Dr. Dorp by Otis Adelbert Kline

As far as I can tell, Dr. Dorp was the first series character to appear in Weird Tales magazine. Created by Otis Adelbert Kline, Dr. Dorp was in three stories all together, two in Weird Tales and one in Amazing Stories. Those three stories are:

• "The Phantom Wolfhound" in Weird Tales, June 1923

• "The Malignant Entity" in Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924 (Kline was editor of that issue.)

• "The Radio Ghost" in Amazing Stories, September 1927

"The Malignant Entity" was reprinted four times, in Amazing Stories, June 1926; Amazing Stories Quarterly, Fall 1934; Strange Offspring (American Fiction #10), edited by Benson Herbert and published in 1946 by Utopian Publications Ltd.; and Amazing Stories, February 1966. Although it's a little derivative, "The Malignant Entity" is the best in the series, I think. If any one of them was going to be reprinted, this one was it.

Dr. Dorp is an occult detective. His identifying characteristic is his gray van dyke beard. He might have a personality. If he does, it doesn't show very well in the stories, which include a lot of exposition. Kline's investigator was probably based on a combination of Sherlock Holmes and William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder.

* * *

"The Phantom Wolfhound" was in the issue of June 1923. It opens like "The Weaving Shadows" by W.H. Holmes, which was in Weird Tales in March 1923, with the investigator in his home being visited by a detective and the detective's client. The detective is named Hoyne, whereas Holmes' detective is named Rhyne. So Hoyne in Kline and Rhyne in Holmes. The client is named Ritzky. He is an older man who shares his household with his twelve-year-old orphaned niece. In other words, this is something of an Uncle story. And in other words, the girl is of the right age to bring on some poltergeist activity. (There is a girl in "The Weaving Shadows," too.) Dr. Dorp and Detective Hoyne witness ectoplasm, called "psychoplasm," issuing from her mouth as she sleeps. Dorp takes a sample of the stuff, which is an actual material substance, just as in "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes," Kline's serial from the March and April issues of "The Unique Magazine."

Dr. Dorp is called a "psychologist" in this story. He is the author of a book called Investigations of Materialization Phenomena. Like Carnacki, he uses mechanical equipment to detect ghosts. Again, as in "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes," ghosts or spirits are treated as material phenomena. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is referred to in the story, as is Baron Von Schrenk, also known as Albert Freiherr von Schrenck-Notzing (1862-1929), a real-life investigator and author of Phenomena of Materialization: A Contribution to the Investigation of Mediumistic Teleplastics (1923). Dr. Dorp's title is similar to Baron Von Schrenk's. Both "The Phantom Wolfhound" and Von Schrenk's book were published in 1923.

Professor James Braddock, the uncle in "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes," is Dr. Dorp's friend and colleague, although he doesn't make an appearance in the story. Like that earlier story, "The Phantom Wolfhound" is set in Chicago. ("The Thing of  Thousand Shapes" is also set near Peoria, Illinois.) There are detailed descriptions of a complex physical environment within the Ritzky home. That's okay, I guess, in a detective story, but descriptions of complex environments don't really make for good prose or good storytelling. James Agee was able to pull it off in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, but then that was a documentary work.

"The Phantom Wolfhound" is, like I said, an Uncle story. As it turns out, the uncle was slowly poisoning his niece so that he could get her fortune. She kills him off with her psychoplasmic hound, which Uncle had shot in life. The hound comes back in death and the niece thereby exacts her revenge and defends herself against impending murder at Uncle's hands. The story ends in all italics.

Dr. Dorp is not like Sherlock Holmes in that he doesn't have a discernible personality. Hoyne acts as his Watson, and the dead Russian wolfhound as something like the Hound of the Baskervilles.

* * *

"The Malignant Entity" was in the triple-sized anniversary issue of May/June/July 1924, edited by Otis Adelbert Kline. It's definitely the better of the two stories. And like the first Dr. Dorp story, it's connected to an earlier story, for "The Malignant Entity" is essentially "Ooze" in the city. (As you know by now, "Ooze," by Anthony M. Rud, was the cover story of the first issue of Weird Tales, March 1923.)

Mr. Evans, a writer, is the narrator of the story. ("The Phantom Wolfhound" is told in the third person.) Chief McGraw is a detective, and there are two Irish police officers, Rooney and Burke. Other characters include a fingerprint expert named Hirsch and the coroner, named Haynes. Haynes was in Kline's earlier story "The Corpse on the Third Slab" (Weird Tales, Aug./Sept. 1923). There is also mention of a dead man named Immune Benny, who "is alleged to have committed numerous crimes, among which were several revolting murders, without ever having been convicted." We don't know it yet, but Benny appears to have been a psychopath. His face shows up at the end of "The Malignant Entity," and the story itself ends, once again, in all italics.

There is another dead man. He was Professor Albert Townsend, who, although he was a professor and although he was named Albert, was not the same man as Professor Albert Randall in "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes." And his daughter, named Dorothy, is not the same daughter as in Kline's previous story. Her name is Ruth. Both Dorothy's mother and Ruth's mother are missing in action. Note to all women: never marry a scientist or pseudoscientist engaged in research on the fringes. Yes, you will have a beautiful daughter, but then you will die.

Dr. Dorp says of Professor Albert Townsend: "Who hasn’t heard of him and his queer theories about creating life from inert matter?" After a while, Dorp adds, "He has been working day and night in his effort to prove his theory that a living organism can be created from inorganic matter." Townsend's subject was protoplasm, the stuff that was supposed to have been in the primordial ooze from which all life spontaneously arose. In other words, Townsend was pursuing a pseudoscientific idea held by supposed scientists and science-minded people from the 1800s even unto today. Look where it got him.

In "Ooze," the giant amoeba lives in a pond on the grounds of a backwoods Alabama estate. In "The Malignant Entity," it's in a vat of "heavy albuminous or gelatinous solution" in Townsend's laboratory. In a long and interesting passage, Dr. Dorp postulates:

     "What is life? Broadly defined as we recognize it on this earth, it is a temporary union of mind and matter. There may be, and probably is another kind of life which is simply mind without matter, but we of the material world know it not. To us, mind without matter or matter without mind are equally dead. The moneron [sic] has a mind--a soul--a something that makes it a living individual. Call it what you will. The professor's cell of man-made protoplasm has not. Can you conceive of any possible way in which he could, having reached this stage, create an individual mind or soul, an essence of life that, once united with his cell of protoplasm would form an entity?"

