From the Depths and Other Strange Tales of the Sea, ed. Mike Ashley British Library 978-0712-35236-9, 19 July 2018, 318pp, £8.99. From atop the choppy waves to the choking darkness of the abyss, the seas are full of mystery and rife with tales of inexplicable events and encounters with the unknown. In this anthology we see a thrilling spread of narratives; sailors are pitched against a nightmare from the depths, invisible to the naked eye; a German U-boat commander is tormented by an impossible transmission via Morse Code; a ship ensnares itself in the kelp of the Sargasso Sea and dooms a crew of mutineers, seemingly out of revenge for her lost captain The supernatural is set alongside the grim affairs of sailors scorned in these salt-soaked tales, recovered from obscurity for the 21st century. Haunted Houses. Two Novels by Charlotte Riddell, ed. Andrew Smith British Library 978-0712-35251-2, 30 August 2018, 354pp, £8.99. From the once-popular yet unfairly neglected Victorian writer Charlotte Riddell comes a pair of novels which cleverly upholster the familiar furniture of the haunted house story. In An Uninhabited House, the hauntings are seen through the perspective of the solicitors who hold the deed of the property. Here we find a shrewd comedic skewering of this host of scriveners and clerks, and a realist approach to the consequences of a haunted house how does one let such a property? Slowly the safer world of commerce and law gives way as the encounter with the supernatural entity beRcomes more and more unavoidable In Fairy Water, Riddell again subverts the expectations of the reader, suggesting a complex moral character for her haunting spirit. Her writing style is succinct and witty, rendering the story a spirited and approachable read despite its age. Glimpses of the Unknown. Lost Ghost Stories, ed. Mike Ashley British Library 978-0712-35266-6, 20 September 2018, 336pp, £8.99. A figure emerges from a painting to pursue a bitter vengeance; the last transmission of a dying man haunts the airwaves, seeking to reveal his murderer; a treasure hunt disturbs an ancient presence in the silence of a lost tomb. From the vaults of the British Library comes a new anthology celebrating the best works of forgotten, never since republished, supernatural fiction from the early 20th century. Waiting within are malevolent spirits eager to possess the living and mysterious spectral guardians a diverse host of phantoms exhumed from the rare pages of literary magazines and newspaper serials to thrill once more. Mortal Echoes. Encounters with the End, ed. Greg Buzwell British Library 978-0712-35281-9, 4 October 2018, 288pp, £8.99. A strange figure fortells tragedy on the railway tracks. A plague threatens to encroach upon an isolated castle. The daughter of an eccentric scientist falls victim to a poisonous curse. The stories in this anthology depict the haunting moment when characters come face-to-face with their own mortality. Spanning two centuries, Mortal Echoes features some of the finest writers in the English language including Edgar Allan Poe, Graham Greene, May Sinclair and H. G. Wells. Intriguing, unsettling and often strangely amusing, this collection explores humanitys transient existence, and what it means to be alive. Spirits of the Season. Christmas Hauntings, ed. Tanya Kirk British Library 978-0712352529, 18 October 2018, 288pp, £8.99. Festive cheer turns to maddening fear in this new collection of seasonal hauntings, presenting the best Christmas ghost stories from the 1850s to the 1960s. The traditional trappings of the holiday are turned upside down as restless spirits disrupt the merry games of the living, Christmas trees teem with spiteful pagan presences and the Devil himself treads the boards at the village pantomime. As the cold night of winter closes in and the glow of the hearth begins to flicker and fade, the uninvited visitors gather in the dark in this distinctive assortment of haunting tales. The Platform Edge. Uncanny Tales of the Railways, ed. Mike Ashley British Library 978-0712-35203-1, 18 January 2019, 256pp, £8.99. Howling down the tunnels comes a new collection showcasing the greatest stories of strange happenings on the tracks, many of which are republished here for the first time since their original departure. Waiting beyond the barrier are ghostly travelling companions bent on disturbing the commutes of the living, a subway car disappearing into a different dimension without a trace, and a man's greatest fears realized on the ghost train of a carnival. An express ticket to unforgettable journeys into the supernatural, from the open railways of Europe and America to the pressing dark of the tube. The Face in the Glass. The Gothic Tales of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, ed. Greg Buzwell British Library 978-0712-35208-6, 1 February 2019, 352pp, £8.99. A young girl whose love for her fiance continues even after her death; a sinister old lady with claw-like hands who cares little for the qualities of her companions provided they are young and full of life; and a haunted mirror that foretells of approaching death for those who gaze into its depths. These are just some of the haunting tales gathered together in this macabre collection of short stories. Reissued in the Tales of the Weird series and introduced by British Library curator Greg Buzwell, The Face in the Glass is the first selection of Mary Elizabeth Braddon's supernatural short stories to be widely available in more than 100 years. By turns curious, sinister, haunting and terrifying, each tale explores the dark shadows beyond the rational world. The Weird Tales of William Hope Hodgson, ed. Xavier Aldana Reyes British Library 978-0712-35233-8, 4 April 2019, 288pp, £8.99. A splash of something huge resounds through the sea-fog. In the stillness of a dark room, some unspeakable evil is making its approach. This new selection offers the most chilling and unsettling of Hodgson's short fiction, from encounters with abominations at sea to fireside tales of otherworldly forces from his inventive `occult detective' character Carnacki, the ghost finder. A master of conjuring atmosphere, when the horror inevitably arrives it is delivered with breathtaking pace and the author's unique evocation of overwhelming panic. Doorway to Dilemma. Bewildering Tales of Dark Fantasy, ed. Mike Ashley British Library 978-0712-35263-5, 3 May 2019, 272pp, £8.99. Between horror and fantasy lies a world in which the inexplicable remains unsolved and the rational mind is assailed by impossible questions. Welcome to the realm of Dark Fantasy, where safe answers are beyond reach and accounts of unanswerable dilemma find their home. Delving deep into the sub-genre, fiction expert Mike Ashley has gathered an unsettling mixture of twisted tales, encounters with logic-defying creatures and nightmarish fables certain to perplex, beguile and of course, entertain. Evil Roots. Killer Tales of the Botanical Gothic, ed. Daisy Butcher British Library 978-0712352291, 22 August 2019, 272pp, £8.99. Strangling vines and meat-hungry flora fill this unruly garden of strange stories, selected for their significance as the seeds of the 'killer plant' trope in fiction, film and video games. Before the Demogorgon of Stranger Things and the appearance of Mario's iconic foe the Piranha Plant, writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were exploring the lethal potential of vegetable life, inspired by new carnivorous species discovered on expeditions into the deep jungles of the world and breakthroughs in the grafting and genetics disciplines of botany. Suddenly, the exotic orchid could become a curiously alluring, yet unsettlingly bloodthirsty menace; the beautifully sprawling wisteria of the stately home could become anything but civilized, and the experimentation of botanists weening new shoots on their own blood could become fuel for a new genre of horticultural nightmare. Every strain of vegetable threat (and one deadly fungus) can be found within this new collection, representing the very best tales from the undergrowth. Promethean Horrors. Classic Stories of Mad Science, ed. Xavier Aldana Reyes British Library 978-0712-35284-0, 19 September 2019, 240pp, £8.99. From the imaginations