Sinister Cinema‘s Armchair Fiction has added two more volumes to their new Masters of Horror series, bringing the total to four.
Like the others, we get larger volumes clocking in at about 350 pages. And the focus here is, again, on overlooked but great Weird Tales authors. Sadly, we don’t get much additional info on the authors other than what we read on the back cover, and one page inside, so I hope to address that here.
First up is Vol. 3, Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Hostess of Horror and Fantasy. Mary Elizabeth Counselman (1911-95) wrote mainly for Weird Tales, having nearly 40 stories published there from 1932 to ’53. Her most notable works is “The Three Marked Pennies,” which she wrote as a teen, but which appeared in WT in 1934. It was considered by the readers one of the top three works ever published there. She also wrote poetry, was a journalist, and taught creative writing for a college. She did have a collection of works published by Arkham House, eight of which are in this new collection. This collection has 17 stories and a cover by Hannes Bok from Weird Tales (November 1941). However, one story appeared in Jungle Stories. Yes, she had a some outside of Weird Tales.
A quote of hers defines her approach to horror: “The Halloween scariness of the bumbling but kindly Wizard of Oz has always appealed to me more than the gruesome, morbid fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and those later authors who were influenced by their doom philosophies. My eerie shades bubble with an irrepressible sense of humor, ready to laugh with (never at) those earth-bound mortals whose fears they once shared.”
As noted, “The Three Marked Pennies” was her most well-known piece. In a small southern town, the newspaper runs an announcement that three marked pennies will appear in the possession of the inhabitants. Marked by a circle, a square, and a cross, at the end of several days, the person possessing each would be rewarded with $100,000, a steamer ticket for a world cruise, or death! What will happen before that deadline, and what will happen when it comes?
Another story is “Seventh Sister,” a rare voodoo story by a woman.
Next up is Vol. 4 on Arthur J. Burks, the Wizard of Weird Tales. Arthur J. Burks (1898-1974) wrote quite a bit for the pulps — nearly 800 works — but is largely overlooked by the average fan as he worked in a lot of genres (science fiction, aviation, adventure, war, detective, weird menace) and really didn’t have any one outstanding work or series.
I’ve actually reviewed a few of his works, such as his Dorus Noel series (reprinted by Off-Trail Publications), Man-Ape (Wildside Press) and his Exodus/Survival duology (Pulp Adventures #26).
Some of his science-fiction works have been reprinted by Pulpville Press and Armchair Fiction, and both Ramble House and Centipede Press have collections of his weird fiction.
This volume gives us 15 works from Weird Tales that ran between 1924 to ’54. The cover is from Weird Tales (May 1941), also by Hannes Bok.
“Voodoo” is his second tale in WT, set in Haiti and deals with, well, voodoo. Voodoo is something he learned about in the Domincan Republic as a Marine.
“The Invading Horde” was cover featured in November 1927. It’s a science-fiction, yellow-menace tale about the City of the East defending itself from the aliens from the West.
In a weird, short tale, “The Vale of the Corries,” a man has strange dreams about corries. The story is concluded by his brother.
Other tales deal with the dead and horrors from the other side. Several stories in this collection were also collected in Black Medicine, a collection of his Weird Tales stories from Arkham House in 1966.
These are great additions to this series. I do hope this continues and focuses more on lesser-known authors who deserve to be brought back. We don’t need more collections of HPL, CAS, or Robert E. Howard, but maybe authors like Greye La Spina, H. Warren Munn, Joseph Payne Brennan, G.G. Pendarves, and similar. Any suggestions for others?
I do have both of these as well as the first two, but I haven’t been able to read them yet. So many books, so little time. I do agree they should continue to do more on the unsung writers in the field. As much as I am a fan of HPL, CAS and REH, I do have pretty much their entire works already.