Weird Tales: The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary-Part Three

Seabury Quinn had the second essay in "The Eyrie" in March 1948. His is quite a bit longer than August Derleth's. His, too, includes a list, but Quinn's is longer, and I sense a kindlier inclusivity in it. He even used the word inclusion in his essay, albeit in a different context. Quinn's essay is in the same spirit, I think, as early observances of anniversaries in Weird Tales. That's fitting, I think. And I think his essay is better than that written by Derleth, who preceded him.

Weird Tales, A Retrospect--Quinn

The vast majority of people will tell you, "I don’t like ghost stories," meaning, thereby, "I am afraid of them." A relatively small minority of cultured and imaginative readers either find a sort of masochistic thrill in having the daylights scared out of them or, completely agnostic, still get a lift from reading stories of "ghoulies and ghosties, long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night." It is for this select, sophisticated minority WEIRD TALES is published, and that it has fulfilled its purpose is more than merely adequately proved by the fact that it celebrates its Silver Anniversary this issue.

Until the advent of WEIRD TALES the longest-lived magazine dedicated to the supernatural story was the Black Cat which first saw the light of print October, 1895, and perished in September, 1906, after eleven years of superservice to discerning readers on both sides of the Atlantic. True, it had a temporary recrudescence between December, 1919, and October, 1920, but in that little interval it functioned only as a zombie, without life or spirit.

The publication of WEIRD TALES filled a real want. Thrill-seekers, votaries of the ghost story, people fed up with the boy-meets-girl formula or the adventures of impossible detectives flocked to it as the thirsty flocked to wet-goods emporia at the recision of the Volstead Act, and writers who had turned out one or more good stories of the supernatural and found no market for them sent in their cherished brain-children with a sigh of profound thankfulness.

The list of names which has appeared on WEIRD TALES contents pages reads like a roster of those already great or destined to greatness in this particular genre: H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, E. Hoffman Price, Frank Belknap Long, H.G. Wells, Sax Rohmer, Major George Fielding Elliot, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Carl Jacobi, A.V. Harding, Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, Frank Owen, Clark Ashton Smith, Manly Wade Wellman, Henry E. Whitehead [sic], Earl Pierce [sic], Greye LaSpina, Edmund Hamilton [sic], David H. Keller, Malcolm Jameson, Nictzin Dyalhys [sic], Otis Adelbert Kline--this is but a sampling of the galaxy made at random and from memory, to count them all would be like numbering the Milky Way.

One thing, however, WEIRD TALES writers have in common: ability to tell good stories well. It has been said that "WEIRD TALES prints slick-paper fiction wrapped in pulp." However false or true that estimate may be it is an undisputed fact that more WEIRD TALES writers are "tapped” for inclusion in anthologies than those of any other pulp magazine, that many of its regular contributors are also "names" in the slick-paper field, and that a high percentage of them have had one or more successful books published.

In its quarter-century of publication WEIRD TALES has had many imitators, but no real competitors. Some of these degenerated--or evolved, if you prefer that term --into straight science-fiction magazines, some were so patently sex-motivated that the Post Office and/or the censors took them in hand, some misjudged their market and used shock--shock--shock! as their formula and paid small heed to literary composition. All of them are gone, and of a dozen imitative magazines put out ten years ago not one can be found on the newsstands today. WEIRD TALES enters on its second quarter-century as truly the unique magazine as it was when No. 1 of Volume I was offered to a critical public.

SEABURY QUINN.

(Boldface added.)

Seabury Quinn speaks before the Free Lance Writers Association in Washington, D.C., from an article in The Sunday Star Pictorial Magazine, July 27, 1947, page 15. There are men in the group, but I see the women, who remind me of Helen Hokinson's clubwomen. Could there be another teller of weird tales in this photograph? Photograph by Paul Schmick.

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 Crimes by Seabury Quinn

You could say that in its first two years in print, Weird Tales was actually three magazines overseen by three different editors: Edwin Baird from March 1923 to April 1924; an uncredited Otis Adelbert Kline for just one issue, May/June/July 1924; and Farnsworth Wright from November 1924 onward. (There weren't any issues in August through October 1924.) Seabury Quinn had the second feature to appear in Weird Tales, not counting "The Eyrie," the regular letters column. That feature, called "Weird Crimes," was in all three versions of Weird Tales and was published under all three editors.

