An interesting book I got recently is The Weird Tales Boys by Stephen Jones. Published in 2023 by PS Publishing‘s paperback imprint Drugstore Indian Press, it is available on Amazon. It’s part of the “Stephen Jones Masters of Horror Series” and is #15 in that series.
It’s a nice volume, coming in at about 250 pages with several photos and illustrations from Weird Tales, both covers and interior artwork. As is obvious from the title, it’s an examination of the “big three” of Weird Tales: H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. And for those not aware, Stephen Jones is a British author and editor of horror and dark fantasy, with many books under his belt.
The book gives fairly detailed coverage of the three men’s lives and careers. While there wasn’t anything I wasn’t already aware of, I was impressed by the breadth of coverage. We also learn about the development of Weird Tales as well.
With HPL, we learn of his youth and upbringing. His early work in amateur journalism. I think most might be surprised that his earliest works actually appeared there before being published in Weird Tales and other pulps. His marriage and later life is covered up to his passing.
We then move to CAS, covering his life and career. CAS thought of himself as mainly a poet and got into writing fiction to help support himself and his parents. And you’ll learn why.
And then REH gets similar coverage, with details of his writing career and personal life. With REH, concerns about the health of his mother had a major impact on him, and is what led to his suicide.
The matter of the Cthulhu mythos and its creation, especially the involvement of August Derleth, is covered very well. The impact of the death of, first, REH and then HPL was handled well. This leads to learning how their works were preserved by others after they passed, such as August Derleth and the founding of Arkham House. The matter of Robert Barlow being HPL’s literary executor was largely glossed over. Sadly, after the passing of REH and HPL, CAS would soon stop writing fiction himself, devoting himself more to sculpture and poetry. What might he have produced had he not?
The various posthumous publications of their works are covered, and more so the various book collections of their works by a variety of publishers in the 1950s and beyond are covered. Especially the many different mass-market paperback collections of their works. Just as important, it gets into the various authors who wrote stories inspired by them, such as Ramsey Campbell, Colin Wilson, Brian Lumley, Basil Copper, Lin Carter and more, as well as researchers and editors such as S.T. Joshi. Further, we learn of the many adaptions of their works to games, movies, comics, and more. I think the only oversight was that there is no mention of the Dark Adventure Radio Theater adaptions of HPL (and now REH) works from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society.
There is no bibliography or citations in this work, though several other sources are mentioned in the text, and that takes care of that. I did like that some works that give alternate views on things were included. And some of the negative things people have brought up about HPL and REH were also covered in a respectful manner. I don’t like the efforts by some to “cancel” them because their views are not 100 percent in line with “modern audiences”, whatever that is.
This was a well-written and enjoyable work. Stephen Jones did a good job of blending information on their writing career with their personal lives. Most works cover one or the other, so we often don’t understand how their lives impacted their writing.
For me, there was little that was new, but I’m probably not the target audience. But as there are many who know little about these men’s lives and careers, this work would be eye-opening.
These are men who wrote imaginative stories, but who suffered in life such that much of their fame came to them after they passed. This work is a great introduction to all of them for any with more than a basic interest in them. You come away with a better appreciation of their works, and how they fit in with others that they wrote.
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