In researching pulp magazines, most of the work, if it’s not general, seems focued on, more or less in order, the authors, the characters, artists, genres, editors, and publishers. In a rare case, I may see a work focused at a particular magazine. And those are usually an article, rarely a whole book devoted to one magazine.
One magazine in particular that has generated much research is Weird Tales. Originally running from 1923 to 1954, it was ground-breaking for the time. Focused specifically on fantasy and horror (more supernatural), it launched the careers of many authors such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Seabury Quinn, Manly Wade Wellman, Nictzin Dyalhis, E. Hoffman Price, Robert Bloch, Edmond Hamilton, and H. Warner Munn. Artists who worked on WT included J. Allen St. John, Margaret Brundage, Virgil Finlay, and Hannes Bok.
While there have been many collections of works from Weird Tales, to learn more about Weird Tales, the magazine, there are a trio of works that I know of: WT50: A Tribute to “Weird Tales” (1974), The “Weird Tales” Story (1977), and The Thing’s Incredible! The Secret Origins of “Weird Tales” (2018).
Weinberg edited and published WT50. It’s a collection of articles on and fiction from Weird Tales. Sadly, it has never been reprinted. I wish it would be as the material here should be available to more readers.
We first get a look at a couple of important people involved with WT. First are some letters from J.C. Henneberger, who established WT and was nominally its publisher. Then E. Hoffman Price gives us a look at Farnsworth Wright, who edited WT during most of its existence. We then get an edited reprint of a longer work on WT by Reg Smith. Several folks who wrote for WT give their experiences on this, including Robert Bloch, H. Warner Munn, and Frank Belknap Long.
Weinberg takes a look at a trio of stories by Thomas P. Kelley, the only works by this author in WT. Since then, one of these stories was reprinted by Fax, and I see the author wrote many other tales for the Canadian pulp Unknown Tales. We get a long article, with lots of reprints, on the Weird Tales covers.
And we also get several pieces of fiction by Robert E. Howard, H. Warner Munn, Carl Jacobi, and others.
The “Weird Tales” Stories came out from Fax Collector’s Edition in hardcover, and was more recently (1999) reprinted in paperback by Wildside. It was also edited by Weinberg. Some material was reprinted from WT50, mainly the author recollections. But it seems most of the contents are new.
We get a history of WT, and a new article on Farnsworth Wright by E. Hoffman Price. There is a new article on the WT cover art by Weinberg, with another on the interior artwork. We also get an overview of the stories. A reprint of a WT editorial on “Why Weird Tales” is included, which was apparently written by Otis Adelbert Kline. Another article looks at the letter column, “The Eyrie,” that ran in WT. Overall, a good work on Weird Tales, but which doesn’t totally replace what is in WT50.
The Thing’s Incredible: The Secret Origin of “Weird Tales” came out recently by pulp researcher John Locke from his Off-Trail Publications. As the title indicates, it looks at the establishment of WT, something only touched on or hinted at in the other works. J.C. Henneberger established it, but what was not clear is the full story. He had established several magazines with J.M. Lansinger as Rural Publications. Henneberger then established Weird Tales, which struggled. He then sold off his interest in the rest of the magazines to keep Weird Tales as Popular Fiction Publishing, now under the editorship of Farnsworth Wright.
But even then, WT struggled, and to save it, he basically turned over major ownership to printer B. Cornelius, with the understanding that if he could repay his debt, he could take back those shares. That never happened. And in 1938, ownership of WT was sold to the owner of Short Stories, which continued to publish Weird Tales until 1954. However, Farnsworth Wright was replaced as editor in 1941 and died soon afterwards.
There has been several revivals of Weird Tales since, in digest, book, and magazine form. But its heyday will be the 1920s and ’30s version under Farnsworth Wright.
These works all give a lot of information on Weird Tales. John Locke’s work is an important ground-breaker, revealing new information on the magazine’s early years and the people behind it. If you want to learn more about this magazine, the authors and artists who contributed to it, and the editors and others who created it, this trio of works are a must-have. I recently saw a note that a possible new and expanded edition of The “Weird Tales” Story is being worked on coming from Pulp Hero Press. Sounds interesting.