Seabury Quinn (1889-1969) wrote more stories than anyone in Weird Tales. He also wrote fourteen non-fiction articles for the magazine. Half of those were in the series "Weird Crimes." The entries in this series are partly documentary and partly dramatic. You might describe them as historical reenactments, like what you would see today on TV.

The subjects of "Weird Crimes" are mostly serial killers, before serial killer was a term. That makes me wonder whether Quinn was the first author in Weird Tales to write about the serial killer. There is also necrophilia in the seventh and last installment of "Weird Crimes," but by the time it was published in November 1924, that very lurid and sensationalistic subject had already been treated in the magazine, in C.M. Eddy's short story "The Loved Dead," in May/June/July 1924.

The sixth installment of "Weird Crimes" is called "The Werewolf of St. Bonnot." I believe that was the first use of the word werewolf in the title of a story or article in Weird Tales. The subject is a serial killer, not an actual werewolf, but I wonder whether Quinn introduced the concept of the werewolf into Weird Tales as well. (Historically, serial killers were often called werewolves or vampires, before the term serial killer was coined.)

Quinn was already in his early thirties when "Weird Crimes" appeared. His career writing stories for popular magazines had begun in 1918 with two entries in Detective Story Magazine. But even by 1923, he had had only five published stories to his credit, this according to the list in The FictionMags Index. Writing "Weird Crimes" must have been a good exercise for him.

Like H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), Seabury Quinn seems to have been waiting for a magazine like Weird Tales to come along. He had his first story in the magazine in October 1923, the same issue in which "Weird Crimes" made its debut. Entitled "The Phantom Farmhouse," it proved popular and enduring and was even adapted to a second-season episode of Rod Serling's Night Gallery in 1971-1972. October 1923, one hundred years past, must have been a good month for Quinn in his budding career as a published author.

"Weird Crimes" by Seabury Quinn, Weird Tales, October 1923 through November 1924:

• "No. 1--Bluebeard" (Oct. 1923)--In the first installment of "Weird Crimes," Quinn wrote of Gilles de Laval (ca. 1405-1440), who is supposed by some to have been the inspiration for the fairy tale character Bluebeard. Quinn's account runs to nearly six pages in the magazine and closes with a note associating Gilles de Laval with Jack the Ripper as victims of "that form of insanity known to modern scientists as algolagnia."

• "No. 2  The Grave Robbers" (Nov. 1923)--The second installment of "Weird Crimes" is a little less than two pages long. Its subjects are Benjamin Shermerkey of Chicago; Samuel Deutsch of New York; and Samuel F. Ware of Atlanta. I did a quick search for these names in newspapers and came up empty on all counts.

• "No. 3  The Magic Mirror Murders" (Jan. 1924)--Andrew Bichel (ca. 1760-1809), an nineteenth-century Bavarian killer, is the subject of the third installment, which runs to a little more than four pages. The title refers to a crystal ball or looking glass that Bichel used to entice his victims. 

• "No. 4  Swiatek, the Beggar" (Feb. 1924)--The subject of the fourth installment of "Weird Crimes" is referred to only by the name Swiatek. Like Andrew Bichel, he was a serial killer, also of the nineteenth century, in his case in Galicia. His story fills almost three pages.

• "No. 5  Mary Blandy" (Apr. 1924)--Mary Blandy (1720-1752) knowingly or unknowingly poisoned her father, and for that she was hanged on Easter Monday, April 6, 1752. Seabury Quinn told her story in four pages and more of the April 1924 issue of Weird Tales.

• "No. 6  The Werewolf of St. Bonnot" (May/June/July 1924)--The sixth installment of "Weird Crimes" appeared in the jumbo-sized triple issue of May/June/July 1924. Its subject is Gilles Garnier (d. 1573), another serial killer, whom Quinn categorized yet again as "a victim," in this case of zoomania, or loupomania. It looks as though Seabury Quinn took a scientific view of murder and psychopathy. The explanation seems to be that serial killers are not responsible for their actions, as they are afflicted with mental illness. Quinn's account runs to three pages, plus his closing note.

• "No. 7  The Human Hyena" (Nov. 1924)--The November 1924 issue, the first after a hiatus of half a year, was also a jumbo-sized issue. It ran to 194 pages in all. "The Human Hyena" was the last installment of "Weird Crimes." I suspect it had been ready for publication earlier in the year and was simply held over during the months that Weird Tales was not in print. The case of the Human Hyena--François Bertrand (1823-1878)--was one of the most sensationalistic in the series. In 1924, Quinn could not have gone into detail very much regarding Bertrand's crimes. Suffice it to say, the term necrophilia was coined because of what Bertrand had done in the cemeteries of Paris. I wonder if Bertrand's story could have been an influence on C.M. Eddy in his writing of "The Loved Dead."

An illustration of François Bertrand reproduced in the French magazine Détective, Number 410 (Sept. 3, 1936). I swiped this image from Wikipedia, who swiped it from somebody else. Here's the caption as it appears in Wikipedia:

Le Vampire, gravure extraite des Mémoires de M. Claude, chef de la police de sûreté sous le second Empire (Paris, Jules Rouff, vers 1880) et reproduite dans la revue Détective, n° 410 (3 septembre 1936).

Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales, October 1923

The October 1923 issue of Weird Tales has fourteen stories, three features, and five uncredited non-fiction fillers. The features are "The Eyrie," "The Cauldron," and "Weird Crimes." The cover story is the first part of a two-part serial called "The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton" by Effie W. Fifield. The cover art was by R.M. Mally and all of the interior illustrations by William F. Heitman. Firsts include the first stories in Weird Tales by Seabury Quinn, H.P. Lovecraft, and Frank Owen, also the first installment of the feature "Weird Crimes" by Quinn.

• "The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton," part one of a two-part serial by Effie W. Fifield (1857-1937).

• "Aged Man Kills Wife, Self and 'Other Woman'," uncredited non-fiction filler.

• "World Ice to Wipe Out Continents," uncredited non-fiction filler.

• "The Phantom Farmhouse" by Seabury Quinn (1889-1969). This was Quinn's first story in Weird Tales. He would go on to write more stories and other pieces in Weird Tales than any other author.

• "Sight Without Eyes," uncredited non-fiction filler.

• "Genoese Riviera Damaged by Waterspout," uncredited non-fiction filler.

• "Dagon" by H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). I recently wrote about this story, Lovecraft's first in "The Unique Magazine," and wondered whether William F. Heitman's drawing was the first published illustration of a story by Lovecraft.

• "The Man Who Owned the World" by Frank Owen (1893-1968). This was Frank Owen's first story for Weird Tales. The title is of course in the now familiar form of "The Man Who . . .".

• "Grey Sleep" by Charles Horn (dates unknown).

• "The People of the Comet," part two of a two-part serial by Austin Hall (1880-1933), a native Californian.

• "The Sign from Heaven" by A. Havdal (dates unknown).

• "The Inn of Dread" by Arthur Edwards Chapman (1898-?).

• "The Hairy Monster" by Neil C. Miller (1898-1975) of Sioux City, Iowa.

• "Devil Manor" by E. B. Jordan (dates unknown).

• "The Case of the Golden Lily" by an Irish-Welsh-English author, Francis D. Grierson (1888-1972). Known for his mystery, crime, and detective stories, Grierson wrote in "The Case of the Golden Lily" of his series character Paul Pry.

• "Bluebeard" by Seabury Quinn, the first in a non-fiction series called "Weird Crimes."

• "Weird Snake Dance of Hopis May Be Tabooed," uncredited non-fiction filler.

• "An Adventure in the Fourth Dimension" by Farnsworth Wright (1888-1940). "An Adventure in the Fourth Dimesnion" is an alien invasion story. It appears to have been influenced by Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott (1884), also by recent developments in Einsteinian physics. Wright's aliens are depicted (see below) as small and with pointed ears, not very much different from the so-called gray aliens of today. That makes me think that gray aliens are really just an iteration of the elves, brownies, and other little people of European folklore. Of course I'm not the first person to think that way. Reprinted in The Moon Terror in 1927.

• "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849). This was the second reprint of a story by Poe in Weird Tales.

• "After the Storm" by Sarah Harbine Weaver (1880-1965), a writer of Ohio, New York, and California.

• "The Cauldron," conducted by Preston Langley Hickey (1900-1962) in its last installment in the magazine.

• "The Eyrie."

Weird Tales, October 1923, with a cover story, "The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton" by Effie W. Fifield and cover art by R.M. Mally.

Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales Books

The Adventures of Jules de Grandin by Seabury Quinn (1976)

Seabury Quinn (1889-1969) wrote more stories than anyone for Weird Tales and for a longer period of time, from 1923 to 1952, almost the entire run of the magazine. If my count is right, Quinn placed 146 stories in "The Unique Magazine" in those years. Ninety-three of them were in the continuing adventures of his occult detective, Jules de Grandin. Of those 146, seven were reprinted in The Adventures of Jules de Grandin in 1976. They include the first of the de Grandin stories, "The Horror on the Links," retitled for the book "Terror on the Links."

A dealer at PulpFest recommended the Jules de Grandin stories to me. I have just one of the five Popular Library reprint books of the 1970s. These books are hard to come by at a decent price. I was lucky enough to find one at Half Price Books, one of the world's greatest stores, for just two dollars. I finally finished it this weekend.

Here's what I think: Seabury Quinn set up his series seemingly with the Sherlock Holmes series in mind. Jules de Grandin is French rather than British. Nonetheless, he is, like his predecessor, eccentric and seemingly all-knowing. Eccentric is probably a kind word. I find him to be annoying as all get-out. His assistant, Dr. Trowbridge, plays the Dr. Watson role as recorder and narrator of de Grandin's adventures. Unlike Watson, Dr. Trowbridge is grouchy, obtuse, and practically useless. You can lay the blame at the author's feet.

Despite all of that, Quinn was, over all, a good writer. Certain of his scenes are unforgettable, as in "The Man Who Cast No Shadow" when de Grandin destroys a vampire in her grave and discovers another in his underground lair. In short, I will keep looking for the Jules de Grandin books, but not at the prevailing price. One thing dealers should realize is that their clientele is probably beginning to disappear. The generations that first read pulp magazines and even paperback books are passing from the earth. I doubt that the prices they once paid will hold for very much longer.

The Adventures of Jules de Grandin by Seabury Quinn

Edited by Robert Weinberg

(Popular Library, 1976)

Cover art by Vincent di Fate; illustrations by Steve Fabian, including a map of Harrisonville, New Jersey, and portrait drawings of Jules de Grandin and Dr. Trowbridge based on drawings by Virgil Finlay.

Contents:

• "A Sherlock of the Supernatural" by Lin Carter
• "By Way of Explanation" by Seabury Quinn (originally in The Phantom-Fighter [?] by Seabury Quinn, Mycroft & Moran, 1966)
• "Terror on the Links" (originally "The Horror on the Links," Weird Tales, Oct. 1925; reprinted May 1937)
• "The Tenants of Broussac" (Weird Tales, Dec. 1925)
• "The Isle of Missing Ships" (Weird Tales, Feb. 1926)
• "The Dead Hand" (Weird Tales, May 1926)
• "The Man Who Cast No Shadow" (Weird Tales, Feb. 1927)
• "The Blood Flower" (originally "The Blood-Flower," Weird Tales, Mar. 1927)
• "The Curse of Everard Maundy" (Weird Tales, July 1927)
• "Afterword" by Robert Weinberg

Original text copyright 2015, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Weird Tales at Christmas

Every year at Christmastime, a supernatural being takes to the sky in a vehicle drawn by magically endowed beasts. With him he carries a large, bottomless sack, a cornucopia of cloth filled with gifts and treats, a kind of TARDIS provisioned for a 'round-the-world trip. In one night, he visits all the children of the world, sliding down chimneys too narrow to accept his bulk, or phasing through walls and doors to enter their homes. They never hear him or see him. The only evidence of his visit is the array of gifts he leaves under the Christmas tree, the candy he stuffs into their stockings, and the bite marks he leaves on the cookies they have offered him. The story of Santa Claus isn't exactly a weird tale, but it would easily have fallen into the purview of the like-titled magazine of the twentieth century.

Of course the story of Santa Claus wasn't the first Christmas story. That story, too, has its supernatural elements, beginning with a visitation from an angel, then a virgin birth under a newly-bright star, and a prominent role played by three magi. There are horrifying and violent events, too, but the original Christmas story is one of hope and joy, repeated every year for two millennia.

Weird Tales, published between 1923 and 1954, seems to have been lacking in Christmas-related content. That can be explained in part by the fact that after the magazine went bimonthly in January 1940, there was no December issue. It can also be explained--at least on the surface--by the fact that Weird Tales printed weird fiction, heroic fantasy, and related genres. But as I have tried to point out, the story of Santa Claus and the baby Jesus have their fantastic elements, too. Many of the most well known Christmas stories--A Christmas Carol, It's a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street--are also fantasies. It would have been natural for Weird Tales to print stories like them.

Weird Tales may not have printed much fiction or poetry related to Christmas, but that gap was more than filled by a story that combined the tales of Santa Claus and Jesus Christ. For good measure, it also included elements of fantasy, sword and sorcery, and even science fiction. That story is "Roads" by Seabury Quinn.

Seabury Quinn (1889-1969) was most well known to readers of Weird Tales for his stories of the supernatural investigator Jules de Grandin. But in January 1938, with world war rapidly approaching, Weird Tales printed Quinn's uncharacteristic "Roads." Set in historic times, "Roads" is the story of a wandering, sword-wielding Norseman who witnesses and participates in world-changing events. I won't say anything more about the story except to urge those who haven't read it to do so. Perhaps a little outré and not well known outside circles of fantasy fiction, "Roads" might otherwise approach the status of a Christmas classic. As it is, "Roads" proved the most popular story among Weird Tales readers for the issue in which it appeared and the year it was published, and the fourth most popular story printed between 1924 and 1939, the years for which records were kept. Only "The Woman of the Wood" by A. Merritt, "Shambleau" by C.L. Moore, and "The Outsider" by H.P. Lovecraft were more popular.

Ten years after "Roads" was first published and after the tides of war had receded, Seabury Quinn's story was printed in hardback for the first time in an edition of just 2,137 copies. The publisher was August Derleth's Arkham House, a firm specializing in weird fiction. Roads was Quinn's first hardbound book and the first illustrated volume issued by Arkham House. The illustrator was the indispensable Virgil Finlay.

"Roads" had been reprinted before. At Christmastime in 1938, printer and fantasy fan Conrad H. Ruppert issued 200 copies of what he called "the most beautiful Christmas story ever written." Editor Sam Moskowitz, in his introduction to a reprinting in the paperback Worlds of Weird (1965), described "Roads" as "a saga that may well prove to be the greatest adult Christmas story written by an American." In 2005, Red Jacket Press issued a facsimile edition of the book from 1948.

Real life is often weirder than fiction and in ways that sometimes beggars belief. In closing my essay on Seabury Quinn, I should point out that he was born during the holiday season, on January 1, 1889. "Roads" then was published in the same month (or at least in a magazine with a cover date of the same month) in which its author turned forty-nine--a nice achievement for a man in the last year of his fifth decade on earth. In any case, Quinn's birthdate might be unremarkable by itself. But strangely, Seabury Grandin Quinn died on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1969, even as Santa Claus began his magical trip around the world.

* * *

For pagans, materialists, Lovecraftians, and others, here is a bit of Yule verse by the poet of Providence:

Yule Horror
by H. P. Lovecraft

There is snow on the ground,
And the valleys are cold,
And a midnight profound
Blackly squats o'er the wold;
But a light on the hilltops half-seen hints of feastings un-hallowed and old.
There is death in the clouds,
There is fear in the night,
For the dead in their shrouds
Hail the sin's turning flight.
And chant wild in the woods as they dance round a Yule-altar fungous and white.
To no gale of Earth's kind
Sways the forest of oak,
Where the sick boughs entwined
By mad mistletoes choke,
For these pow'rs are the pow'rs of the dark, from the graves of the lost Druid-folk.

From Weird Tales, December 1926.

Seabury Quinn's "Roads" appeared in the January 1938 issue of Weird Tales, but it was not the cover story. That honor was reserved for "The Witch's Mark" by Dorothy Quick. Fans of cover artist Margaret Brundage can easily see why.

Ten years later, Arkham House issued "Roads" in hardback with cover and interior illustrations by Virgil Finlay.

Here is one of those illustrations, originally printed in 1938.

If you're going to tell the story of Santa Claus, you of course need a polar setting . . .

a sleigh . . .

and at least one flying deer. And what about Santa? I'm afraid he never appeared on the cover of Weird Tales.

Covers (top to bottom):

Jan. 1927, art by C. Barker Petrie illustrating "Drome," a serial by John Martin Leahy and set in Antarctica.

July 1925, art by Andrew Brosnatch illustrating "The Werewolf of Ponkert" by H. Warner Munn.

July 1934, art by Margaret Brundage illustrating "The Trail of the Cloven Hoof" by Arlton Eadie.

Merry Christmas from Tellers of Weird Tales!

Text and captions copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Who Wrote the Most Stories for Weird Tales?

The original Weird Tales was in print from March 1923 to September 1954, 279 issues in all. Hundreds of men and women contributed to "The Unique Magazine." As far as I know, no one has counted their number or how many stories they wrote. Some writers sold a single story to Weird Tales, while others became stars, contributing story after story during the magazine's heyday. Three authors--H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith--are closely identified with Weird Tales, yet none was more prolific than Seabury Quinn (1889-1969), a lawyer and journalist who wrote over 500 stories in his lifetime. His works for Weird Tales numbered 159, of which fourteen were non-fiction. Most of those stories starred occult detective Jules de Grandin, descended perhaps from Sherlock Holmes and Carnacki the Ghost-Finder. One of Quinn's most admired stories was "Roads," published in Weird Tales in January 1938. An unusual Christmas story, "Roads" appeared in print as the world marched towards war.

Second to Quinn was August W. Derleth (1909-1971), who wrote 101 stories under his own name, plus 13 more under the pseudonym Stephen Grendon, and another 22 stories in collaboration with others. Derleth co-founded Arkham House, a publisher of hardbound weird fiction, much of it from Weird Tales. He was largely responsible for keeping H.P. Lovecraft's name in print after Lovecraft's death in 1937.

Third in ranking is Edmond Hamilton (1904-1977) with 76 stories, followed by Robert Bloch (1917-1994) with 66. Only then do the big three show up on the list: Clark Ashton Smith (63), Robert E. Howard (54), and H.P. Lovecraft (49, not counting collaborations, revisions, and ghost-written stories).

The most prolific woman among contributors to Weird Tales was Allison V. Harding with 36 stories, followed by Mary Elizabeth Counselman with 30. There is reason to believe that Allison V. Harding was not a woman. I'll cover that possibility in a series of future postings.

In any case, following is a list, based on my count of titles in The Collector's Index to Weird Tales by Sheldon Jaffery and Fred Cook (1985). If my count is wrong, only I am to blame. If my count is correct, then it's only as good as Jaffery and Cook's list. Also, I have counted stories that appeared in the original run of Weird Tales, 1923 to 1954, and not in the revivals of 1973-1974 or 1981.

Finally, as you can see towards the bottom of the list, the order might change depending on how you count. The same is true in the case of H.P. Lovecraft, who revised and ghost-wrote several stories without being given credit in print. As always, Lovecraft is unique.

Who Wrote the Most Stories for Weird Tales?

1. Seabury Quinn, 145 stories and 14 articles, for a total of 159 works in prose
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
12. Mary Elizabeth Counselman, 30

13. (tie) Arthur J. Burks, 29

13. (tie) Harold Lawlor, 29
14. Frank Belknap Long, 28 stories on his own, plus 1 in collaboration with others

15. (tie) Henry S. Whitehead, 26
15. (tie) Alvin F. Harlow, 26, all of which are articles
16. Ray Bradbury, 25
17. E. Hoffman Price, 24 stories on his own, plus 2 in collaboration with others
18. Arlton Eadie, 24
19. Henry Kuttner, 23 stories on his own, plus 2 in collaboration with others
20. David H. Keller, 22

Seabury Quinn (1889-1969), the most prolific author in Weird Tales.

Reformatted on December 3, 2022.

Copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley