their thoughts from nearly ninety years ago.

Weird Tales, May 1938, with a cover story, "Goetterdaemmerung," by Seabury Quinn and cover art by Margaret Brundage. Note the blurb at the top: "16th Year of Publication." That same blurb appeared on every cover during 1938 from March through December.

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales: The Eighth Anniversary

In "The Eyrie" for April/May 1931, the editor wrote:

WEIRD TALES will continue the policy on which its brilliant success has been built since it was first published eight years ago. That is, we will print the best weird fiction in contemporary literature, stories that Edgar Allan Poe and FitzJames O'Brien would delight to read if they were alive today. Both these writers would undoubtedly have been writing for WEIRD TALES if the magazine had been published in their time. In addition to the weird tale proper, we will offer you marvelous weird-scientific tales that forecast the science of the future; tales of other planets, and wars between the worlds; tales of eery surgery; tales of megalomaniacs whose brilliant scientific achievements menace the world with destruction; tales of tremendous dooms sweeping upon our world from the depths of stellar space; tales of the interstellar patrol; astronomical tales that bring to you the most daring prognostications of stellar science.

The bulk of our stories, however, will be tales of utter weirdness, for it is upon these that the splendid reputation of the magazine has been built. Such tales, for instance, as the stories of cosmic horror penned by H. P. Lovecraft, to mention one of the most popular writers in this magazine; the eery adventures of Jules de Grandin, as told in Seabury Quinn's inimitable style; shuddery werewolf stories (you all remember The Werewolf of Ponkert, by H. Warner Munn, do you not?); tales of the unnatural and abnormal; fantastic and bizarre stories such as Frank Owen's unforgettable tale, The Wind That Tramps the World; tales, of vampires and witches; thrilling stories of devil-worship, of which E. Hoffmann Price is a master narrator; occasional ghost stories; tales of strange monsters, such as the ever-to-be-remembered story by Frank Belknap Long, Jr., entitled The Space-Eaters; thrill-tales of mystery and terror; tales of stark horror, but nothing sickening or disgusting.

We could dwell at length on some of the great stories we have published in the past; but we think it better to continue publishing the finest weird fiction in the world today, rather than harp on the past glories of the magazine.

(Boldface added.)

The 1930s had begun, and science fiction magazines were proliferating. I like that Weird Tales gave some space to what the editor called "weird-scientific" stories. Weird science, weird science fiction, or science-fantasy is its own sub-sub-genre, I think. Where else would you put "Shambleau" by C.L. Moore? Many readers liked stories of this type. Some did not. But another one of the things I like about Weird Tales is that it listened to and allowed its readers to speak.

Lovecraft, Owen, and Price received repeat mention after the editorial of two years before, but Frank Owen's story "The Wind That Tramps the World" was the only one mentioned by name in both the sixth- and eighth-anniversary editorials.

Weird Tales, April/May or just May 1931, with a cover story, "The Dust of Death" by Hugh Jeffries and cover art by C.C. Senf in a somewhat different mode from his earlier covers. Note the clever vertical lettering in imitation of the Chinese.

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales: The Sixth Anniversary

I didn't find anything on the five-year anniversary of Weird Tales, but here are the beginning paragraphs of the May 1929 installment of "The Eyrie":

IT IS now more than six years since the first copy of WEIRD TALES appeared on the news stands. The magazine was created to fill a very real demand for something radically different, something that would let the fancy escape from the humdrum, everyday life of the world; a magazine whose stories should plumb the depths of occult horror, as Lovecraft has done in so many of his tales; a magazine that should not shrink from the terrible mysteries of madness and wild imagination, but should deal boldly with what Clark Ashton Smith in one of his memorable sonnets calls life's

"dark, malign and monstrous music, spun
In hell, from some delirious Satan's dream."

Here at last was to be a magazine whose readers could not begin a story with the bland assurance that the hero would triumph in the final paragraphs, and all turn out sweetly in the time-honored stereotyped manner, and the heroine be surely rescued.

The magazine, we believe, has lived up to the aims of the founders, and has provided a feast of imaginative literature that has entrenched it thoroughly in the affections of its readers, and assured its continued success as long as we continue to play fair with you by printing superb weird tales such as we have given you in the past--stories that reach out into the depths of space and picture such beings as Donald Wandrei describes in The Red Brain; stories of such cataclysmic horror as H. P. Lovecraft depicts in The Rats in the Walls; stories that sound the abysses of physical suffering as H. Warner Munn does in The Chain; fantastic tales surcharged with beauty and sweetness and light, such as The Wind That Tramps the World, by Frank Owen; epochal masterpieces such as E. Hoffmann Price's sublime little tale of devil-worship, The Stranger From Kurdistan, with its audacious close; superb imaginative master-works of literary craft such as A. Merritt's tale of the revolt of the forest, The Woman of the Wood. It is our aim to continue to give you such marvelous weird tales as these; for it is on these stories, and others like them, that the brilliant success of WEIRD TALES has been built.

(Boldface added.)

These paragraphs are more specific than those of the fourth-anniversary editorial of May 1927. They also seem to me more boosterish. If this had been published in 2024, I might think it was written by artificial intelligence. (The truly human is authentic. AI is inauthentic, and what it writes evokes feelings that are the verbal equivalent of the visual uncanny valley. In other words, AI is creepy. People who write like AI are inauthentic. Their writing, too, evokes uncanny feelings.)

By the way, "The Woman of the Wood," by A. Merritt, was voted by readers the most popular story published in Weird Tales between 1924 and 1940. With an initial "A" and a last name that is a homophone for "merit," I guess Merritt was destined for excellence.

