It is early October, which is an appropriate time for some early issues of Weird Tales magazine... March 1923 April 1923 May 1923 June 1923 July 1923 September 1923 October 1923 November 1923 January 1924 February 1924 March 1924 April 1924 May 1924 November 1924 December 1924 January 1925 February 1925 March 1925 April 1925 May 1925 June 1925 July 1925 August 1925 September 1925 November 1925

I count a dozen ghost covers for Weird Tales. Most of these images are conventional to the point of cliché. The exception is the last, by Virgil Finlay, illustrating one of few poems to make it to the cover of "The Unique Magazine." Weird Tales, November 1923. Cover story: "The Closed Room" by Maybelle McCalment. Cover art by Washburn, the only Weird Tales cover by an otherwise unknown artist. Weird Tales, January 1924. Cover story: None (?). Cover art by R.M. Mally. Weird Tales, April 1924. Cover story: "The Spirit Lover" by Harry Houdini. Cover art by R.M. Mally. I don't want to give away too much, but he only looks like a ghost. Weird Tales, June 1927. Cover story: "A Suitor from the Shades" by Greye La Spina. Cover art by C.C. Senf. There aren't many Weird Tales covers less scary than this one. The female figure is well done, though, as can be expected of Senf. Weird Tales, November 1940. Cover story: "The Last Waltz" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. A non-typical cover by Margaret Brundage. Weird Tales, July 1943. Cover story: "His Last Appearance" by H. Bedford-Jones. Cover art by Edgar Franklin Wittmack. The man looks a little like Ernie Pyle. Weird Tales, May 1945, Canadian edition. Cover story: "Bon Voyage, Michele" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Unknown. This image also appears in my posting "Woman and Wolf." Weird Tales, September 1945. Cover story: "The Skull of the Marquis de Sade" by Robert Bloch. Cover art by Peter Kuhlhoff. I assume the headless figure is a ghost, although he looks pretty solid. Weird Tales, May 1948. Cover story: None (?). Cover art by Matt Fox. How fortunate that Weird Tales discovered Matt Fox during the 1940s. If only he could have found more work in pulps and comics. Weird Tales, September 1950. Cover story: "Legal Rites" by Isaac Asimov and James MacCreagh (Frederik Pohl). Cover art by Bill Wayne. The man on the right looks like it he could be the co-author, Isaac Asimov. And are those newspaper comics in the lower right corner? Weird Tales, March 1951. Cover story: "A Black Solitude" by H. Russell Wakefield. Cover art by Bill Wayne. These two covers are Bill Wayne's only covers for Weird Tales. Weird Tales, September 1952. Cover poem: "Hallowe'en in a Suburb" by H.P. Lovecraft. Cover art by Virgil Finlay, his last original cover in the original run of Weird Tales. Text and captions copyright 2014, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

It is early October, which is an appropriate time for some early issues of Weird Tales magazine... March 1923 April 1923 May 1923 June 1923 July 1923 September 1923 October 1923 November 1923 January 1924 February 1924 March 1924 April 1924 May 1924 November 1924 December 1924 January 1925 February 1925 March 1925 April 1925 May 1925 June 1925 July 1925 August 1925 September 1925 November 1925

The Best Of The Worst

Volume 32 Number 5 Contents I Found Cleopatra by Thomas P. Kelley Fothergill's Jug by Thorp McClusky The Hound of Pedro by Robert Bloch The Thing int the...

It is early October, which is an appropriate time for some early issues of Weird Tales magazine... March 1923 April 1923 May 1923 June 1923 July 1923 September 1923 October 1923 November 1923 January 1924 February 1924 March 1924 April 1924 May 1924 November 1924 December 1924 January 1925 February 1925 March 1925 April 1925 May 1925 June 1925 July 1925 August 1925 September 1925 November 1925

It is early October, which is an appropriate time for some early issues of Weird Tales magazine... March 1923 April 1923 May 1923 June 1923 July 1923 September 1923 October 1923 November 1923 January 1924 February 1924 March 1924 April 1924 May 1924 November 1924 December 1924 January 1925 February 1925 March 1925 April 1925 May 1925 June 1925 July 1925 August 1925 September 1925 November 1925

Margaret Brundage is another artist you may not know by name but certainly by her art. I will go out on a limb and say she was one of the most recognizable artists of the Pulp Era. Margaret Brundage, born Margaret Hedda Johnson was born December 9, 1900, in Chicago, a place she would call home till her death in 1976. She was looking for work when she found Farnsworth Wright editor of "Oriental Tales" and then "Weird Tales" Brundage would paint covers for both magazines and sign them "M. Brundage" so no one knew it was a woman doing all this art of scantily clad or nude women in peril. Her artwork became part of the image of Weird Tales in the 1930s with some authors, Seabury Quinn notably, not only requesting her work but working in scenes of her art into the story. Others like Clark Ashton Smith and H.P. Lovecraft were less pleased with her work. But there is no doubt that her covers sold magazines. Often her covers also had to be toned down for publication. Her other works were even more risque. She would go on to do 66 covers for Wierd Tales. Some have gone on to become classics. Links Illustration History, Margaret Brundage Chicagology Deep Cuts in a Lovecraftian Vein, The Alluring Art of Margaret Brundage Pulp Artist, Brundage

The Best Of The Worst

Weird Tales v39n11 (1947 05) [LPM AT SAS]

Weird Tales 1933 11 Cover art by Margaret Brundage

Friedrich von Schiller Né Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller Born November 10, 1759, Marbach am Neckar, Württemberg, Germany Died May 9, 1805, Weimar, Saxe-Weimar, Germany For Weird Tales "Song of the Brothers of Mercy" (Poem, translated by Francis Hard, a pseudonym of Farnsworth Wright, Dec. 1926) Friedrich Schiller was a giant of German literature and a subject too large for a mere blog entry. His life was brief and he spent his last fourteen years as an invalid. Nonetheless, Schiller wrote some of the most acclaimed drama of any Continental playwright. Schiller also wrote poems, histories, translations, philosophy, and an unfinished novel, Der Geisterseher: Aus den Papieren des Grafen von O (The Ghost-Seer: From the Papers of the Count of O, 1789), a tale of necromancy, spiritualism, and conspiracy. Schiller's poem, "An die Freude" ("Ode to Joy," 1785), is the basis of the fourth movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. Weird Tales used another Schiller poem for its own purposes, reprinting "Song of the Brothers of Mercy," translated by Francis Hard, in its December 1926 issue. Schiller died on May 9, 1805, and was entombed in the ducal vault in the Historical Cemetery of Weimar. Almost exactly two hundred years later, German scientists announced that the skull supposed to have been his belonged to someone else. I don't know how the switch happened. It's equally unclear to me whether the skeleton was Schiller's or not. In any case, skeleton, skull, and all have been removed. Schiller's tomb is now vacant. This is just one more bit of evidence supporting my proposition that very often, life is essentially weird. Wilhelm Hauff Born November 29, 1802, Stuttgart, Germany Died November 18, 1827 For Weird Tales "The Severed Hand" (Oct. 1925) Wilhelm Hauff was a German poet, novelist, and journalist known for his fairy tales and a very popular historical romance, Lichtenstein: Romantische Sage aus der wuerttembergischen Geschichte (Lichtenstein: A Romantic Saga from the History of Württemberg, 1826). His work has been the inspiration for two motion picture fantasies, the live-action Die Geschichte vom Kleinen Muck (The Story of Little Mook, 1953) and the animated Little Longnose (2003), a Russian film. Hauff died at an unbelievably young age, only a few days short of his twenty-fifth birthday. Weird Tales reprinted his story "The Severed Hand" nearly a century later, in its October 1925 issue. Gustav Meyrink Pseudonym of Gustav Meyer Born January 19, 1868, Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) Died December 4, 1932, Starnberg, Bavaria, Germany For Weird Tales "The Violet Death" (July 1935) "The Man on the Bottle" (Fall, 1973, originally in The Lock and Key Library, 1912) Although Gustav Meyrink lived into the Weird Tales era, the magazine reprinted his work only after he had died, first, "The Violet Death" in July 1935, then, "The Man on the Bottle" in Sam Moskowitz's revived version in Fall 1973. An author, playwright, translator, banker, and--paradoxically--occultist, Meyrink may have done for the golem what Bram Stoker did for the vampire by committing an ancient legend to the pages of a modern novel. After the scandal of his occult activities brought his banking career to an end, Meyrink devoted himself to writing and translating. I have tried to assemble an accurate list of Meyrink's books with original titles in German, translated titles in English, and original years of publication. As always, information on the Internet is contradictory, inaccurate, incomplete, and of dubious value. If anyone has any additions or corrections to make, please send them my way. All or most of these works are in the genres of fantasy, horror, and weird fiction. Some have been adapted to film. Der heiße Soldat und andere Geschichten (The Ardent Soldier, 1906) Waxworks (1908) Des deutschen Spießers Wunderhorn (The German Philistine's Horn, 1909) Der Golem (The Golem, 1914) Das grüne Gesicht (The Green Face, 1916) Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night, 1917) The Land of the Time-Leeches (1920) Der weiße Dominikaner (The White Dominican, 1921) At the Threshold of the Beyond (1923) Goldmachergeschichten (1925) Der Engel vom westlichen Fenster (The Angel of the West Window, 1927) The last book includes as one of its characters a fictionalized John Dee (1527-1608 or 1609), the English mathematician, astronomer, and occultist who made his entry into the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and his associates through Dee's supposed translation of the Necronomicon. Friedrich von Schiller's life and work have been used to sell chocolates . . . postage stamps . . . and meat extract. The cards are from the early 1900s, the stamp from French-occupied Germany after World War II. Wilhelm Hauff's image has appeared on a postage stamp as well. The castle is the one described in his romance Lichtenstein (1826). The boy is Muck, from one of Hauff's fairy tales. Here's an illustration from an English-language version of Hauff's fairy tales from 1881. I believe this is from the story of Longnose the Dwarf. I'm afraid I don't know the artist. In 2003, a Russian animation studio released its own version of Little Longnose, Ка́рлик Нос. A movie poster for Die Geschichte vom Kleinen Muck, based on Hauff's fairy tale and released in East Germany in 1953. And a still from the movie, with Thomas Schmidt as Kleiner Muck and an actress whom I don't know playing a part I don't know. That's too many "I don't knows," but I'm just beginning to explore European pop culture. The story of Muck ("Mook" in English) has indeed been popular. As evidence: There have been books about Muck . . . And records, and even video games. A portrait of Gustav Meyrink in the mode of a mystic or magus, painted by Carl Alexander Wittek. Upon seeing this painting, I immediately thought of . . . Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), a near contemporary of Meyrink and also an occultist. Despite his sobriquet as "the wickedest man in the world," Crowley seems clownish to me, especially when he's in front of the camera. On the other hand, photographs of Meyrink convey a fire and intensity that in my mind make him more akin to someone like Rasputin or the fictional Svengali. In any case, after I thought about it a little more, it seemed to me that Meyrink's portrait reminds me of no one so much as . . . Doctor Zin, arch enemy of Jonny Quest's father, Doctor Benton Quest. Ming the Merciless . . . and Fu Manchu seem to be cut from the same cloth. Finally, four covers for Meyrink's most well known work, The Golem, in English, French, Spanish, and French [?]. The illustrations are by Hugo Steiner-Prag (1880-1945) (top) and three unknown artists. Again, too many question marks. Can anybody fill in the blanks? Text and captions copyright 2012, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

The Best Of The Worst

Tales From the Floating Vagabond: Weirder Tales ... a Space Opera ~ Avalon Hill (1992)

You might not want to tell your little ones these versions of childhood classics

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927) by H. P. Lovecraft “The essential Saltes of Animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious Man may have the whole Ark of Noah in his own Studie, and raise the fine Shape of an Animal out of its Ashes at his Pleasure; and by the lyke Method from the essential Saltes of humane Dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal Necromancy, call up the Shape of any dead Ancestour from the Dust whereinto his Bodie has been incinerated.”—Borellus From a p

A grim take on Grimm tales, one where the hunted become the hunters! In a world where fairy tales are fact and humans live in fear of werewolves, witches, and monsters, only the Hunters Guild can keep the monsters at bay. These red-hooded fighters are anything but little, and only those able to pay a king’s ransom can afford their services, but it's a small price to stay alive. The final exam aboard the Ironworks reaches its climax! Velou’s goal of getting everyone to pass requires all of the trainees to work together, but many still hesitate. Then, things take a sudden, weird turn after the exam, when Cinderella and the Guild start making uncharacteristic moves. Not only that, the mayor, who Velou thought dead, returns and exposes the shocking truth about their world! | Author: Yuki Kawaguchi | Publisher: Viz Media Llc | Publication Date: Apr 11, 2023 | Number of Pages: 176 pages | Language: English | Binding: Paperback | ISBN-10: 1974736342 | ISBN-13: 9781974736348

The Best Of The Worst

The Best Of The Worst

John Mller (ed) British Library Woods play an important and recurring role in horror, fantasy, the gothic and the weird. They are places in which strange things happen, where you often can’t see where you are or what is around you. Supernatural creatures thrive in the thickets. Trees reach into underworlds of earth, myth and magic. Forests are full of ghosts. In this new collection, immerse yourself in the whispering voices between the branches in Wistman’s Wood on Dartmoor, witness an inexplicable death in Yorkshire’s Strid Wood and prepare yourself for an encounter with malignant pagan powers in the dark of the New Forest. This edition also includes notes on the real locations and folklore which inspired these deliciously sinister stories. It's been a while since I picked up any of these British Library Tales of the Weird books but the've continued to release some very intriguing collections and I've grabbed three recently which have caught my eye. This one, with my fondness for arboreal shenanigans, was always gong to be a must buy and indeed proved to be a solid collection of, mostly, entertaining tales of the deep dark woods. It doesn't get off to a particularly auspicious start with the anonymous opener, 'Whisperer in the Woods', lifted from the pages of Charles Dickens' literary journal ' All Year Round'. It's a poorly written and fairly common or garden sort of story of wronged widows and plucky sons and help from beyond and I'm not entirely convinced by the weird woodiness of Edith Nesbit's 'Man Sized in Marble' but a story as good as this always merits a reread especially on a cold wet winter's night. Gertrude Atherton's 'The Striding Place' puts a gentleman pining and - sort of - searching for his lost friend into a battle with the elemental force of a raging river that runs through the woods in a story with a distinct but typically circuitous homosexual undertones and a sudden and jarring ending worthy of Robert Aickman. Another classic tale with distinct homoerotic undertones comes next in the form of E.F. Benson's 'The Man Who Went Too Far' another story I'm always happy to reread. We have a slght dip with the next two stories as neither W.H. Hudson's 'An Old Thorn' nor Elliott O'Donnell's 'The White Lady' have much to recommend although the former conjures up an interesting initial vibe before losing it's way and petering out. We are on much more solid ground with Algernon Blackwood's 'Ancient Lights' as the venerable master spins a yarn concerning a fairy wood that reads like a forebear of Robert Holdstock's 'Mythago Wood' books. We've and interesting and haunting proto-feminist tale of a man's selfish desire and a young woman's love of her home in Mary Webb's 'The Name Tree' whilst in Walter de la Mare's 'The Tree' a pompous and vulgar fruit merchant travels to visit his estranged artist brother who lives and works in the shadow of an exotic tree that is his inspiration. Marjorie Bowen's 'He Made a Woman...' is a quick and beguiling riff on the story of Blodeuwedd taken from the Mabinogion and also the inspiration for Alan Garner's 'The Owl Service'. This is followed by one of M.R. James' later and lesser tales, 'A Neighbour's Landmark', which, with it's inocuous story of a haunted wood, is lacking some of the panache of his clasic tales. The book ends oddly with 'N' the last great flowering of Arthur Machen's genius. Certainly there's a weird wood in there as this is one of the elder statesman of the weird's stories of the thin places but it feels out of place here and far more at home in the London collection the The British Library have published at the same time. I rarely turn down the opportunity to reread Machen though and this is a sublime end to an enjoyable collection. Buy it here - UK / US. .......................................................................................... If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

I initially read excerpts from this collection for a class I took on women and the supernatural in Chinese literature. It’s weird and very comprehensive in its own way. Each story is a unique…

Weird Tales, September, 1945

Matt Taibbi's The Divide Molly Crabapple is the illustrator of the New York Times bestseller The Divide, by Matt Taibbi, about the criminal justice system. Jon Stewart called her cover "beautiful". Political Posters Posters and Covers Illustrations Clients include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Red Bull, SXSW, Marvel Comics, DC Comics