of Gothic short-story writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley and later weirdists such as H.P. Lovecraft came one of the most complex of villains - the mad scientist. Promethean Horrors presents some of the greatest mad scientists ever created, as each cautionary tale explores the consequences of pushing nature too far. These savants take many forms: there are malcontents who strive to create poisonous humans; technologists obsessed with genetic splicing; mesmerists interested in the way consciousness operates after death and inventors who believe in a hidden reality. United by an unhealthy obsession with wanting to reach beyond their circumstances, these mad scientists are marked by their magical capacity to alter the present, a gift that always comes at a price. . . Roarings From Further Out. Four Weird Novellas by Algernon Blackwood, ed. Xavier Aldana Reyes British Library 978-0712-35305-2, 3 October 2019, 288pp, £8.99. From one of the greatest and most prolific authors of twentieth century weird fiction come four of the very best strange stories ever told. The Willows: Two men become stranded on an island in the Danube delta, only to find that they might be in the domain of some greater power from beyond the limits of human experience. The Wendigo: A hunting party in Ontario begin to fear that they are being stalked by an entity thought to be confined to legend. The Man Whom the Trees Loved: A couple is driven apart as the husband is enthralled by the possessive and jealous spirits dwelling in the nearby forest. Ancient Sorceries: In conversation with the occult detective and physician Dr. John Silence, a traveler relates his nightmarish visit to a strange town in Northern France, and the maddening secret from his past revealed by its inhabitants. Tales of the Tattooed. An Anthology of Ink, ed. John Miller British Library, 1 November 2019, £8.99. The excruciating beauty, exoticism and mystery of tattoos is laid bare in this new collection of 12 stories ranging from the 1880s to 1940s. Uncovering the history of the tattoo in classic fiction for the first time, this original selection depicts the tattoo as a catalyst for scandal in society, as a symbol for an unknowable supernatural force, and as transcendent living art merging the spirits of a tattooer and his or her living canvas. Featuring previously hidden works from the pages of rare literary magazines such as 'The Starfish Tattoo' alongside such classics of the genre as Tanizaki's 'The Tattooer' and Saki's 'The Background', this exploration of the tattoo in fiction is guaranteed to leave an indelible impression. The Outcast and Other Dark Tales by E. F. Benson, edited by Mike Ashley British Library 978-071235386-1, 19 March 2020, 288pp, £8.99. By a selection of disturbing details it is not very difficult to induce in a reader an uneasy frame of mind which, carefully worked up, paves the way for terror. — E. F. Benson A grisly spirit turns travelling companion for the unwitting passenger of a London bus; a repulsive neighbour returns from the grave, rejected by the very earth; an innocuous back garden becomes the stage for a nightmare encounter with druidic sacrifice. From deep in the British Library vaults emerges a new selection of E. F. Benson's most innovative, spine-tingling and satisfyingly dark 'spook stories'. Complete with an introduction exploring the fascinating story of Benson's life, and including the never-before-republished story 'Billy Comes Through', this volume hails the chilling return of an experimental master to whom writers of supernatural fiction have long been indebted. A Phantom Lover and Other Dark Tales by Vernon Lee, edited by Mike Ashley British Library 978-071235381-6, 16 April 2020, 288pp, £8.99. "...Lee is as dangerous and uncanny as she is intelligent, which is saying a great deal."—Henry James During her lifetime Violet Paget, who wrote as Vernon Lee, was referred to as 'the greatest of modern exponents of the supernatural in fiction', and yet today she remains on the periphery of the genre. This collection of her uniquely weird short stories and dark fantasies proves why she was once considered among the best of the genre, and why she deserves to return to those ranks today. From modernised folk tales such as 'Marsyas in Flanders' and 'The Legend of Madame Krasinska' to ingenious psychological hauntings such as the titular 'A Phantom Lover' and 'A Wicked Voice', Lee's own voice is just as distinctive and captivating - her weird imaginings just as freshly unsettling - as in her fin-de-siècle heyday. Into the Darkening Fog, Eerie Tales from the Weird City, edited by Elizabeth Dearnley British Library 978-071235376-2, 20 August 2020, 320pp, £8.99. 'Outside, where the air was foggy, the square was noiseless, save for an occasional hoot of a motor passing into the streets. By degrees I found the light growing rather dim, as if the fog had penetrated into the room...' As the smoky dark sweeps across the capital, strange stories emerge from the night. A séance reveals a ghastly secret in the murk of Regent's Canal. From south of the Thames come chilling reports of a spring-heeled spectre, and in Stoke Newington rumours abound of an opening to another world among the quiet alleys. Join Elizabeth Dearnley on this atmospheric tour through a shadowy London, a city which has long inspired writers of the weird and uncanny. Waiting in the hazy streets are eerie tales from Charlotte Riddell, Lettice Galbraith and Violet Hunt, along with haunting pieces by Virginia Woolf, Arthur Machen, Sam Selvon and many more. Weird Woods. Tales from the Haunted Forests of Britain, edited by John Miller British Library 978-071235342-7, 27 August 2020, 240pp, £8.99. Folk horror meets classic ghost stories in this new Tales of the Weird anthology Woods play a crucial and recurring role in horror, fantasy, the Gothic and the weird. They are places in which strange things happen, where it is easy to lose your way. Supernatural creatures thrive in the thickets. Trees reach into underworlds of pagan myth and magic. Forests are full of ghosts. Lining the path through this realm of folklore and fear are twelve stories from across Britain, telling tales of whispering voices and maddening sights from deep in the Yorkshire Dales to the ancient hills of Gwent and the eerie quiet of the forests of Dartmoor. Immerse yourself in this collection of classic tales celebrating the enduring power of our natural spaces to enthral and terrorise our senses. Queens of the Abyss. Lost Stories from the Women of the Weird, edited by Mike Ashley British Library 978-071235391-5, 24 September 2020, 352pp, £8.99. This new anthology follows the instrumental contributions made by women writers to the weird tale, and revives the lost authors of the early pulp magazines along with the often overlooked work of more familiar authors. It is too often accepted that during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was the male writers who developed and pushed the boundaries of the weird tale, with women writers following in their wake - but this is far from the truth. This new anthology follows the instrumental contributions made by women writers to the weird tale, and revives the lost authors of the early pulp magazines along with the often overlooked work of more familiar authors. See the darker side of The Secret Garden author Frances Hodgson Burnett and the sensitively-drawn nightmares of Marie Corelli and Violet Quirk. Hear the captivating voices of Weird Tales magazine contributors Sophie Wenzel Ellis, Greye La Spina and Margaret St Clair, and bow down to the sensational, surreal and challenging writers who broke down the barriers of the day. Featuring material never before republished, from the abyssal depths of the British Library vaults. Chill Tidings. Dark Tales of the Christmas Season, edited by Tanya Kirk British Library 978-071235323-6, 15 October 2020, 224pp, £8.99. 