Weird Tales, May 1929, with a cover story, "The Scourge of B'Moth," by Bertram Russell and cover art by C.C. Senf.

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales: The Fourth Anniversary

If you're on the hunt for observances of anniversaries in Weird Tales, the place to look is in "The Eyrie," the regular letters column and the place in print where the editor communicated with readers, as well as with authors, who were frequent writers to the magazine. If you look only in the March issues, you might miss something. A better place might be in the May issues of every year, for it was in the May issue that readers had their first chance to comment on the issue from two months before. The editor could then join in and make his own comments.

I have looked in Weird Tales in the March and May issues of 1925 and 1926 and haven't found any mention of anniversaries. "The Eyrie" in the May 1927 issue opens with these words, though: "WEIRD TALES is now four years old." The editorial continues:

When it first appeared on the news stands, many thought it was "just another magazine," but it was soon discovered that WEIRD TALES was a "different" magazine, with a wholesome disregard for the self-imposed editorial limitations of other publications. The fantastic monsters of ancient legend stalked through its pages; werewolves lived again; ghosts and apparitions took on modem trappings; specters wailed in haunted houses; and scientists performed weird experiments in their laboratories. Magazine pages were again opened to the rich literature of the bizarre and fantastic, and with the return of weird fiction to the news stands came the new literature, of which WEIRD TALES is the foremost exponent--the weird-scientific story. The forward leap that science has taken in the last fifty years has stimulated the imaginations of authors, and in the pages of WEIRD TALES the future of the world is rolled back, the void of Space is peopled with flying ships, which can go backward and forward in Time as well as Space; mad scientists strive to destroy the world; tremendous dooms rush in upon the Earth from the sky.

The amazing success of WEIRD TALES has been built upon three types of stories--the weird tale proper; the bizarre and fantastic story; and the weird-scientific story. That these types of stories, which take one away from the humdrum environment of everyday life, are appreciated by the reading public is shown by the steady growth of WEIRD TALES. We shall continue to give you the kind of stories we have given you in the past. And if you like these stories, if you want to aid in building up an even greater success for your magazine, you can do so by calling the attention of your friends to the feast of imaginative reading it contains and letting them share the good things therein.

That's a pretty nice summary of the previous four years in Weird Tales. I read it as almost a progress report, or as a continuation of "Why Weird Tales?" from the first-anniversary number of May/June/July 1924. I think we have to assume that Farnsworth Wright was the author of that anonymous editorial. H.P. Lovecraft gets a lot of well-deserved credit as a theorist of weird fiction, but Wright might be right up there with him. And now we're off in search of anniversaries.

Weird Tales, May 1927, the fourth-anniversary issue, with a cover story, "The Master of Doom" by Donald Edward Keyhoe, later a flying saucer enthusiast, and cover art by C.C. Senf.

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley

Two Uncle Stories

I have read two Uncle stories in the past week. (I write on July 29, 2024.) First was "Green Magic" by Jack Vance, originally in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in June 1963. It contains an insight into human nature, namely, the importance we place upon knowledge and experience over happiness. Second was The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown, a crime novel originally in Mystery Book in April 1946. It was published as a hardbound edition in 1947 and after that in one paperback edition after another. I have the David R. Godine trade paperback edition of 1986. In Jack Vance's story, the uncle is one who was involved in the pursuit of green magic. He's missing at the beginning of the story, and for good reason. It has to do with green magic. In The Fabulous Clipjoint, the uncle is named Ambrose, and he's not missing, even though his name is Ambrose.

Fredric Brown contributed to Weird Tales. Jack Vance did not. Brown put a minor character named Bradbury into his story. I don't know whether he knew Ray Bradbury, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did. Oddly, Brown also put a character named Dutch Reagan into The Fabulous Clipjoint. And I really doubt that he knew Ronald Reagan, who went by the nickname Dutch when he was young. But Brown knew Chicago, the fabulous clipjoint of the title, and portrayed it memorably in his novel. What a great image and a great title: the big city as a fabulous clipjoint. One more thing: for the first time in my life, I have seen the word doniker in print. My mom used that word. I thought it might be a German word that came to her from her German family. As it turns out, doniker is carney slang and comes from an English word. And now I wonder how my mom came to use it.

Anyway, we now have two more Uncle stories to add to the list.

The Fabulous Clipjoint by Fredric Brown in a Bantam edition, with cover art by Grant. This is the scene that every artist seems to have homed in on, and why not? The story turns on it. It also involves a beautiful woman (she's not a blonde in the story but has black hair instead). More than that, it is in this scene that the protagonist, young, working-class Ed Hunter, rises above the bars, flats, cheap restaurants, and dark alleyways of Chicago into its "tall, narrow buildings [. . .] like fingers reaching towards the sky," into a higher and finer place where it's possible to meet and know and love such a woman. It's a fantasy, of course, but so much of literature is a fantasy after all. Fredric Brown was onto something, then, when he wrote in the very next sentence: "It was like something out of a science-fiction story." (p. 178) He was of course a science fiction author, but who else in a mystery story or in mainstream literature would have made such an observation or admission in 1946 or 1947?

By the way, Fredric Brown was, for the briefest period of his life, a Hoosier in that he attended Hanover College. His story is set not only in Chicago but also in Gary, which is on the opposite end of the state from Hanover. The black-haired woman Claire is from Indianapolis, and so we have two places that figure in the history of Weird Tales magazine, Indianapolis and Chicago. Those same two places figure in another Uncle story, "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes" by Otis Adelbert Kline.

Original text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley