Anton M. Oliver (1888-1977?)

Writer, Mechanical Engineer, Violinist, Actor, Salesman, Advertising Agent
Born May 20, 1888, Budapest, Austria-Hungary
Died 1977?

Anton Mareček Oliver was born on May 20, 1888, in Budapest to Johann Oliver and Paulina Pavlik. He served for a year as a lieutenant in the Austrian infantry and graduated from Vienna University in 1909. Oliver arrived in the United States before World War I and lived in Akron, Ohio, beginning in 1912. He worked as a mechanical engineer there, according to a contemporary advertisement doing "steam tests, shop drawings, special machinery, and [the] working out of patents." In about 1929, he moved to Hagerstown, Maryland. By 1940 he was in Pelham, New York.

Oliver was a violinist and played with the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. On February 4, 1912, he married Beatrice Stowers, a singer, in Summit County, Ohio, presumably in Akron. He later married Ruth Frances Fiske, also a singer, as well as the former social editor and a columnist for the Mount Vernon (New York) Daily Argus, originally of Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, and of New York, New York, on November 15, 1953.

In 1917, when he filled out his draft card, Oliver was in Spokane, Washington, and employed by the Goodyear Tire Company. Oliver also worked for the Campbell-Ewald Company, Rickard and Company, and the Pangborn Corporation. He spent eight years with the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company, the last three as executive assistant to the president. In 1947, he formed Beatty and Oliver advertising agency with Robert S. Beatty. Anton Oliver was also a writer for The Coal Industry, India Rubber Review, The Kindergarten-Primary Magazine, and Power Plant Engineering. His lone story for Weird Tales was "The Living Nightmare" from the second issue, April 1923.

Anton M. Oliver may have married a woman named Erika Kloz. That Anton M. Oliver died in 1977 and was buried at Muddy Brook Cemetery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Anton M. Oliver's Story in Weird Tales

"The Living Nightmare" (Apr. 1923)

Further Reading

None that I can find.

Anton M. Oliver's short story "The Living Nightmare" was in the April 1923 issue of Weird Tales. The cover was by R.M. Mally.

Thanks to Donna Brown of the Mason Library, Great Barrington, Massachusetts, for further research.
Updated on November 14, 2018. Revised and corrected on April 23, 2023.
Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Alan Nelson (1911-1966)

James Alan Nelson
Author, Screenwriter
Born December 11, 1911, Las Cruces, New Mexico
Died September 9, 1966, San Francisco, California

In tracking down the writer Alan Nelson, I started with the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, which gives his dates as 1911-1966. From there, it was to Ancestry and the only man named Alan Nelson with the same dates. If that's the right man, then he was born on December 11, 1911, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, to James W. Nelson (1873-1925), an agricultural agent and professor of agriculture, and Mary Blanche (Hayden) Nelson. Even as a child, James Alan Nelson went by his middle name, and he kept doing so even after his father's death in 1925.

Alan Nelson grew up in Oakland, California. In the 1940 census, he was an interviewer for the state employment agency. If this is our man, then he was thirty-two years old when his first story was published. And if the listing on the Internet Speculative Fiction Database is complete, then Alan Nelson's output was not large:

• "Man in a Hurry" in Weird Tales (May 1944)
• "Professor Pfaff's Last Recital" in Cosmopolitan (June 1946)
• "Narapoia" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Apr. 1951)
• "Cattivo" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Aug. 1951)
• "The Gualcophone" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Aug. 1952)
• "Soap Opera" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Apr. 1953)
• "Silenzia" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Sept. 1953)
• "The Shopdropper" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Jan. 1955) (1)

Despite their small number, Nelson's stories were reprinted repeatedly in book form. Alan Nelson is also credited as the writer of the teleplay for "The Horn" for the anthology series Tales of Tomorrow, broadcast on October 10, 1952, and featuring Franchot Tone, Stephen Elliott, and Barbara Joyce.

James Alan Nelson died on September 9, 1966, in San Francisco at age fifty-four.

Alan Nelson's Story in Weird Tales

"Man in a Hurry" (May 1944)

Further Reading

Alan Nelson's stories were collected in Doctor Departure and Others (Gryphon Books, 1989) with cover art by Brad W. Foster and an introduction by Gary Lovisi. That book is the place to start if you want to know more about Alan Nelson. Unfortunately I don't have access to it and can't say with certainty that I have the right Alan Nelson.

Note
(1) Note the two Italian titles, "Cattivo" (bad, evil, or naughty) and "Silenzia" (mutes [?]). I don't want to make too much of it, but there could be some connection to a man who lived in Oakland, which was known for its Italian population. Update (Oct. 4, 2017): Alan Nelson in fact married an Italian woman, Gina Maria Bin (1919-1973) in 1951 in San Francisco.

Updated on October 4, 2017.
Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Marc Laidlaw (b. 1960) & Gary Myers (b. 1952)

Marc Laidlaw
Aka Mark Laidlaw
Author, Cartoonist, Poet, Essayist, Reviewer, Computer Game Designer
Born 1960, Laguna Beach, California

Gary Myers
Author, Illustrator, Computer Programmer
Born August 15, 1952, Lynwood, California

Marc Laidlaw and Gary Myers collaborated on a single story for Weird Tales. The title is "The Summons of Nuguth-Yug," and if you detect a scent of the Lovecraftian, you're on to something. Both authors are heavily influenced by H.P. Lovecraft. Both started writing when they were quite young, and both were also published before their twentieth birthdays. Both incidentally are also artists.

Marc Laidlaw was born in 1960 in Laguna Beach, California, and attended the University of Oregon. According to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, his first published story was "Spawn of the Ruins" in Shayol #1, November 1977. Mr. Laidlaw has published dozens more stories since then. In the late 1980s, he produced a fanzine called Freestyle. Mr. Laidlaw is also a writer of poems, essays, reviews, and the novels Dad's Nuke (1986), Neon Lotus (1988), Kalifornia (1993), The Orchid Eater (1994), The 37th Mandala (1996), and The Third Force (1996). He began playing Myst in the early 1990s and became very interested in computer games. His novel The Third Force is a tie-in to the game Gadget. Mr. Laidlaw joined Valve Software of Bellevue, Washington, in the late nineties. He has since worked as a writer and designer on the Half-Life series of games.

Gary Myers is an author of science fiction, horror, and fantasy stories. His first published story was "The House of the Worm," also known as "The Feast in the House of the Worm," in The Arkham Collector, Summer 1970. The story, written when its author was sixteen, was reprinted in Lin Carter's anthology New Worlds for Old in 1971 and in Mr. Myers' own collection (and his first book), The House of the Worm, in 1975. He has many stories and books to his credit, most in the vein of Lovecraft, Lord Dunsany, and Clark Ashton Smith. Like his collaborator, Marc Laidlaw, Mr. Myers' work has been used in gaming ("H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands" supplement to the role-playing game The Call of Cthulhu). Gary Myers also works as a computer programmer.

Marc Laidlaw and Gary Myers' Story in Weird Tales
"The Summons of Nuguth-Yug" (Fall 1981)

Further Reading

Marc Laidlaw and Gary Myers are both on Wikipedia and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Mr. Laidlaw also has his own blog, Not So Few Monstrosities, at this URL:

http://marclaidlaw.com/

You can read an informative interview with Gary Myers at Lovecraft Ezine, here:

http://lovecraftzine.com/2013/09/25/spawn-of-dark-dreams-an-interview-with-gary-myers-by-jason-thompson/

Marc Laidlaw's and Gary Myers' first books, Dad's Nuke (1986, cover art by Loretta Trezzo) and The House of the Worm (1975, cover art by the author).

Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Happy Birthday, Shambleau!

Eighty years ago this month, in November 1933, "Shambleau" by C.L. Moore was published in Weird Tales. It was the author's first published story, consequently her first for "The Unique Magazine." It was also the first tale in the saga of Northwest Smith, that pale-eyed interplanetary adventurer and progenitor of Han Solo (and perhaps also Travis McGee, John D. MacDonald's Florida boat bum with eyes the color of spit.) "Shambleau" took the world of weird fiction by storm. Farnsworth Wright, E. Hoffman Price, and H.P. Lovecraft were instant fans--and it's no wonder why. If you haven't read "Shambleau" yet, you should at your earliest opportunity.

Happy Birthday, Shambleau!

"Shambleau" was originally printed in Weird Tales in November 1933. A quarter century later, Galaxy Publishing reprinted the story in a digest-sized "Galaxy Novel #31." One source says that the cover art was by Wally Wood.

A British edition came along three years later (1961). The label "A Science Horror Fantasy" covers all the bases.

A second British edition showed up in 1976. I don't know the name of the cover artist for either edition.

Alexis Oussenko created the illustration for this French edition from 1973.

"Shambleau" was translated into Italian for this edition of 1982. The cover artists were Paolo Tassinari and Pierpaolo Vetta. 

Finally, another Italian edition from 1991 with cover art by Oscar Chichoni (b. 1957). The cover story is "Vintage Season" ("La stagione della vendemmia"), but the cover illustration is clearly a depiction of C.L. Moore's vampiric Martian Medusa.

Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Anthony D. Keogh (1900-1972)

Aka Mark Anthony Keogh

Clerk, Commercial Artist, Poster Artist, Display Designer, Photographer, Inventor, Technician/Engineer, Author
Born September 16, 1900, Springfield, Ohio
Died March 24, 1972, Springfield, Ohio

Anthony Daniel Keogh was born on September 16, 1900, in Springfield, Ohio. His parents were first generation Irish-Americans and filled their household with various Keoghs, Hogans, Faheys, and Flahertys, all relatives. Anthony D. Keogh began writing stories when he was about sixteen and made his first sale four years later. His story was called "Peppermint Courage," and it was published in the January 10, 1922, issue of The Black Cat. In an article published less than two weeks later in The Editor, Keogh explained the genesis of his story. He also wrote a little about himself, closing his article with these words: "I am neither notorious nor famous; am practically unknown outside Springfield." Anthony D. Keogh wrote one story for Weird Tales, "The Silent Five," published in December 1924. In his four years of writing before his first story was published in The Black Cat, Keogh also contributed to Radio News and Popular Mechanics.

Keogh was a jack of some trades: clerk, timekeeper, bookkeeper, assistant advertising manager, sign painter, poster artist, display designer, card writer, commercial artist, inventor (he patented a folding thermometer back), technician/engineer, and of course writer. During World War II, he contributed to the war effort by working as a photographer at Wright Field. After the war, when Wright Field became Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Keogh stayed on as a technician and engineer. I suspect he lived in Springfield all his life, at his parents' house at 526 Scott Street, even after they had all gone--all the Keoghs and other relatives. Keogh died in 1972 and was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Springfield.

Anthony D. Keogh's Story in Weird Tales

"The Silent Five" (Dec. 1924)

Further Reading

"My First Story" by Anthony Keogh in The Editor: The Author's Magazine, Vol. 56, No. 3, Jan. 21, 1922, p. 19.

Update (Apr. 7, 2023): Antony Keogh in a photograph from the Springfield, Ohio, News-Sun, October 30, 1956, page 4. WADC was the Wright Air Development Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Talbot Johns (1909-1969)

Advertising Agent, Naval Officer, Author
Born February 14, 1909, New York
Died June 12, 1969, Los Angeles, California

Talbot Johns was born on February 14, 1909, and grew up in Queens, New York. Johns' mother was Florence Wilcox Johns, mother of four and a soprano soloist in her church choir. His father was William Hingston Johns, a British-born businessman and an amateur yachtsman, singer, organist, and composer. William H. Johns ran an advertising agency, Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborn (BBDO), and co-founded the American Association of Advertising Agencies. The Dutch Boy paint trademark was his original concept. His son, Talbot Johns, attended St. Paul's School, Andover Academy, and Williams College, graduating in 1930. In the 1940 census, Talbot Johns was living in Minneapolis and working in advertising like his father before him. Johns served as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II. He settled in southern California sometime after the war and died in Los Angeles on June 12, 1969, at age sixty.

I have found three short stories by Talbot Johns published in American magazines:

• "Date in the City Room" in Weird Tales (Jan. 1939)
• "Death of a Truck" in Collier’s, illustrated by Hardie Gramatky (Mar. 21, 1942)
• "Past Midnight" in North•West Romances (Spring 1950)

"Date in the City Room" was reprinted in the British edition of Weird Tales (#12, 1951) and in 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories, edited by Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, and Martin H. Greenberg (Barnes and Noble, 1993). I believe Johns also wrote a piece called "The Best Places Are Flat."

Talbot Johns' Story in Weird Tale

"Date in the City Room" (Jan. 1939)

Further Reading

"W.H. Johns Dies; Advertising Man" in the New York Times, Apr. 18, 1944, p. 21.

Talbot Johns' lone story for Weird Tales appeared in the January 1939 issue with a cover by Virgil Finlay.

Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Alice I'Anson (1872-1931)

Poet

Born January 25, 1872, San Francisco, California

Died June 5, 1931, Mexico City, Mexico

When I first encountered the name Alice I'Anson, I thought the first letter of her last name was a lower case L, as in the contraction of the French article la or le. Then I learned that the first letter is an upper case I. It's a curious surname but apparently not uncommon, and it has nothing to do with French or any other Continental language. In fact, I'Anson is a British or Scottish surname that may derive from "Ian's son" and as such is related to the name Janson. If you go further in your research, you're bound to discover a website, I'Anson International, which tells all about the name, the inevitable confusion over its spelling, and the many people who have borne it.

Alice I'Anson's story begins in England, the native country of her father, Miles I'Anson. He was born in Middleham, North Yorkshire, and baptized in November 1835. His father was a tailor who may have been widowed by the time of the 1841 English census, which found the family in Middleham. By 1850, Miles I'Anson was in Newark, New Jersey, and working as a porter. Well before that time, there was an I'Anson family already established in New Jersey. Perhaps in leaving England, Miles I'Anson only joined another branch of I'Ansons in the New World.

Miles I'Anson married Elizabeth Flintoft, daughter of John Flintoft of Flintoft and Haines Smelting Works. Elizabeth's mother was Elizabeth I'Anson, presumably a distant or perhaps not so distant cousin to her new husband. The couple had three children, Alice (b. 1872), Beatrice (b. ca. 1875), and Miles (b. 1876). The Christian name Miles ran through the I'Anson family for generations.

Miles I'Anson was a gold prospector, a poet, and a mining engineer (from 1875 to 1891) in California. By 1891, he was back in Newark, the city from which he wrote the introduction to his book The Vision of Misery Hill: A Legend of the Sierra Madre and Miscellaneous Verse (New York and London: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1891). I don't know what connection if any I'Anson had with the San Francisco literary scene that included Ambrose Bierce and George Sterling, but it's a possibility worth considering. Elizabeth I'Anson died in 1913. Miles I'Anson died in 1917 and was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Newark. The month was November. Presumably, Miles I'Anson was born in and died in the same month of the year, eighty-two years apart.

It's certain that Miles I'Anson, father of Alice I'Anson, was a literary figure with several poems and an illustrated book of verse to his name. He may have been the same Miles I'Anson of Newark who bore back the body of the Anglo-American writer Henry William Herbert (1807-1858) from New York City to its final resting place at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, the same place that would one day receive the body of Miles I'Anson. The cemetery adjoined Herbert's home place, called "The Cedars" for its surrounding trees. Like I'Anson, Herbert was a British immigrant. Having arrived in the United States in 1831, he founded the American Monthly Magazine in 1833. A teacher, classical scholar, translator, poet, novelist, historian, and artist, Herbert was well known though not always well liked in American literary circles. He wrote about sports under the pen name Frank Forester. On May 17, 1858, he called his friends to a dinner at the Stevens Hotel in New York City. Only one showed. After dinner, Herbert stood in front of a mirror and put a bullet through his heart. If our Miles I'Anson was the man who accompanied the cortege of Henry William Herbert, he would have been just twenty-two years old at the time.

According to a later document, Alice I'Anson was born on January 25, 1872, in San Francisco, California. (1) She had poems published in Belford's Monthly, Californian Illustrated, The International, and Overland Monthly magazines. In 1895 and 1918, she was in Newark and Sussex, New Jersey, where her family lived. By 1930, when her first poem in Weird Tales appeared, Alice was residing in Mexico City. Called "Teotihuacon," the poem concerns the ancient Aztecs and their grisly habits of human sacrifice. Robert E. Howard wrote a letter to "The Eyrie" in appreciation. You can read more at the website REH: Two-Gun Raconteur, here.

Alice I'Anson had five poems published in Weird Tales and one in its companion magazine, Oriental Stories. She also wrote two published letters to "The Eyrie" and one to Oriental Stories. Most of those were published posthumously, as Alice died of heart failure at her Mexico City home on the morning of June 5, 1931. She was just fifty-eight years old. Alice I'Anson was survived by her brother and sister. Her remains were interred at the American Cemetery in Mexico City. They may yet rest there, far from her original home.

Alice I'Anson's Poems in Weird Tales and Oriental Stories
"Teotihuacon" (Nov. 1930)
"Rondeau Orientale" in Oriental Stories (Feb./Mar. 1931)
"Phantoms" (June/July 1931)
"Jungle Feud" (Nov. 1931)
"Shadows of Chapultepec" (May 1932)
"Kishi, My Cat" (Oct. 1932)

Alice I'Anson's Letters to "The Eyrie" and to Oriental Stories
Oct. 1930
Feb. 1931 (Oriental Stories)
June 1931

Note

(1) "Report of the Death of an American Citizen," American Consular Service, Mexico City, June 9, 1931.

A sixteenth century depiction of human sacrifice among the Aztecs, from the Codex Magliabechiano. Alice I'Anson sang of just such a scene in her poem "Teotihuacon" in Weird Tales, November 1930.

Text and captions copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley