A recent reprint volume from Wombat Wargames is Pulp Fiends, Vol. 1: Seabury Quinn. It reprints, some for the first time, several works by Seabury Quinn (1889-1969), best known for the long-running Jules de Grandin series in Weird Tales.
It includes the complete “Weird Crimes” and “Servants of Satan” series of articles he wrote for Weird Tales, along with a selection of four short stories, including his first works of fiction. And this is the only source for these two series as well. There is also a nice introduction by editors John Wombat and Ruth Moreira.
I had previously posted on a pair of fiction collections from Black Dog Books, and I was worried there might be a large overlap, but I was pleased that only one story here was in those collections.
First up, the “Weird Crimes” was a series of seven articles that ran in Weird Tales from 1923 to 1924. As the title may indicate, each article covers a different weird crime that was supposedly true. But I could only find that a few are true, and the rest are either folk tales or original to Quinn.
Interestingly, almost all of these stories are about serial killers, long before the term came about. These include “Bluebeard,” “The Grave Robbers,” “The Magic Mirror Murders,” “Swiatek, the Beggar,” “Mary Blandy,” “The Werewolf of St. Bonnot,” and “The Human Hyena.”
“Bluebeard” looks at one of the origins for the folk tale in Gilles de Rais (here called Gilles de Retz), a convicted serial killer who murdered small children in 15th-century France. “The Grave Robbers” looks at a few people convicted of grave robbing in the 1920s U.S. “The Magic Mirror Murders” looks at a serial killer in the early 1800s in Bavaria. “Swiatek, the Beggar” is a cannibal story, with the targeting of small children.
“Mary Blandy” is a true story, as Mary Blandy (1720-1752) poisoned her father with arsenic, claiming it was a love potion to make him approve of her marriage. “The Werewolf of St. Bonnot” is actually the first story in Weird Tales about a werewolf, but here a serial killer, Gilles Garnier (d. 1573), who thinks he becomes a wolf. “The Human Hyena” is about François Bertrand (1823-1878), also known as the Vampire of Montparnasse. He wasn’t a killer, but was convicted of necrophilia.
The other article series is the “Servants of Satan,” six articles from 1925. These all look at aspects of the Salem witch trials, and again, I’m not certain how much is truth vs. fiction.
Finally, there are four short stories. Only one have I seen before, “The Stone Image,” originally from Thrill Book, which was reprinted in Demon Night from Black Dog Books. Two stories originally came from Weird Tales: “The Phantom Farm House” (October 1923) and “Out of the Long Ago” (January 1925).
“The Phantom Farm House” is Quinn’s first work of fiction, which I don’t think has been reprinted. The final story is “The Red Serpent” from Real Detective Tales and is one of the Professor Forrester stories. I would really like to see a complete reprint of that series.
This is Pulp Fiends, Vol. 1, but I have no idea what Wombat plans for further volumes. The only other of its works that pulp fans would be interested in are two relating to Poul Anderson, one being a collection of his fiction and the other an “authorized” biography. I will keep an eye out for further volumes. We’ll see what we get.