'The tiles of the hall floor were as pretty as ever, as cold as ever, and bore, as always on Christmas Eve, the trickling pattern of dark blood.' The gifts are unwrapped, the feast has been consumed and the fire is well fed -- but the ghosts are still hungry. The ghosts are at the door. Welcome to a new collection of Christmas nightmares, ushering in a fresh host of ghastly phantoms and otherworldly intruders bent on ruining, or partaking in, the most wonderful time of the year. With classic tales from Algernon Blackwood, Elizabeth Bowen, Charlotte Riddell and L. P. Hartley jostling with rare pieces from the sleeping periodicals and literary magazines of the British Library collections, it's time to open the door and let the real festivities begin. Dangerous Dimensions. Mind-bending Tales of the Mathematical Weird, edited by Henry Bartholomew British Library 978-071235368-7, 21 January 2021, 336, £8.99. 'I have stood on the dim shore beyond time and matter and seen it. It moves through strange curves and outrageous angles. Some day I shall travel in time and meet it face to face.' Unlike nineteenth-century Gothic fiction, which tends to fixate on the past, the haunted and the ghostly, early weird fiction probes the very boundaries of reality the laws and limits of time, space and matter. Here, unimaginable terrors lurk in hitherto unknown mirror dimensions, calamities in ultra-space threaten to wipe clean all evidence of our universe and experiments in non-Euclidean geometry lead to sickening consequences. In twelve speculative tales of our universe's mathematics and physics gone awry, this new anthology presents an abundance of curiosities and terrors with stories from Jorge Luis Borges, Miriam Allen deFord, Frank Belknap Long and Algernon Blackwood. Heavy Weather. Tales of Stranger Climes, edited by Kevan Manwaring British Library 978-071235358-8. 18 February 2021, 320pp, £8.99. Since Odysseus' curious crew first unleashed the bag of winds gifted to him by Aeolus, the God of Winds, literature has been awash with tales of bad or strange weather. From the flood myths of Babylon, the Mahabharata and the Bible, to twentieth-century psychological storms, this foray into troubled waters, malicious heat waves, vengeful winters, hurricanes and hailstones, offers the perfect read on a rainy day - or night. Featuring tales of unearthly climatic phenomena from some of the finest writers in the English language including Algernon Blackwood, Herman Melville, William Hope Hodgson, Edgar Allan Poe and more, this collection of weird tales will delight and disturb. Minor Hauntings. Chilling Tales of Spectral Youth, edited by Jen Baker British Library 978-071235319-9, 20 May 2021, 272pp, £8.99. There was a faint rustling sound, like some small silk thing blown in a gentle breeze. He sat up straight, stark and scared, and a small wooden voice spoke in the stillness. “Pa-pa,” it said, with a break between the syllables. From living dolls to spirits wandering in search of solace or vengeance, the ghostly youth is one of the most enduring phenomena of supernatural fiction, its roots stretching back into the realms of folklore and superstition. In this spine-tingling new collection Jen Baker gathers a selection of the most chilling hauntings and encounters with ghostly children, expertly paired with notes and extracts from the folklore and legends which inspired them. Reviving obscure stories from Victorian periodicals alongside nail- biting episodes from master storytellers such as Elizabeth Gaskell, M. R. James and Margery Lawrence, this is a collection by turns enchanting, moving and thoroughly frightening. Crawling Horror. Creeping Tales of the Insect Weird, edited by Daisy Butcher & Janette Leaf British Library 978-071235349-6, 17 June 2021, £8.99. ‘Its long antennae waved inquiringly back and forth, its tiny eyes sparkled black with crimson points, and then it began to run. The Professor caught it in his hand as it toppled from the edge of the counter. It bit him.’ A brush with a killer hornet upends a reverend’s life. A moth wreaks a strange vengeance on an entomologist. Bees deliver a supernatural dilemma to a mother-to-be. This new anthology offers a broad range of stories from the long history of insect literature, where six-legged beasts play many roles from lethal enemies to ethereal messengers. With expert notes on how each tale contributed to insect horror literature, Janette Leaf and Daisy Butcher are your field guides for a tour through classic insect encounters from the minds of Edgar Allan Poe, E. F. Benson, Clare Winger Harris and many more. Cornish Horrors. Tales from the Land's End, edited by Joan Passey British Library 978-071235399-1, 22 July 2021, 384pp, £8.99. A mariner inherits a skull that screams incessantly along with the roar of the sea; a phantom hare stalks the moors to deliver justice for a crime long dead; a man witnesses a murder in the woods near St. Ives, only to wonder whether it was he himself who committed the crime. Offering a bounty of lost or forgotten strange and Gothic tales set in Cornwall, Cornish Horrors explores the rich folklore and traditions of the region in a journey through mines, local mythology, shipwrecks, seascapes, and the coming of the railway and tourism. With stories by Gothic luminaries such as Bram Stoker and Edgar Allan Poe, this new collection also features chilling yarns of the haunted peninsula from a host of underappreciated writers from the past two centuries. I Am Stone. The Gothic Weird Tales of R. Murray Gilchrist, edited by Daniel Pietersen British Library 978-071235400-4, 19 August 2021, 320pp, £8.99. ‘The first thing my dazed eyes fell upon was the mirror of black glass... She held it so that I might gaze into its depths. And there, with a cry of amazement and fear, I saw the shadow of the Basilisk.’ Through odysseys across dreamlike lands, Gothic love affairs haunted by the shadow of death and uncanny episodes from the Peak country, the portrait of a unique writer of the strange tale emerges. With his florid, illustrative style and powerful imagination, R. Murray Gilchrist’s impact on the weird fiction genre is unmistakable – and yet his name fell into obscurity following his death. Exploring tales of annihilation and shattered identities, fatalistic romances, bewildering visions of the sublime and mythological evils preying on the innocent, this new anthology is a journey through an entrancing and influential oeuvre essential for any reader of the weird. Randall's Round. Nine Nightmares by Eleanor Scott, edited by Aaron Worth British Library 978-071235405-9, 15 September 2021, 240pp, £8.99. 'These stories have all had their origins in dreams... Terrifying enough to the dreamer... I hope that some readers will experience an agreeable shudder or two in the reading of them.' A malignant entity answers the call of an ancient curse on the coast of Brittany; a traveller’s curiosity delivers him to an abominable Hallowe’en ritual; the curious new owner of a haunted mansion discovers something far worse than ghosts in the night. Randalls Round has long been revered by devotees of the weird tale. First published in 1929, its stories of ritualistic folk horror and M. R. James-inspired accounts of ancient forces terrorising humanity are thoroughly deserving of wider recognition. This collection includes a new introduction exploring Eleanor Scott’s impact on weird and folk horror fiction, and two chilling stories by N. Dennett – speculated to be another of the author’s pseudonyms. Sunless Solstice. Strange Christmas Tales for the Longest Nights, edited by Lucy Evans & Tanya Kirk British Library 978-071235410-3, 21 October 2021, 288pp, £8.99. Like any other boy I expected ghost stories at Christmas, that was the time for them. What I had not expected, and now feared, was that such things should actually become real. Strange things happen on the dark wintry nights of December. Welcome to a new collection of haunting Christmas tales, ranging from traditional Victorian chillers to weird and uncanny episodes by twentieth-century horror masters including Daphne du Maurier and Robert Aickman. Lurking in the blizzard are menacing cat spirits, vengeful trees, malignant forces on the mountainside and a skater skirting the line between the mortal and spiritual realms. Wrap up warm – and prepare for the longest nights of all. Shadows on the Wall. Dark Tales by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, edited by Mike Ashley British Library 978-071235406-6, 20 January 2022, 304pp, £8.99. Suddenly he began hastening