     "It seems impossible," I admitted.

     "So it seems," he replied, "yet it is only on such an hypothesis that I can account for the mysterious deaths of the professor and Officer Rooney."

     "But I don't see how a moneron [sic] or a creature remotely resembling one could kill and completely devour a man in less than two hours," I objected.

     "Nor I," agreed the doctor. "In fact I am of the opinion that, if the professor did succeed in creating life, the result was unlike any creature large or small, now inhabiting the earth--a hideous monster, perhaps, with undreamed of powers and possibilities--an alien organism among billions of other organisms, hating them all because it has nothing in common with them--a malignant entity governed solely by the primitive desire for food and growth with only hatred of and envy for the more fortunate natural creatures around it."

I have speculated before that the psychopathic killer is a blank, that is, a man without a soul. In Dr. Dorp's theorizing, maybe that killer is matter without mind, i.e., without spirit or a soul. The psychopath kills, and so does the giant amoeba or murderous cell in "The Malignant Entity." Being without a soul, it envies and hates those beings that have souls, or an animating spirit. (Remember that anima means "soul" or "spirit.") One of my ideas is that the psychopathic killer wants to know what makes us go, and so he cuts us apart in order to get at what he can only believe is the mechanism beneath the skin. Knowing that he lacks something but not knowing what it is, he is murderously envious and full of hatred for the rest of humanity.

There is a memorable sequence in "The Malignant Entity" in which Dorp and his associates chase the nucleus of the cell around the laboratory like in the old sing-along activity of following the bouncing ball. The nucleus escapes but remains within the building. Described as "plasmic jelly," it consumes a mouse in the basement, and that's where it is finally caught. The nucleus is also described as putting out pseudopods, and at one point it is said to look like a cuttlefish, which is of course a tentacled creature. Now we're back to earlier themes in this series on one hundred years of Weird Tales. In his diary, discovered in a hidden safe, Townsend wrote that his giant amoeba was made of "syntheplasm." Townsend finally brought it to life on September 23 of an unknown year. Maybe that was one hundred and one years ago this month.

In "The Malignant Entity," Otis Adelbert Kline continued in his habit of mixing real people and fictional characters in his stories. In this case, the real-life psychic investigator was Sir Oliver Lodge (1851-1940). That leads to a broader point, namely, that Kline seemed to have been building a universe of interconnected characters, themes, and concepts, drawing from his own stories but also seemingly inspired by other authors published in Weird Tales. He even has his own grimoires in books written by real-life investigators. If this had been Lovecraft, we might call it a mythos.

* * *

Published in Amazing Stories in September 1927, "The Radio Ghost" takes place in the Chicago area, just like its predecessors. Once again, Evans is narrator. There's another niece, Greta Van Loan, and her uncle, the late Gordon Van Loan, who like other uncles in Kline's stories is an investigator of psychic phenomena. Her cousin is Ernest Hegel, who turns out in the end to be a Scooby-Doo-type villain. There is mention of the Society for Psychical Research, also of real-life psychic and medium Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918). (She was real-life. Being a psychic and a medium is of course not real-life.) Fictional characters are Easton, a civil engineer; Brandon, an electrical engineer; and detectives Hogan and Rafferty. Hogan has an Irish accent. Among the words in his vocabulary is shenanigans.

Radio figures pretty prominently in "The Radio Ghost." The title tells you as much. Remember that the last of these Dr. Dorp stories was in a magazine published by radio and television pioneer Hugo Gernsback. Gernsback's book Radio for All, published in 1922, is mentioned in "The Radio Ghost." I would call that an early example of product placement in a work of fiction. In fact, I detect in the whole story a strong odor of commercial promotion of Gernsback, his products, and his ideas. There are detailed descriptions of technology in "The Radio Ghost," as was so common in early science fiction. It's no wonder Gernsback published this story, although you might consider that "The Radio Ghost" is not even really a story but a how-to and a speculation on radio and the uses of radio, then and into the future.

* * *

Otis Adelbert Kline was an interesting case. He wasn't the best or most imaginative author. He was entirely too caught up in the nineteenth-century hoax/fraud of Spiritualism, mediumship, and ectoplasm. And yet he was capable of formulating interesting ideas as a basis for his stories. The passage quoted above about mind and matter suggests an insight into a human problem, that is, of the man who hates his fellow creatures because he cannot understand them, coming as he does from the outside, and lacking as he does a soul or spirit, or what makes a man a human being after all. Sometimes you feel like giving up on a writer after you have read a little of what he wrote. I'm not ready to do that yet with Otis Adelbert Kline. However, if a body of fiction is a coat, a writer should avoid hanging his on the hook of a shabby and pathetic belief system such as Spiritualism, Theosophy, Marxism, or Scientology. It will only end up on the floor, dusty and rumpled, trod upon and ruined.

William F. Heitman's illustration for "The Malignant Entity" by Otis Adelbert Kline in Weird Tales, May/June/July 1924. The character in the middle is Kline's occult detective, Doctor Dorp. That's poor Professor Townsend on the floor.

And an illustration by Frank R. Paul for Hugo Gernsback's Radio for All, published in 1922. The view is of an office worker fifty years into the future. Many of the things in this fanciful illustration have actually come about, though not necessarily by 1972 and not only by way of radio technology.

Original text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley

The Internet Ooze, Blobs, Jellies, & Slime Database

So we have a start to an Internet Slime, Blobs, Jellies, & Ooze Database (ISBJODb). This is what the Internet has needed for a very long time. We just didn't know it until now.

* * *

I'll start with the pre-scientists, pseudoscientists, and scientists of ooze, slime, and primordial soup:

Lorenz Oken (1779-1851)-German natural philosopher and apparent originator of the concept urschleim, earth's primordial slime or primordial ooze.

Thomas Huxley (1825-1895)-English biologist and "discoverer" of Bathybius, the supposed living/non-living slime at the bottom of the ocean.

Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919)-German biologist and enthusiast, with Huxley, of Bathybius.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)-English naturalist and originator of the expression "warm little pond," now used to refer to what is called the primordial soup.

Sir John Murray (1841-1914)-Canadian-British biologist, oceanographer, and explorer; scientists on his expeditions debunked the concept of Bathybius.

H.G. Wells (1866-1946)-English author--originally trained as a biologist and zoologist--and historian of everything, including the jellies of the primordial earth.

Alexander Oparin (1894-1980)-Russian biochemist, author of The Origin of Life (1924), and originator of the concept of the primordial soup.

Dr. Carl Sagan (1934-1996)-American scientist and author; proponent of abiogenesis.

I guess I should include Harold Urey (1893-1981) and Stanley Miller (1930-2007) for their work on the Miller-Urey Experiment of 1952.

* * *

Next are swamp monsters. First are fictional monsters generated by the swamp or in the swamp or that came out of the swamp. After that are pseudoscientific, i.e., cryptozoological, monsters that dwell in the swamp.

The giant amoeba in "Ooze" by Anthony M. Rud (Weird Tales, March 1923).

The monster in "Slime" by Joseph Payne Brennan (Weird Tales, March 1953).

The Heap, a comic book character created by Harry Stein and Mort Leav in 1942. The Heap is a German aviator shot down over a swamp in Poland in 1942.

Man-Thing, created by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, and Gray Morrow in 1971. Man-Thing is a scientist working in the Florida Everglades when he dies and is born again from the swamp.

Swamp Thing, created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson in 1971. Swamp Thing is a scientist in a Louisiana swamp who is murdered and arises again from the swamp.

Cryptozoological Swamp Monsters--All of these are Bigfoot-like creatures, but I wouldn't rule out the influence of the pop-culture swamp monster on the people who are supposed to have seen them. As I've said before: before these things can be seen, they must be imagined. It is usually artists who do the imagining. Note that sightings of these creatures were mostly contemporaneous with Man-Thing and Swamp Thing in comic books.

• Skunk Ape (1950s through 1970s)
• Boggy Creek Monster (1971)
• Abominable Swamp Slob (1973)
• Honey Island Swamp Monster (1974) 

* * *

Next are ooze, slime, jelly, and other colloidal creatures from genre fiction and comic books:

Again, the giant amoeba from "Ooze" by Anthony M. Rud (1923).

Ubbo-Sathla from the story of the same name by Clark Ashton Smith (Weird Tales, July 1933).

Shoggoths from the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft (Astounding Stories, Feb-Apr. 1936) and Robert Bloch (Weird Tales, May 1951).

Again, the monster from "Slime" by Joseph Payne Brennan (Weird Tales, March, 1953).

* * *

G.W. Thomas, author of Dark Worlds Quarterly, has compiled a list of stories from Weird Tales involving slime monsters. I won't steal his thunder. I'll just refer you to his list:

"Slime Monsters in Weird Tales," July 8, 2020

I will have one to add to that list when I write about Otis Adelbert Kline.

Mr. Thomas has also compiled lists of comic book stories:

"Plant Monsters of the Golden Age: Slime Monsters!" December 23, 2021

"Return of the Slime," September 15, 2022

* * *

Following are some ooze, slime, jelly, and other colloidal creatures or inventions from other media, including radio, children's books and animation, toys, movies, and television shows. I'll start with a blob-type monster that easily fits in with the all-devouring slime monster:

"The Chicken Heart," an episode of the Lights Out radio show, broadcast on March 10, 1937, immortalized in Bill Cosby's comedy routine "Chicken Heart" on his album Wonderfulness (1966).

The Schmoo, from Li'l Abner by Al Capp (1948).

Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss (1949).

Silly Putty (toy) (1949).

The Blob (1958) and its sequels.

Flubber, from The Absent-Minded Professor (1961).

The Globster, a carcass that washed up on shore in Tasmania in 1962, named by cryptozoologist Ivan T. Sanderson; other globsters and blobs came after it.

Antibodies, which attacked Raquel Welch in Fantastic Voyage (1966). We remember Raquel Welch, who died recently at age eighty-two.

Gloop and Gleep from the animated TV series The Herculoids (1967), created by Alex Toth.

The Rovers in The Prisoner (1967) aren't quite colloidal, but I'll throw them into this list anyway.

The giant amoeba from the Star Trek episode "The Immunity Syndrome" (1968).

Barbapapa and family, created by Annette Tison and Talus Taylor (1970).

Slime (toy) (1976).

The T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), a kind of metallic/robotic slime, a machine-slime.

* * *

You might have noticed that certain sounds recur in regards to ooze, blobs, jellies, slime, mud, muck, mire, and other liquids and colloids. For example, there is the "oo" sound in ooze, Oobleck, Schmoo, and Gloop. Other sounds related to these things include the "o" and "u" sounds in: gob, glob, glop, glub, blob, blub, plop, clot, blot, clod, bubble, blubber, rubber, Flubber, mud, muck, and putty. Is there any significance in any of that? I don't know. My first guess is that many of these words are onomatopoeic.

* * *

If you have never read the original Barbapapa books, you should. They're really charming, and the creatures themselves are lovable and memorable. One thing I learned in reading about Barbapapa is that he was inspired by cotton candy, which is called barbe à papa--"papa's beard"--in French. The image of cotton candy combined with that of Barbapapa made me think of ectoplasm. The word ectoplasm shares half of its roots--plasm--with protoplasm. Plasm is from the Greek, "something formed or molded." In the modern sense of the word, plasm denotes "the gelatinous fluid found in living tissue," according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. That source notes that "German language purists preferred Urschleim." I guess all things return to their ur-sources. By the way, ectoplasm also refers to the "exterior protoplasm of a cell," and was first used in this sense in reference to amoebas in 1883. Anyway, all of that leads into the first serial in Weird Tales, "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes" by Otis Adelbert Kline, March and April 1923.

Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Willard N. Marsh (1922-1970)

Musician, Teacher, Author, Poet
Born March 5, 1922, Oakland, California
Died May 27, 1970, Guadalajara, Mexico

Willard Noah Marsh was born on March 5, 1922, in Oakland, California. His parents were Louis and Goldie D. (Greene or Green) Marsh. Louis Marsh, a native of France, died on May 13, 1928, in San Mateo, California. I don't know what happened to Goldie, but in 1930, Willard and his brother, Matthew E. Marsh, were enumerated in the Federal census with their aunt and uncle, Henry and Lenora M. Green, in Berkeley, California.

Willard N. Marsh graduated from Garfield Junior High School and Berkeley High School. A description of his papers at the University of Iowa Libraries notes Marsh's talents as a musician:

While in Oakland High School he displayed a virtuosity with trumpet and trombone which led to an era as musician-impresario--the launching of "Will Marsh and the Four Collegians" in an Oakland roadhouse--which subsequently financed his education at the State College at Chico.

Marsh was two years into his program at Chico State University when his country came calling. On September 18, 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He received his technical training at Scott Field in Illinois and served in the U.S. Army Air Forces in the South Pacific in the field of radio communications. The Oakland Tribune printed his letter, entitled "Life on an Atoll," on May 5, 1944 (p. 28).

On September 10, 1948, Marsh married George [sic] Rae Williams in California. She was a former actress with the Pasadena Playhouse. By then, Marsh's writing career had already begun to take off. His first work listed in The FictionMags Index is in fact his poem "Bewitched," which appeared in Weird Tales in March 1945. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Marsh wrote prize-winning stories and poems. In 1950, he was living with his wife in Contra Costa County, California, and calling himself a novelist.

Marsh studied at Chico State University, San Francisco State College, and State University of Iowa. From 1950 to 1958, he gave private instruction in creative writing in the United States and Mexico. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1959 and his master's degree in 1960. In September 1959, he began as an assistant professor of English at Winthrop College in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Marsh spent two years at Winthrop, three at the University of California, Los Angeles (1961-1964), and two more at North Texas State University, Denton (1968-1970). He retired to Mexico very near the end of his life and died of a heart stoppage on May 27, 1970, in Guadalajara, Mexico. He was buried at Municipal Cemetery, Ajijic, Mexico, a fitting place for him to come to rest, for Ajijic has been a place for writers and artists for more than one hundred years.

* * *

From 1945 to 1969, Willard Marsh wrote dozens of stories and poems published in pulp magazines, men's magazines, slick magazines, and literary journals. The FictionMags Index and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database list the following stories in fantasy and science fiction magazines:

• "Bewitched" in Weird Tales (poem, Mar. 1945)
• "Moon Bride" in Different (vignette, Sept./Oct. 1946)
• "Astronomy Lesson" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (short story, June 1955)
• "The Ethicators" in If (short story, Aug. 1955)
• "Machina Ex Machina" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (vignette, May 1956); reprinted in Fiction #39 (1957)
• "Poet in Residence" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (short story, Sept. 1958); reprinted in Venture Science Fiction (June 1964)
• "Forwarding Service" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (short story, June 1964); reprinted in Wanderer durch Zeit und Raum (Oct. 1964)
• "Everyone's Hometown Is Guernica" (or "Cuernica") in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (short story, Aug. 1965)
• "Stay Out of Our Time!" in Worlds of Tomorrow (novelette, June 1964)
• "Inconceivably Yours" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (short story, Sept. 1964)
• "The Sin of Edna Schuster" in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (short story, Feb. 1965)

His story "The Ethicators" was in SF: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Judith Merril and published in 1956.

Marsh also wrote for:

Mystery, crime, and detective magazines: Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Mercury Mystery Magazine.

Men's magazines: Adam's Bedside Reader, Cavalier, The Dude, Gentleman, Rogue, Sir Knight, Spree.

Slick magazines: Esquire, Playboy, The Saturday Evening Post.

Literary journals: Antioch Review, Approach, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Southwest Review, Transatlantic Review, University of Kansas City Review, Yale Review, and others.

And his stories were in: Best American Short Stories: 1953, Best Saturday Evening Post Stories: 1954, and Prize Stories, 1957: The O. Henry Awards.

He had at least two published books to his credit: a novel, Week With No Friday (Harper & Row, 1965; Avon Books, 1967), and a collection of stories, Beached in Bohemia (Louisiana State University Press, 1969). He also wrote drafts for an unpublished novel, Anchor in the Air.

Willard Marsh was born during the interwar period and was one from those generations that accomplished so much and helped to make America such a prosperous, creative, fun, and interesting place in which to live. His career perhaps encompassed what we might consider a golden age for writers and artists in our country, a time when there were workshops, university programs, correspondence courses, night schools, and so on in which to learn the crafts of writing, drawing, and painting; also contests and competitions, fairs, shows, and exhibits; writer's and artist's groups, colonies, conferences, and conventions; and perhaps most importantly, magazines, fanzines, journals, and newspapers, big, small, and very small, printed on pulp and slick paper and everything in between, publications to receive the work of so many talented, energetic, and ambitious people. What a grand time it must have been, though grand perhaps only in retrospect, as grand times usually are.

* * * Happy New Year! * * *

Further Reading

• "Changing Trend in Reading Said Encouraging to Writers" [by Ann Blackmon] in The State (Columbia, SC), October 20, 1959, section B, page 15.
• Description of Willard N. Marsh's papers, University of Iowa Libraries, here.

SF: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy (1956), edited by Judith Merril and with Willard Marsh's name on the cover. His story "The Ethicators" was inside. Cover art by Ed Emshwiller.

Willard Marsh's Week with No Friday was originally in hardback, but paperback covers are usually more interesting. That proved to be the case here in Avon's edition of 1967. Artist unknown.

Willard Marsh seems to have had high literary ambitions, but he wasn't above writing for men's magazines. Here is his name on the cover of Gent for August 1958. Those were the days.

Willard N. Marsh (1922-1970)

Original text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Hubbard the Explorer

or, Expedition Dianetics

The first published version of Dianetics was not in Astounding Science Fiction nor in a hardbound book edition. Instead it was in The Explorers Journal, the organ of the Explorers Club of New York, in its issue of Winter/Spring 1950 (Vol. XXVIII, No. 1). Written by L. Ron Hubbard--but in the passive voice--this version is entitled "Terra Incognita: The Mind." You can read it yourself by clicking here. Hubbard's essay is only three and a half pages long, yet it includes some basics of Dianetics (the word is capitalized in the original). It also introduces the word and concept comanome, later to evolve into the engram.

Strangely, Hubbard was a member of the Explorers Club, his membership having dated to February 19, 1940. On June 27, 1940, he set off on what he called the Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition. Sailing under Explorers Club flag number 105, he captained a yacht called--ironically or not--Magician. Hubbard was given to boasting and mock heroics. His great radio expedition turned out to be more or less a fiasco, and he returned stateside half a year after beginning.

Volney G. Mathison, who contributed to Weird Tales, was an oceangoing radio operator. I had thought that he and Hubbard might have crossed paths as early as 1940, on the West Coast or in Alaska. But what I have read since writing about Mathison leads me to think that he and Hubbard didn't meet until the early 1950s, or, at the earliest, the late 1940s. In any case, Hubbard went on to lead two more expeditions flying the flag of the Explorers Club (flag number 163), in 1961 for his Oceanographic-Archeological [sic] Expedition, and in 1966 for his Hubbard Geological Survey Expedition. By 1961, Mathison had long broken with Hubbard. By 1966, he was in his grave.

* * *

Dianetics is an old word. Originally spelled dianoetics, it was first used in print in 1677. Citing the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Jon Atack, author of the essay "Possible Origins for Dianetics and Scientology" (click here to read it), is the source of that piece of information. Mr. Atack also suggested that Hubbard derived dianetics from the name of the Greek goddess Diana, a prominent figure in Aleister Crowley's supposed magic. Hubbard went on to name one of his daughters and one of his vessels Diana.

Dianoetic was in newspapers before 1900. The first occurrences of the word dianetic in American newspapers that I have found are from 1923 and 1926. In these items, dianetic is used as an adjective and not a noun. The usage seems to me nonsensical and absurd, like someone is putting us on. It also seems to me that the spelling dianetic is just a simplification of dianoetic. It would have to wait until early 1950, as far as I can tell, for the word Dianetics as a noun to occur in print in reference to a kind of psychology or pseudo-psychology. Read on . . .

Newspaper columnist Walter Winchell gets the credit for breaking the story of a coming Dianetics. On January 30, 1950, he wrote:

     There is something new coming in April called dianetics. (1) A new science that works with the invariability of physical science in the field of the human mind. From all indications it will prove to be as revolutionary for humanity as the first caveman's discovery and utilization of fire. (2)

Note the phrase "the invariability of physical science." In that, I detect the influence of John W. Campbell, Jr., who was in fact a physical scientist and seemingly keen on applying scientific principles to "the field of the human mind." I have tried to figure out a possible connection between Winchell and Campbell, Winchell and Hubbard, or Winchell and science fiction in general but have come up empty. (3) It seems to me that in early 1950, Hubbard and Campbell were trying to hype their new invention. What better way than to drop a hint with one of the most widely read newspaper columnists in America? (4) And why wouldn't Winchell publish a bit of gossip? That was his coin. Better to be wrong than to lose a scoop . . .

Except that Winchell was scooped, for Dianetics was mentioned in a newspaper item published twelve days prior to his January 31 column. On January 19, 1950, an anonymous reporter wrote:

Move to New Jersey -- Dr. and Mrs. J.A. Winter and family left yesterday to make their home in Bayside, N.J., where Dr. Winter is to continue his work in dianetics. Their home at 1614 Forres [sic] avenue will be occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Malloy.

The source is The Herald-Palladium of Benton Harbor, Michigan, page 3.

And that's where my research for this series began.

To be continued . . .

Notes
(1) The publication of Hubbard's Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health was delayed a few days, until May 9, 1950.
(2) From the column "Gossip of the Nation" in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 31, 1950, p. 19. Winchell's column was of course in many other papers that day.
(3) Robert A. Heinlein later referred to a fictional gossip columnist as a "winchell" in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961). It seems to me that Heinlein was in the habit of trying to immortalize contemporary things. It didn't often work, and it makes him sound like somebody's old grandpa who talks about things from long ago that nobody now understands.
(4) There were newspapermen and broadcasters in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), but not Walter Winchell. These were: Kenneth Kendall, who was later in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968); Elmer Davis, previously editor of the pulp magazine Adventure; and H.V. Kaltenborn. Dorothy Kilgallen was also a gossip columnist. She wrote more than once about flying saucers. Some conspiracy theorists believe that her mysterious death is an example of the silencing of people who knew too much about flying saucers. On August 18, 1950, she wrote about Hubbard's brainchild:

     Dianetics, the new "scientific" parlor game which swept California recently, has begun to catch on in the Gotham set that likes to discuss its neuroses . . . (Ellipses in the original, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Aug. 18, 1950, p. 22.)

The Explorers Journal, Winter-Spring 1950. The photograph on the cover looks like it could have been taken in Alaska. Does it date from L. Ron Hubbard's radio expedition to that place in 1940? And could that be the silhouette of Polly Hubbard, first wife of the inventor of Dianetics? Or is it the silhouette of a man?

Original text copyright 2022, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Charlotte Straus Plimmer (1916-1991)

Charlotte (Fingerhut) Straus Plimmer was born on March 29, 1916, in Cleveland, Ohio. She was on the staff of the Glenville High School Torch, the school newspaper, but maybe only after two more famous staff members--Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster--had graduated. She was two years younger than those two creators of Superman.

Charlotte Fingerhut married Clifford A. Straus in 1937 in Cleveland. She was working as a drama teacher at the time of the 1940 census. During the 1940s, as Charlotte Straus, she was school editor with Seventeen magazine and worked for the Women's National News Service. In July 1950, she married author and radio commentator Denis H. Plimmer (1914-1981) in Chelsea, London. Over the next three decades, the two collaborated on articles, books, radio scripts, and television scripts. Alone or with her husband, Charlotte Plimmer wrote:

• The Damn'd Master: An Authentic Account of an Eighteenth Century Slaver (history, 1971)
• Slavery: The Anglo-American Involvement (1973)
• London: A Visitor's Companion (travel, 1977)
• A Matter of Expediency: The Jettison of Admiral Sir Dudley North (history, 1978)
• Positive Beauty: A Practical Guide (1980)
• The Power Seekers (1983)
• Make-up Made Easy (1985)
• Food in Focus: A Portfolio from the World's Finest Food Photography (1988)

The Plimmers also wrote radio scripts together:

• Slavery-the Bloody Commerce (radio documentary, 1972)
• "The Penkovsky Riddle" (radio program, 1973)-Kept off the air because of a lawsuit involving copyright infringement
• A program on Dorothy Parker, on the radio program Women of Words (England, Feb. 1980; Australia, 1989)

As well as television scripts:

• For Sanctuary (1968): "Insurrection's Child" and "Diary and the Devil's Advocate"
• For Z Cars (1969): "You've Got to Keep Them Talking" (two-part episode)
• For Who-Dun-It (1969): "A Matter of Honour" (a script based on their story)
• For Thirty-Minute Theatre (1968-1969): "Standing by for Santa Claus," "The Chequers Manoeuvre," "Cause of Death," "Where Have They Gone, All the Little Children," ". . . . and Was Invited to Form a Government," and "A Formula for Treason"
• For The Adventures of Don Quick (1970): "Paradise Destruct"
• For BBC2 Playhouse (1976): "The Chauffeur"

Charlotte Plimmer died on February 25, 1991, in London. She was seventy-four years old.

Charlotte Fingerhut Straus Plimmer (1916-1991).

Thanks to The FictionMags Index and the Internet Movie Database for lists.

Text copyright 2022 Terence E. Hanley

Denis Plimmer (1914-1981)-Part Two

Denis Harcus Plimmer was from a well-known family in New Zealand. His uncle, William Harcus Plimmer (1875-1959), was a theatre critic. William's grandfather and Denis' great-grandfather was John Plimmer (1812-1905), an early settler in New Zealand and a prominent businessman and booster. Denis Plimmer's father was the actor Harry John Plimmer (1867-1947), subject of the first part of this series. Harry Plimmer was married at least twice, first to (Mary) Josephine Thynne (?-1910), on June 13, 1894, in Sydney, Australia. Harry's second wife and Denis Plimmer's mother was Josephine "Ena" Shanahan Plimmer (1892-1940). Harry and Ena were married on October 27, 1913, in Victoria, Australia. They may have renewed their vows in New York City.

Denis Plimmer was born on September 27, 1914, in Melbourne, Australia, and arrived in America with his parents in January 1918. The family settled in New York City. Harry Plimmer traveled throughout the United States with Ethel Barrymore's acting company beginning in 1918. After that ten-year stint was up, Plimmer acted with the Broadhurst Theater in New York. He retired from acting in 1946.

Denis Plimmer attended college, possibly Columbia University, for four years. His army career, June-September 1943, was cut short by his crosseyed condition. For his part, he became a journalist, writing for the Overseas News Agency during the mid to late 1940s. He was also on the radio with a regular program, Europe This Week/The World This Week, also during the World War II years. He spent more than half of his life in England, from the late 1940s until his death in September 1981 in Westminster. Plimmer had been a pacifist in the 1930s. In 1964, he served as a campaign worker for Americans Abroad for Johnson.

Here is a partial list of Denis Plimmer's works, some of which were with his second wife, Charlotte Plimmer:

• In Heaven and Earth (play, 1938)
• "The Meeting" in American newspapers (short short story; syndicated by McClure's Syndicate, 1939) 
• Land's End (play, 1940) with John Garfield in the cast
• "Eleven Years" in The American Magazine (vignette, Jan. 1941)
• "I Love You Ermintrude" in Writer's Digest (article, Nov. 1941)
• "Death Over Galleon Hall" in Daredevil Detective Stories (novel, Feb. 1942)
• "Trail’s End" in Dynamic Western Stories (short story, June 1942)
• "Mr. Potter Finds a Clue" in Daredevil Detective Stories (short story, Aug. 1942)
• "Mr. Potter and the Prophet Isaiah" in Daredevil Detective Stories (short story, Oct. 1942)
• "It's Safer in Murmansk," with Stanley Postek, in Free World (article, Aug. 1942)
• An article in The New Republic (Oct. 29, 1945)
• "The Harp of David ap Gwylam" in Bluebook (short story, Apr. 1953)
• "The Man in the Black Coat" in This Week (short story, July 12, 1953)
• "The Expatriate" in Cosmopolitan (short story, Oct. 1953)
• "See London for 11 Cents," with Charlotte Plimmer, in The American Magazine (article, Apr. 1954)
• "We Rediscovered the Rhine," with Charlotte Plimmer, in The American Magazine (article, June 1954)
• "Separate Rooms" in Cosmopolitan (short story, July 1954)
• "I Pronounce You" in Esquire (short story, Feb. 1955)
• "We Discovered Paris Through Its Markets," with Charlotte Plimmer, in The American Magazine (article, Aug. 1955)
• "Soliloquy on an Autumn Day," with Charlotte Plimmer, in Esquire (short story, Nov. 1955)
• "Strangers from a Barren Paradise," with Charlotte Plimmer (article)
• "London's Casbah: Soho," with Charlotte Plimmer, in Esquire (Feb. 1, 1957)
• "The Royal Home Afloat," with Charlotte Plimmer, in John Bull Illustrated (article, Jan. 24, 1959)
• "Marching as to War," with Charlotte Plimmer, in Reader's Digest (Nov. 1961)
• "Tempest in a Riviera Teapot," with Charlotte Plimmer, in The Saturday Evening Post (article, July 14/July 21, 1962)
• "Storm Over a Royal Love Affair," with Charlotte Plimmer), in Redbook (article, Oct. 1963)
• "The Man Who Understands Hobbits," with Charlotte Plimmer, in London Daily Telegraph Magazine (Mar. 22 1968, pp. 31-32, 35; published previously in The Telegraph; reprinted in Weekend Magazine, Aug. 31, 1968, for distribution with Canadian newspapers)-An article based on an interview with J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Damn'd Master: An Authentic Account of an Eighteenth Century Slaver, with Charlotte Plimmer, (history, 1971)
• Slavery: The Anglo-American Involvement, with Charlotte Plimmer, (1973)
• London: A Visitor's Companion, with Charlotte Plimmer, (travel, 1977)
• A Matter of Expediency: The Jettison of Admiral Sir Dudley North, with Charlotte Plimmer, (history, 1978)

I'll have more on Charlotte Plimmer in the next part of this series, including radio and television scripts she co-authored with her husband.

Denis Plimmer's career as an author of genre stories was short, running from November 1940 to September-October 1943. In those three years, Plimmer had nine stories and a poem in Weird Tales, Uncanny Stories, and Uncanny Tales (Canada)--enough to make a book if someone had the mind to put it together. See his Western and detective stories from the same period in the list above. I don't think it's any coincidence that Plimmer's genre fiction career came to an end at around the time he was in and out again from the army. With war on, other things--more important things--were calling.

To be continued . . . 

Denis Plimmer's Stories & Poem in Weird Tales and Other Weird Fiction Magazines

• "The Green Invasion" in Weird Tales (Nov. 1940; reprinted in Uncanny Tales, Apr. 1942)
• "Man from the Wrong Time-Track" in Uncanny Stories (Apr. 1941)
• "The Devil's Tree" in Weird Tales (poem, July 1941)
• "The Coming of Darakk" in Uncanny Tales (Dec. 1941)
• "The Stolen God" in Uncanny Tales (Jan. 1942)
• "The Channelers" in Uncanny Tales (Feb. 1942)
• "The Strange Case of Julian Rayne" in Uncanny Tales (Mar. 1942)
• "The Unborn" in Uncanny Tales (Sept. 1942)
• "Portrait of the Artist's Mother" in Uncanny Tales (Dec. 1942)
• "Louisiana Night" in Uncanny Tales (Sept.-Oct. 1943)

I should point out that there was a letter written by an H. Plimmer in Nebula Science Fiction #41 (June 1959). Can we assume that that was by (Denis) H. Plimmer?

Denis Plimmer lived long enough to see one of his weird fiction stories reprinted. His only story for Weird Tales, "The Green Invasion," from November 1940, was reprinted in Satanic Omnibus in 1973 and in this volume, Eiskalt ist die Totenhand, edited by Kurt Singer and published in 1974 by Pabel (Vampir Taschenbuch #16). The cover artist was Francisco Javier González Vilanova (1930-1995).

Thanks to The FictionMags Index and the Internet Speculative Fiction Database for lists of Denis Plimmer's stories.

Original text copyright 2022 Terence E. Hanley

Denis Plimmer (1914-1981)-Part One

Author, Poet, Actor, Playwright, Newspaperman, Travel Writer, Radio Commentator, Political Campaign Worker

Born September 27, 1914, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Died September 1981, Westminster, Middlesex, England

Blue of eye and fair of skin, Denis Harcus Plimmer was born on September 27, 1914, in Melbourne, Australia, to two actors, Harry John Plimmer (1867-1947) and Josephine "Ena" Shanahan Plimmer (1892-1940). Before getting to Denis Plimmer, the son and author, I'll write about Harry Plimmer, the father and actor.

Born in 1867 in Wellington, New Zealand, John Henry "Harry" Plimmer was a stage and screen actor who did a lot of traveling, including in troupes across early twentieth-century America. I might as well list his known acting credits because nobody else has done it to completion, or at least close to completion. There are links embedded in each heading, so be on the lookout for those.

Harry Plimmer on Stage in Australia:

• The Trumpet Call (1892)
• Harry Rickards' New Tivoli Minstrels (1894)
• The Sign of the Cross (1898-1899)
• The King's Musketeer (1899)
• Elizabeth, Queen of England (1900)
• Fedora (1900)
• La Tosca (1900)
• Ingomar, the Barbarian (1900)
• Sherlock Holmes (1902)
• Monsieur Beaucaire (1904)
• Inconstant George (1911)
• A Woman of No Importance (1912)
• The Monk and the Woman (1917)

Harry Plimmer on Film in Australia:

• The Monk and the Woman (1917)

The Monk and the Woman might sound familiar to fans of Ambrose Bierce, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't the same as Bierce's tale The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter (1892). The Monk and the Woman is considered a lost film.

Harry Plimmer (1867-1947), Australia's First Sherlock Holmes. Plimmer played Holmes in Perth and Adelaide in 1902 in a production by J.C. Williamson.

Harry Plimmer on Stage in the United States:

• The Off Chance (1918) with Ethel Barrymore
• Déclassée (1919-1920)
• The Blue Lagoon (1921)
• The Laughing Lady (1923)
• Antonia (1925)
• Shall We Join the Ladies (1925)
• Pickwick (1927)
• The Kingdom of God (1928-1929)
• Topaze (1930)
• The School for Scandal (1931) with Ethel Barrymore and Arthur Treacher
• Firebird (1932)
• Victoria Regina (1935-1936, 1936-1937, 1938) with Helen Hayes
• Billy Draws a Horse (1939)

Harry Plimmer (center) on the cover of Theatre Arts Magazine, September 1950, with Charles Francis and Ethel Barrymore. Plimmer acted in Ethel Barrymore's company for ten years, beginning in 1918. 

Harry Plimmer crossed an ocean to the United States at least once, in 1891, before arriving for good (I think for good) in January 1918, debarking in San Francisco from Sydney, Australia, from on board the Ventura. He had with him his young wife and their only child, the future writer Denis Plimmer, aged three years and a few months.

The Plimmer family lived in New York City in 1920, 1930, and 1940 when the enumerator of the census came around. Denis Plimmer made his declaration of intention to become a citizen on January 9, 1941, at age twenty-six and was naturalized in 1949. As of that date in 1941, he had four years of college, possibly at Columbia University. On January 31, 1941, the same month in which he declared his intention, he married Margaret Eva Partello (1920-?) in New York City. Maybe one thing was necessary for the other.

Denis Plimmer enlisted in the U.S. Army in June 1943, also in New York City. He was at Camp Rucker, Arkansas, from August to September 1943 before being discharged for strabismus. (That means he was crosseyed.) Plimmer went back and forth between the United States and England in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I believe he was in England pretty much after 1947 or 1948 and until his death in 1981. His father, Harry John Plimmer, retired from acting in 1946 and died in Paddington, London, in late 1947. He was around eighty years old.

In July 1950, Denis Plimmer married again. His second wife was Charlotte (Fingerhut) Straus (1916-1991). Like him, she was a writer, and the two spent the rest of their time together collaborating on fiction and non-fiction, as well as on scripts for radio and television. Their credits will have to wait until the next part of this series. There are some interesting items in the list and some things fantasy fans will want to know about.

To be continued . . .

Text copyright 2022 Terence E. Hanley

The Mysterious Dolgov-Part Five

In the 1950s, what is now called the East Village began to attract writers, artists, beatniks, and bohemians, especially from Greenwich Village to the west. It may have been a natural place for an artist like The Mysterious Dolgov to land, if he wasn't already living there. The East Village was also once considered a part of the Lower East Side, a place in which Russian-Jewish immigrants settled during the late 1800s and early 1900s. I'm pretty sure that Dolgov's family were both Russian and Jewish. In addition, the East Village was home to the Yiddish Theatre District or Yiddish Rialto of the early twentieth century. That last fact leads us to another Dolgoff.

Lewis Benjamin "Lou" Dolgoff was a comedian and master of ceremonies who performed on radio and stage in the Yiddish Theatre District and other places around town during the early to mid twentieth century. He was born on June 29, 1892, in Manhattan to Benjamin Dolgoff (1848-1920) and Lena (Golub) Dolgoff (ca. 1856-1953). He was a regular at the Village Grove Nut Club in Greenwich Village (1920s), also at Kernel Lew Mercur's Nut Club in Miami, Florida (1940s). Dolgoff had engagements at the Swing Club, Arabian Nights, Boery (sic) Cafe, B and B Nut Club, and Sir Jimmy Dwyer's Sawdust Trail in New York. If I read things right, Dolgoff was also on the radio on WMCA, WPAP, and WPCH, all in the same city.

When he registered for the draft in 1942, Dolgoff was employed by the New Fulton Royal Restaurant in Brooklyn. He may have alternated between New York City and Florida, specifically Miami, at the time. It looks like Dolgoff divorced his wife Sally in early 1953, married Bertha Zeitlin in Dade County, Florida, sometime that year, then was widowed when she died the following year. He had emceed at the Red Barn in Miami prior to that and--who knows?--maybe after that, too. In any event, Dolgoff followed his wife to the grave on October 11, 1956, and was buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Flushing, New York, with his parents. His stone is marked "Dear Uncle."

So, that's an awfully long way to go following somebody who might not have had anything to do with The Mysterious Dolgov, but we're still chasing leads. I have just one more: I found an Oscar Arthur Dolgoff, later known as Oscar Dole, who, in the 1930 Federal census, while living in the Bronx, gave his occupation as advertising artist. He was born on November 29, 1911, to Philip and Bertha Dolgoff. In 1940 he was unemployed. I don't know anything more about him except that he died on February 17, 1980, and is at buried Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Glendale, Queens County, New York. The surname and age are about right, as are the place and occupation, but why would Oscar Dolgoff have gone by the name Boris Dolgov when he was already going by the name Oscar Dole? It just doesn't add up. What we should consider, though, is that "Boris" or "Dolgov" or "Dolgoff" was not the Weird Tales artist's real name or birth name, and that's why he has been so hard to find. Maybe, too, he was an only child or never married or never had any children, and so there aren't any remaining Dolgovs to set us straight. There is one thing available to us, though, that might clear all of this up:

New York City Death Certificate Number 23513
Name: Boris Dolgoff
Age: 48
Date of death: November 4, 1958
Place of death: Manhattan

Are you listening, RAE?

The Village Grove Nut Club was a landmark in Manhattan for drinkers, nightclubbers, partygoers, and other bon vivants. Here is a photograph from the exact date of February 18, 1933.

Located at 99 7th Avenue South, "In the Heart of Greenwich Village," the Village Grove Nut Club might have been a little too far west to be a part of the Yiddish Theatre District (I'm a Midwesterner with absolutely no knowledge of New York City, or its neighborhoods, culture, or history). Nonetheless, it must have been an attraction for Jewish performers and clientele from all over. (Above: A wine list from 1943.)

One of those performers was Lou "Judge" Dolgoff (1892-1956), whose parents, Benjamin and Lena Dolgoff (or Dolgov), were Russian-Jewish immigrants who spoke Yiddish and/or Hebrew as their native language. His father was a clothing presser. Lou escaped that by becoming a comedy performer and master of ceremonies. Here his name appears in a newspaper advertisement for Kernel Lew Mercur's Nut Club, from the Miami Herald, December 17, 1941.

One of my points in showing these images is that bars, restaurants, nightclubs, and other entertainments and businesses in New York City, as everywhere, would have needed art, cartoons, and illustrations, thus providing opportunities for young artists. It might help, too, if a young artist had a friend or relative who already worked in those industries. A foot in the door, an introduction, a kind word: "My brother's kid draws. How about if I bring him around this weekend and he can show you what he's got?"

I can't say that Boris Dolgov and Lou Dolgoff were related, but it might be instructive to look at the paths taken by the children of European-Jewish immigrants in early twentieth-century America: the first generation were laborers--Kirk Douglas' father was a ragman, the Marx Brothers' a tailor--who escaped the Old World into the New. The second made their own escape from common labor into entertainment and the arts. Could that have been Boris Dolgov's path, too? Unfortunately, we don't know and we're left with a lot of speculation in the absence of evidence. For now The Mysterious Dolgov remains so.

Text copyright 2020, 2023 Terence E. Hanley