hither and thither about the room. He moved the furniture with fierce jerks, turning ever to see the effect upon the shadow on the wall. Not a line of its terrible outlines wavered. The disquieting tales of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman explore a world of contrast, where the supernatural erupts out of authentically drawn portraits of New England life. This is a world of witchcraft, secrecy, domestic spaces turned uncanny and ancestral vengeances inflicted upon the unfortunates of the present. Collecting the best of the author’s strange tales – including 'The White Shawl', which was unpublished during her lifetime – this volume casts a light on an underappreciated contributor to weird fiction and the shadowy corners of a dark imagination. The Ghost Slayers. Thrilling Tales of Occult Detection, edited by Mike Ashley British Library 978-071235416-5, 24 March 2022, 288pp, £8.99. Occult or psychic detective tales have been chilling readers for almost as long as there have been ghost stories. This beguiling subgenre follows specialists in occult lore – often with years of arcane training – investigating strange supernatural occurrences and pitting their wits against the bizarre and inexplicable. With tales featuring the most prominent psychic detectives such as William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki, the Ghost Finder and Algernon Blackwood’s Dr. Silence, this new collection also includes rare and never-before-reprinted cases investigated by the likes of Flaxman Low, Cosmo Thor, Aylmer Vance and Mesmer Milann. The Night Wire and Other Tales of Weird Media, edited by Aaron Worth British Library 978-0712354110, 31 May 2022, 320pp, £9.99. A mysterious radio signal reports cosmic doom from an otherworldly location. Photography and X-ray evidence suggests there may be some truth to a sculptor’s claim that he has created a god. A spectral projection sows terror amid the flickering light of the cinema. From the whispering wires of the telegraph and ghostly images of the daguerreotype to the disembodied voices of the phonograph and radio, the new technologies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave their users miraculous new powers – and new nightmares. After all, if Graham Bell’s magical device could connect us with loved ones a half a world away, what was to stop it from reaching out and touching the dead – or something worse? Tracing this fiction of fear from the 1890s to the 1950s, this new collection brings together the best tales of haunted or uncanny media from classic – and unjustly neglected – writers of the supernatural. Our Haunted Shores. Tales from the Coasts of the British Isles, edited by Emily Alder, Jimmy Packhamm and Joan Passey British Library 978-0712354219, 23 June 2022, 320pp, £9.99. The sea that night sang rather than chanted; all along the far-running shore a rising tide dropped thick foam, and the waves, white-crested, came steadily in with the swing of a deliberate purpose. From foreboding cliffs and lonely lighthouses to rumbling shingles and silted estuaries, the coasts of the British Isles have stoked the imaginations of storytellers for millennia, lending a rich literary significance to these spaces between land and sea. For those who choose to explore these shores, generations of ghosts, sea-spirits, fairies and tentacled monsters come and go with the tide. This new collection of fifteen short stories, six folk tales and four poems ranging from 1789 to 1933 offers a chilling literary tour of the coasts of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man, including haunting pieces by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Bram Stoker and Charlotte Riddell. The Horned God. Weird Tales of the Great God Pan, edited by Michael Wheatley British Library 978-0712354967, 18 August 2022, 288pp, £9.99 The pipe music shrilled suddenly around her, seeming to come from the bushes at her very feet, and at the same moment the great beast slewed round and bore directly down upon her. In 1894, Arthur Machen’s landmark novella The Great God Pan was published, sparking a resurgence of literary fascination with the figure of the pagan goat god. Tales from a broad spectrum of writers - from E M Forster to prolific pulpsters such as Greye Le Spina - took the god’s rebellious and chaotic influence as their subject, spinning beguiling tales of society turned upside down and the forces of nature compelling protagonists to ecstatic heights or bizarre dooms. Selecting an eclectic cross-section of tales and short poems from this boom of Pan-centric literature – many first published in the influential Weird Tales magazine – this new collection examines the roots of a cultural phenomenon and showcases Pan’s potential to introduce themes of queer awakening and celebrations of the transgressive into the thrillingly weird stories in which he was invoked. Spectral Sounds. Unquiet Tales of Acoustic Weird, edited by Mannon Burz-Labrande British Library 978-0712354172, 22 September 2022, 288pp, £9.99 My bell had rung. I sat up, terrified by the unusual sound, which seemed to go on jangling through the darkness. My hands shook so that I couldn’t find the matches... I began to think I must have been dreaming; but I looked at the bell against the wall, and there was the little hammer still quivering... From the ringing of a disconnected bell to footsteps in the halls of an abandoned house and the whisper of an unexplained voice in the ear, uncanny sounds are often the heralds of danger and terror in Gothic and supernatural fiction. Yet, when examining the range of stories which best manipulate our aural sense it is clear that there is more room to explore how significant sound is to our experience of fear. This new collection presents tales in which ghosts interact with the corporeal world through noise, bodiless voices wander through the ether, and the objects whose sounds we trust, like the telephone, betray us. Featuring obscure pieces alongside some of the pioneers of the weird including B M Croker, Algernon Blackwood, H D Everett and Sheridan Le Fanu. Haunters at the Hearth. Eerie Tales for Christmas Nights, edited by Lucy Evans and Tanya Kirk British Library 978-0712354271, 13 October 2022, 288pp, £9.99 In the comfortable coffee-room of the old Boar’s Head, half a dozen guests, principally commercial travellers, sat talking by the light of the fire. The talk had drifted from trade to politics, from politics to religion, and so by easy stages to the supernatural... In the winter months, the cosiness of the hearth and armchair – or reading nook of choice – comes together with tales of creeping horror to form an enduring irresistible tradition of supernatural tales told – and read – in the long hours of darkness. Pairing up once again, Lucy Evans and Tanya Kirk present a new selection of vintage hearthside chillers, including strange tales of souls on the boundaries of life from W F Harvey and A M Burrage, a piece in which Christmas tree shopping leads to dire misfortune from Mildred Clingerman and a tale of jolly carolling gone sinister by L P Hartley. Polar Horrors. Thrilling Tales From the Ends of the Earth, edited by John Miller British Library 978-0712354424, 10 November 2022, 256pp, £9.99 Fired up by the accounts of exploring parties in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, writers of the weird and supernatural began to construct a literary Arctic and Antarctic in which terrors lay undiscovered in the ice and gateways to bizarre hidden worlds were waiting. From James Hogg’s lurid North Pole narrative of life amongst polar bears in ‘The Surpassing Adventures of Allan Gordon’ to tales of mad science and ghostly visitations among the wind-blown expanse of the southern continent, this new collection showcases a wealth of neglected material and an overlooked niche of literature obsessed with the limits of human experience. Pulp tales of alien forces emerging from the ice and a battle between hunter and invisible man-eating duck creature drift alongside modern horror from indigenous Arctic voices to show the extent and endurance of the lure of these sublime landscapes. (* originally published 17 October 2018; revised, 19 April 2019; 19 March 2022; 18 June 2022.)

Artist Born ? Died ? Boris Dolgov did not exist. The man who bore that name may have existed, but there never was a man in the United States with that name until 1956, too late for Weird Tales. At least that's what public records say. Search for Boris Dolgov or Dolgoff or Dolgova or Dolkoff or any other permutation you can think of and you're likely to come up empty . . . except for a Russian-American farmer who now lies buried in a Jewish cemetery in Washington State. It seems likely to me that Boris Dolgov was the assumed name of a man who, for whatever reason, wanted to remain or was satisfied to remain unknown. He was friends with the artist and writer Hannes Bok. They sometimes collaborated, signing their joint work "Dolbokov." Dolgov had his first interior illustration in the genres of fantasy and science fiction in Science Fiction Quarterly for Summer 1941. His first illustration for Weird Tales followed in September of that year. His last came thirteen years later, in July 1954, the penultimate issue of "The Unique Magazine." In between, Dolgov created dozens of interior illustrations and five covers for Weird Tales. His only known book cover was for Destination: Universe! by A.E. van Vogt, published in 1952. After 1954, he disappeared forever. Like his artist friend, Hannes Bok also worked under an assumed name. Born Wayne Francis Woodard on July 2, 1914, in Kansas City, Missouri, Bok was known for his odd ways, including his evasiveness. Despite early promise, despite success as an illustrator and author of science fiction and fantasy, and despite strong connections to others in his field, Hannes Bok went into steep decline late in his career. On April 11, 1964, at age forty-nine, he died alone in his apartment in New York City. His body was not discovered right away. If not for the intervention of his friend and collector Clarence Peacock, his art may very well have been thrown out with the trash. The official cause of death is supposed to have been a heart attack. Forrest J Ackerman and Donald J. Wollheim claimed that he had starved to death. Shades of H.P. Lovecraft. Shades also of Hugh Rankin. Hannes Bok's first work for a major magazine (what science fiction fans I think would have called a prozine) was for Weird Tales. He had his first cover and his first interior art published in the same issue, December 1939. "In 1939," wrote Frederik Pohl, Hannes Bok was all of twenty-five years old and thus a senior citizen among us, but he looked younger. He looked--well, "elfin" is the word that others have used to describe him, and it does as well as any. It wasn't just his a matter of physical appearance. His manner was both reserved and, well, flighty, not to say downright evasive; there were obviously huge hunks of Hannes's internal life which he did not care to share even with friends. (1) As I said, Wayne Francis Woodard, later known as Hannes Bok, was born in Kansas City, Missouri. In the censuses of 1920 and 1930, he was listed with his family in Minnesota, in 1920 in St. Paul, in 1930 in Duluth. Woodard graduated from Duluth High School in 1932. He left for Seattle that same year. In 1937 or 1938, he moved to Los Angeles, where he knew Emil Petaja, Ray Bradbury, Forrest J Ackerman, and others in the Los Angeles science fiction scene. In 1938, he returned to Seattle and worked for the WPA painting murals. His artist contacts in that city included Morris Graves (1910-2001) and Mark Tobey (1890-1976), both of whom, like Woodard, were interested in mysticism or non-traditional religion. In December 1939, assuming the name Hannes Bok, he moved again to New York City. There he knew Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Frank Belknap Long, and others. Knight, an artist himself, called Bok, "certainly the most talented artist ever to work in science fiction illustration." (2, 3) Dolgov and Bok were both artists of imagination and whimsy. Both worked in black and white on coquille board. Unlike much of Bok's work, Dolgov's is devoid of sexual imagery, which, in Bok, clearly indicates to me that the artist had psychosexual problems. Boris Dolgov was, in comparison, an artist of innocence. Both knew and admired Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966). As evidence, there is a photograph of Dolgov and Parrish together, presumably at Parrish's house in Plainfield, New Hampshire, taken by Bok. You can see it at a blog called Null Entry, here. Hannes Bok was greatly influenced by Maxfield Parrish. Perhaps no other artist has worked with such great effect in the manner of Parrish. Dolgov, on the other hand, seems to have taken a different path. Boris Dolgov is supposed to have lived in New York. You won't find him there in the census. Nor will you find there Wayne Woodard or Hannes Bok. That's a terrible development for the researcher, as finding Bok in 1940 might very well lead to Dolgov. But what if they had a connection predating their years in New York City? Now begins the part where I clutch at straws. Boruch Dolgoff, also known as Baruch, Bora, and Boris Dolgoff, was born on November 27, 1897, in Alexandrovik, Russia. I suspect he fled his native land because of periodic pogroms. After living in Harbin, China, Dolgoff arrived in the United States on January 23, 1916, aboard the Yokohama Maru out of Yokohama, Japan. On October 14, 1933, Dolgoff married twenty-four-year-old Minnie Samuelson in Seattle, Washington. Dolgoff (1897-1989) and his wife (1909-1991) are buried together at Herzl Memorial Park in Shoreline, Washington. For decades he was a farmer and a poultry dealer in Seattle. Hannes Bok lived in Seattle in 1932-1937 or 1938 and in 1938-1939. Could he have known Boris Dolgoff? Could he have also known in Seattle the artist later known as Boris Dolgov? And could Boris Dolgov have gotten his name from Boris Dolgoff, the poultry dealer? If so, why? More to the point, who was Boris Dolgov? The world may never know. Boris Dolgov's Illustrations in Weird Tales Once again, I will refer you to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database for a full listing of Boris Dolgov's genre illustrations. Note the error in the artist who created the cover for the May 1947 issue of Weird Tales. It was actually Matt Fox. Dolgov had two illustrations in Weird Tales for Winter 1985. These were published with Steve Rasnic Tem's story "August Freeze," but the drawings were almost certainly reprints from old issues of the magazine. Further Reading Boris Dolgov on the online Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, here. Boris Dolgov's art in Weird Tales and a photograph of him with Maxfield Parrish on the blog Null Entry, here. Notes (1) From "Remembering Hannes" by Frederik Pohl in A Hannes Bok Showcase, edited by Stephen D. Korshak (Charles F. Miller, 1995), p. ix. Pohl went on in his remembrance to describe the last time he saw Hannes Bok, circa 1953. By then, Bok was living in poverty and "had become something fairly near a hermit." (p. xi) He had lost most of his teeth and had broken his dentures so that he was barely able to eat. Pohl again: "For a man who spent so much of his life producing pretty things for the rest of us to enjoy, the last stages of Hannes's life, and especially his death, were lacking in prettiness of any kind." (p. xi) (2) From The Futurians by Damon Knight (John Day, 1977), p. 53. (3) Woodard's family, Irving Ingalls Woodard, Carolyn Bantiz Woodard, and their son William Grant Woodard, were back in Missouri in 1940, living in Kirkwood. In the 1940s and '50s, Irving and Carolyn lived in Omaha, Nebraska. Irving I. Woodard died on November 26, 1975, in Galveston, Texas, as a result of being burned while smoking in bed. His younger son, William, preceded him in death on July 25, 1972, in Beaumont, Texas. I don't know the fate of his wife. A gallery of covers by Boris Dolgov, first, from November 1946. March 1947. September 1947. January 1948. And last, from May 1950. Text copyright 2016, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

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

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

The makers of the 1990s BBC adaptation of Mary Norton's tales about tiny people recall the weird techniques they had to use to achieve that crucial 'Borrowers' eye perspective'

We look back on the five stories that best represent the nihilistic mythology of H. P. Lovecraft.

City dweller, successful fella, worked in a bank as a clerk but he thought to himself, “I want to live a life that’s a lot less monetary.” So he taught himself to paint and draw and all his friends who saw his work said “Cor! You ought to take this up, seriously.” And that, in the musical stylings of Blur, is a brief introduction to Artuš Scheiner (1863-1938), the quiet little white collar worker who gave up his career as a pencil-pushing, number-cruncher at the Financial General in Prague, to become one of Bohemia’s most successful artists and who produced a phenomenal amount of work during his seventy-five years. Yet, for such an industrious and commercially successful artist, there is, perhaps surprisingly, little written, well, in English at least, about Scheiner other than he lived, he worked and he died, which is really quite fine as it means we get to concentrate solely on the work he produced. In his twenties, Scheiner started selling comic illustrations to the local newspapers and magazines. He had taught himself how to draw and paint but kept his passion a secret in fear he would be ridiculed for having such high...

Vampires are a very popular kind of monster, so popular that I'm surprised there were so few on the cover of Weird Tales. I count only three images that are obviously vampires and three that look like the popular image of the vampire. The other covers here have bat motifs, some of which are related to vampires and some are not. Weird Tales, September 1926. Cover story: "The Bird of Space" by Everil Worrell. Cover art by E.M. Stevenson. I'm not sure that the male figure here is a vampire, but he's got the look: dark suit, discolored skin, pointy hair, and evil grin. If you were to straighten her out, the woman would probably be taller--certainly larger--than he is, so he's got the super strength, too. Weird Tales, May 1932. "The Brotherhood of Blood" by Hugh B. Cave. Cover art by C.C. Senf. Red hair, red dress--is this the same woman as in the previous image and in so many pulp covers? And leave it to a guy named Cave to write a story with bats in it. Weird Tales, October 1933. Cover story: "The Vampire Master" by Hugh Davidson. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. This is one of the most iconic images ever to appear on the cover of Weird Tales, and without a doubt one of the most striking. The imagery of bats must have been in the air (no pun intended) during the 1930s. I can't help but think that the October 1933 issue of Weird Tales stuck in the heads of Bob Kane and Bill Finger, creators of . . . Batman, who made his debut in May 1939, seventy-five years ago this year. The U.S. Postal Service has issued a sheet of postage stamps to commemorate the anniversary. The top row is of no interest, but the next three are. The bottom row represents the Batman of the 1930s and early '40s. Weird Tales, June 1936. Cover story: "Loot of the Vampire" by Thorp McClusky. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. Weird Tales, January 1937. Cover story: "Children of the Bat" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. I have a category called "Red Robes and Cultists," and though the guy in this picture looks like a cultist, he's lacking the red robe. The bat motif is there, however, in the image and in the title of the cover story. Weird Tales, December 1938. Cover story: "The Sin-Eater" by G.G. Pendarves. Cover art by Ray Quigley. Like the previous image, this one shows what must be a cultist (or maybe a sorcerer), but the motif of the bat makes another appearance. This might be the one and only pulp cover to show an osprey. Weird Tales, January 1944. Cover story: "Bon Voyage, Michele" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Harold S. De Lay. Weird Tales, July 1944. Cover story: "Death's Bookkeeper" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by A.R. Tilburne. I don't think the non-skeleton figure on this cover is a vampire, but as in the first cover in this category, he looks the part. Weird Tales, July 1947. Cover story: None? Cover art by Lee Brown Coye. Lee Brown Coye told the truth about vampires. They are not sexy. They are monstrous, and in Coye's illustration, the monstrousness of the vampire--his evil and decadent state--is expressed in his monstrous countenance. Lee Brown Coye drew a pictorial feature for Weird Tales called "Weirdisms." I don't know which installment of "Weirdisms" was included in this issue, but if it was about vampires, then this may have been the only Weird Tales cover illustrating a feature rather than a story or poem. Weird Tales, July 1950. Cover story: None. Cover art by Matt Fox. A conceptual cover from Matt Fox and one of only a few Weird Tales covers showing a penman. Weird Tales, July 1954. Cover story: None. Cover art by Harold S. De Lay. This is the second to last issue in the original run of Weird Tales. Like the last (by Virgil Finlay, from September 1954), this one is recycled. The editors of Weird Vampire Tales recycled the same image again in 1992, but this might be a copy of the original and not the work of Harold S. De Lay at all. Text and captions copyright 2014, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Welcome to the weird and wonderful surrealistic universe of Mothmeister, called Wounderland. As passionate taxidermy collectors we reincarnate dead critters into fairy tale figures. We portray them accompanied by anonymous, lonesome characters.

This illustration series by Vladimir Stankovic tells the story of his beautifully hand-drawn characters, inhabiting the deepest depths of the sea. Mermaids, mermen, whales, and an octopus live side...

There have been many people covering the rules content in Van Richten's Guide, such as the new lineages, new subclasses, dark gifts, and other widgets, but I want to talk about the domains as a long-time fan of Ravenloft. How do they stack up, what alterations have been made, and how gameable does this iteration of the Domains of Dread feel? I've covered Barovia, Bluetspur, and Borca here, the Carnival and Darkon here, and Dementlieu and Falkovnia here. Today we're talking talking about Har'Akir, Hazlan, and I'Cath. Har'Akir Har'Akir was conceived of as Ravenloft's Egyptian analog, and so it remains. It's got mummies, pyramids, vast dangerous deserts, etc. There are a couple of nice twists, such as animal-headed mummy-priests in service to the domain's Darklord and the fact that all of its labyrinthian dungeons are connected beneath the waves of sand. Har'Akir has never really sparked my imagination in its past versions, and the new version doesn't really light my world on fire either. It's fine! It's perfectly functional! It just doesn't call to me. You could do your The Mummy adventures here, or do something a little Dark Sun-esque but with a more Egyptian flavor. Hazlan Hazlan is "wizard hell," a domain ruled by selfish arcanists whose experiments have created an unstable land of wild magic. Hazlan also has a bit of a "Big Brother is watching" feel; Hazlik, the domain's wizardly Darklord, can see through magical sigils that are inscribed everywhere throughout the realm. Of course, as "wizard hell," you can basically use that as an excuse to use any monster you want and call it an escaped magical experiment. Hazlan functions as an amplification of anxieties about environmental degradation due to industrialization, only here the environmental impacts are given a magical gloss, such as toxic marshes polluted by alchemy, an area where the land is simply disintegrating, and Dune-esque sites where purple worms gather. I do wonder if there is a bit too much conceptual overlap with Darkon, but the environmental disaster aspect does at least help it stand out. If you really pushed that angle, you might even up in Jeff VanderMeer territory. I'Cath In the 2e-era, I'Cath was a domain suitable for exactly one minor adventure. (And it wasn't even a good adventure.) Once that adventure was complete, there was really nothing else there to interact with. The 5e version of I'Cath is...quite high concept. On the surface, it's "Gothic China'; the real premise is that by day I'Cath is a delipidated realm of misery, but most of its residents have fallen prey to an enchanted sleep. While they slumber, they exist in a different version of the setting in which they labor to create the perfect city in their dreams. It's all a bit Dark City, but I've read this section several times and to be honest it's still a little unclear to me how this works and what kind of adventures this domain is meant to inspire. One thing that struck me about I'Cath is that it feels even more referential to ethnic stereotypes than the past version, which is strange for product coming out of WotC's zeitgeist of sensitivity and the rehabilitation of old tropes. Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but Tsien Chiang, the Darklord of I'Cath, is presented as a mother who wants her daughters to love her, wants everyone around her to be perfect, and is also doomed never to be satisfied--which feels like a magnification of the "tiger mom" stereotype. The "escape the horrific real world by venturing into the phantasmagoria of dreams" angle in I'Cath feels like it leans on the "Chinese opium den" trope, although it sidesteps any drug references and replaces opium with the ringing of an enchanted bell. However, since that bell was created from the body of a dragon, it's still a version of "chasing the dragon" in an almost literalized sense.

I remember a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey: In that first wordless sequence, before men become men by discovering tools, weapons, and murder, they, as primitive anthropoids, huddle together, listening with fear in their eyes to the growling, yawping, and shrieking of unseen animals awake in the night. That fear is still with us. It's why we're afraid of the dark, why we hide under the covers and lay still, petrified in fear, when we hear strange sounds in the room, in the house, or somewhere beyond. We still fear those first animals, for we were their prey. We have also forgotten them. Our fear is an atavism. In our imaginations, we have replaced those long-ago creatures--most of which are now extinct--with monsters. As children, our monsters resemble the animals we feared when we still lived in trees, caves, and huts. They are hairy or scaly or slick. They have fangs, spikes, and claws. They creep and slither and crawl. As adults, our fear of the animal becomes a fear of the human, hence of the true monster. But if we retrace our fear, we find that the first monsters were animals. Before we knew of good and evil, we feared them. It was only after the apple that the true monster--a being with a capacity for evil--could exist in our imaginations. In Weird Tales, the relationship of man and woman to animal is often very much like the relationship of man and woman to monster. In other words, animal and monster can be interchangeable. But the animal can also be a servant or a helper, for good or evil. Certain animals are usually symbols of evil, especially snakes. Animals are sometimes on the side of human beings and sometimes against them. The tigers in two separate images below are obvious examples. Several related categories will follow in this system of categorizing cover images. First though: man, woman, and animal. Weird Tales, December 1925. Cover story: "The Tenants of Broussac" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Joseph Doolin. There are lots of snakes on the cover of Weird Tales. Usually they're trying to kill somebody. Here, the woman looks like she is enjoying the snake's company. Even so, I suspect the man is trying to rescue her. She is obviously in thrall to the serpent that coils around her. Note the presence of the same elements as in the category of man, woman, and monster: a) Man; b) Woman; c) Monster, in this case a monstrous serpent; and d) Weapon. Note also the sexual symbolism, unintended or not. The previous picture reminds me of this one in which, again, the woman and the snake are friends. No matter what you think of Frank Frazetta, you have to admit this is an arresting image. Weird Tales, March 1930. Cover story: "Drums of Damballah" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Curtis C. Senf. The theme of snake and woman continues. This time the woman seems to be commanding the snake instead of the other way around. The man, an unfortunate racial stereotype, is merely incidental to the picture except perhaps in some sexually symbolic way. Note that the man's loin cloth and the snake are the same color. Note also where the distal end of the snake is positioned in relationship to the man's body. On the other hand, maybe I'm making something of nothing. Strangely, the woman lacks nipples. The excuse for racial stereotypes is that they were a product of their own time. I don't accept that excuse. Racial stereotypes are an offense against humanity, but they are also an offense against art. They are in other words a failure of the imagination. There are examples of art from that period--paintings, drawings, novels, movies--in which the artist of vision and courage did not fall back on stereotypes but portrayed human beings as such, regardless of their skin color. There isn't any reason why every artist should not have done the same thing. Weird Tales, June 1931. Cover story: "Tam, Son of Tiger" (part 1 of 6) by Otis Adelbert Kline. Cover art by Curtis C. Senf. First I have to apologize for the image. Evidently this is not a very popular cover of Weird Tales because it's not plastered all over the Internet. This is the largest and clearest version I could find. In any case, all the elements from the first image above are back but combined in a slightly different way. The animal is not protecting the woman but attacking her. The man (enter stage right) attempts to intervene, sword in hand, as before. Weird Tales, October 1931. Cover story: "Tam Son of the Tiger" by Otis Adelbert Kline. Cover art by C.C. Senf. The woman is small, but she's there in the background being abducted by giant spider monkeys. Weird Tales, April 1933. Cover story: "Golden Blood" (part 1 of 6) by Jack Williamson. Cover art by J. Allen St. John. Another tiger but in a different role, this time as a mount for the man and woman and a threat to the riders on camelback on the lower left. Weird Tales, August 1934. Cover story: "The Devil in Iron" by Robert E. Howard. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. Here the man's life is at risk and he must defend himself rather than the woman from attack. But then the artist was a woman. That makes three Conan covers by Margaret Brundage in which the hero is threatened or helpless while the woman rescues him, shields him, or simply looks on. I grew up looking at Frank Frazetta's artwork. I go back to him again and again. For instance, the previous image, by Margaret Brundage, reminds me of this one, by Frazetta, from thirty years later. Again, the hero is in a fight for his life. Again he wields a curved sword. The woman is in a much different situation however. Here's the whole picture, perhaps original and perhaps revised, but looking a little washed out compared to the paperback cover. I wanted to show it because of its similarity to the next image: When I saw this cover of Double Comics from 1941, drawn by Malcolm Kildale, I couldn't help thinking of Frazetta's cover for Wolfshead. The composition is very similar, with the action taking place on the left side of the page, while the right side recedes towards a set of stairs and a fallen figure. There is even a brazier in the room. If you think I'm done with Frazetta, think again. Here is Frazetta's cover for Kavin's World by David Mason (1969). If you reverse the female figure and put her arm down at her side, she is more or less the same as Kildale's female figure from a quarter century before. So did Frank Frazetta swipe elements of his two paintings from a then twenty-five-year-old comic book? Or is the resemblance merely coincidental? If they're swipes, were they done consciously or unconsciously? We should remember that in 1941 Frazetta was only thirteen years old and probably reading (and drawing) comic books every day. Malcom Kildale's cover might have stuck in his head. It is after all a striking and memorable image. Even if the swipe was conscious, I think we can forgive Frank, for he was far from alone in swiping from other cartoonists. Still, I don't like to find Frazetta implicated in a swipe. (M.D. Jackson at Amazing Stories and James Gurney on his blog, Gurney Journey, have found other instances.) Frank Frazetta was far more often the victim of a swipe. (A better word might be theft.) Too many artists have copied from him absolutely shamelessly, so many in fact that Burne Hogarth had to tell his students, "Quit trying to paint like Frazetta! There's only one Frazetta and he's it!" So it's one thing to copy another artist when you're learning to draw. It's quite another to be a professional artist and to steal outright from him. As everyone knows, Frazetta imitated Hal Foster and even his friend Roy G. Krenkel to some degree. But he became his own artist as every artist should. (My advice to every artist is to be the artist that you are. Do not try to be someone else. Burne Hogarth had it right.) In the end, in his defense, I can say that when Frazetta swiped from another artist, it wasn't very obvious and he put his signature on his work, figuratively and literally. But when others swipe from Frazetta, their work is obviously a swipe and it still has Frazetta's signature on it. You can't copy Frazetta without looking like you're copying Frazetta. Finally, I would just like to say what a shame it was that Frank Frazetta never drew anything for Weird Tales. Now that would have been something to see. Or maybe Frazetta did draw something for Weird Tales, he just did it through the hand of another artist. Weird Tales, Feb. 1936. Cover story: "Coils of the Silver Serpent" by Forbes Parkhill. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. This image doesn't quite go in the category of man, woman, and animal. The reason is that there is another man in the picture. I have included it here because it shows a figure in the coils of a snake, like the pictures above. The animal is the immediate threat, the villain secondary. You will see this image again soon among the other snake covers. Text and captions copyright 2014, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

The Best Of The Worst

Tales of the WEIRD character. Perfect book for you if you are bored and need a really trippy story to escape reality. Comic book, 40 pages, english, black and white, soft cover.

City dweller, successful fella, worked in a bank as a clerk but he thought to himself, “I want to live a life that’s a lot less monetary.” So he taught himself to paint and draw and all his friends who saw his work said “Cor! You ought to take this up, seriously.” And that, in the musical stylings of Blur, is a brief introduction to Artuš Scheiner (1863-1938), the quiet little white collar worker who gave up his career as a pencil-pushing, number-cruncher at the Financial General in Prague, to become one of Bohemia’s most successful artists and who produced a phenomenal amount of work during his seventy-five years. Yet, for such an industrious and commercially successful artist, there is, perhaps surprisingly, little written, well, in English at least, about Scheiner other than he lived, he worked and he died, which is really quite fine as it means we get to concentrate solely on the work he produced. In his twenties, Scheiner started selling comic illustrations to the local newspapers and magazines. He had taught himself how to draw and paint but kept his passion a secret in fear he would be ridiculed for having such high...

Gods and idols figure prominently in weird fiction. The sculpture of Cthulhu from "The Call of Cthulhu" is among the most famous of idols from Weird Tales. Unfortunately, Cthulhu never made it to the cover of the magazine. Instead, there are ten covers (by my count) showing gods or idols. Every one of them also shows a woman as worshipper or supplicant. Weird Tales, December 1927. Cover story: "The Infidel's Daughter" by E. Hoffman Price. Cover art by Hugh Rankin. Price and his friend Hugh Rankin were both orientalists. . . Rankin would have found a model for his cover design close at hand, for the University of Chicago Oriental Institute holds a gypsum (?) relief sculpture of a Lammasu or Šedu, a beneficial deity from Assyrian mythology. This one is from Dur-Sharrukin, the Assyrian capital, now Khorsabad, and dates from the Neo-Assyrian Period, ca. 721-705 BC. Weird Tales, January 1928. Cover story: "The Gods of East and West" by Seabury Quinn. Cover art by C.C. Senf. I find this cover bizarre, if not ridiculous. Pity the poor artist who got the assignment. Weird Tales, December 1928. Cover story: "The Chapel of Mystic Horror" Seabury Quinn. Cover art by Hugh Rankin. Weird Tales, March 1929. Cover story: "The People of Pan" by Henry S. Whitehead. Cover art by C.C. Senf. Senf's composition here is odd and complicated, but I believe it works. This is much more successful than the cover from January 1928. Weird Tales, September 1932. Cover story: "The Altar of Melek Taos" by G.G. Pendarves. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. This was Margaret Brundage's first cover for Weird Tales. All of the following covers in this category are hers as well. Weird Tales, June 1933. Cover story: "Black Colossus" by Robert E. Howard. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. Weird Tales, October 1934. Cover story: "The Black God's Kiss" by C.L. Moore. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. A very similar cover to the one preceding it. Weird Tales, June 1937. Cover story: "The Carnal God" by John R. Speer and Carlisle Schnitzer. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. Weird Tales, January 1945. Cover story: "Priestess of the Labyrinth" by Edmond Hamilton. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. I'm not sure that the minotaur in this story is a god, but in the original myth, the Minotaur was the offspring of a gift from the Greek god Poseidon and the wife of Minos of Crete. In this illustration, the Minotaur has an appearance of bronze, like a statue or idol. In any case, this is the only cover in this category in which the woman is clearly superior in power or status to the god or idol. That's Margaret Brundage for you. Weird Tales, January 1951. Cover story: None. Cover art by Margaret Brundage. Weird Tales recycled Margaret Brundage's illustration from six years before in its issue of January 1951. The first of the ten covers in the category of woman and god or idol shows a bull with a man's head. The last shows a man with a bull's head, and so we come full circle. Text and captions copyright 2014, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

CONTENTS:Weird Tales [v24 #5, November 1934] (25¢, 128pp+, pulp, cover by M. Brundage)530 · Queen Of The Lilin [Pierre d’Atois] · E. Hoffmann Price ·...

Scrollable Image Get the full scan here. I feel a wee bit of remorse for teasing H.P. Lovecraft in my last post about his prudish attitude toward Brundage, so I thought I'd make a quick post tonight of one of my earliest scans, Ec'h-Pi-El Speaks - An Autobiographical Sketch by H.P. Lovecraft, the longest autobiographical piece that Lovecraft ever wrote. Of all the weird fiction authors, Lovecraft has had the most influence on his peers as well as upon myriad popular and fringe cultures. There's the direct influence upon other Weird Tales authors of his circle as well as his influence on future weird writers like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman. There's his influence on film directors like Sam Raimi and Guillermo Del Toro as well as his influence on F/X design in artists like H.R. Giger (Alien, Aliens) and John Carpenter. His movies are difficult to adapt, but many have tried - I like Dagon (2001) the best of those I've seen so far. There have been countless comics adaptations including the recent Alan Moore interpretation Neonomicon/The Courtyard which plays reverently and irreverently with the Lovecraft Mythos while simultaneously teasing at the man's peculiarities (I think it's great comix. Be warned, though, it's not everyone's cup of tea. Lovecraft himself would be aghast). Classic metal musicians like Black Sabbath or the band that took his name, H.P. Lovecraft, based music on his work, just as current metal bands continue to do so like Electric Wizard or Blood Ceremony who released one of my favorite albums of this year, with a very Lovecraftian title, The Eldritch Dark. Some have even gone so far as to attribute the whole manga obsession with tentacles to Lovecraft, but I don't think he'd want credit for that :D Since reading Joyce Carol Oates' selection of Lovecraft stories (a good place to start), I've been slowly working through his complete works. In some ways, I think HPL succeeds in spite of his prose which can be at times rigid, unpoetic, and repetitive (and at other times brilliant) because of the manic dread he almost never fails to instill in the reader. Most of the time I have no idea what I'm to be scared of (anticipation and atmosphere is 95% of good horror), yet I'm scared nonetheless. Lovecraft liked to write at night and suffered night horrors, and I think it is his uncanny ability to transmit his own anxiety to his characters and the reader that makes his stories so disturbing. He has an intense interest in modern science that exists alongside a determinedly old-fashioned sensibility. Any student of American Literature will quickly see obvious ties to Poe as well as Hawthorne and Charles Brockden Brown in terms of ancestral guilt and cursed bloodlines along with a concern with the supernatural. Ec'h-Pi-El Speaks was published by Gerry de la Ree in an effort to separate Lovecraft's original self-examination of 1929 from August Derleth's 1933 work "Some Notes on a Nonentity" in which Derleth expands some of Lovecraft's original thoughts. The book was printed in a small pressing of 500 and has some interesting qualities. The first is the strange parchment paper it is printed on. I'm not sure I own any other books printed on this stuff. A second interesting characteristic to note is the strange singe mark at the right side of the title page. This page is about a half inch skinnier than the rest and seems to have been exposed to some sort of flame for the charred effect. Spooky, very spooky. And lest I forget to mention, Ec'h-Pi-El Speaks is accompanied by unpublished illustrations from Virgil Finlay, who I believe is the best of the Weird Tales illustrators (followed by Hannes Bok and Lee Brown Coye) and more than worthy of his own entry at some later date. Since it's a short pamphlet (16 pages, I must not have scanned the inside front cover when I scanned this more than 6 years ago - these days I would scan the blank page to fully represent the publication), I'll go ahead and post it all here for web surfers who do not care to download the full scan (though I always recommended grabbing the actual scan for higher resolution images). I've typed about the man enough. It's time to let him speak for himself! A Winter snowstorm is messing with my holiday plans, so perhaps I'll eke in another post tomorrow regarding the 100th birthday of the crossword which has been getting much mention in the press. I'd like my readers to be able to see what the publication that started it all actually looked like...

The weird and wonderful world of fairy tales is much wider than you may have realized. Here are underrated fairy tales you may not know.

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in March 1923. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecr…