Oscar Cook (1888-1952) is an overlooked British author of macabre fiction. He spent a decade of his life in colonial service in Borneo, which colored his fiction. Returning to England, he wrote of his experiences there in Borneo: The Stealer of Hearts, published in 1924. I am only aware of one novel (The Seventh Wave), and I have no idea what it’s about.
The bulk of the fiction he would write was macabre fiction, often influenced by his time in Borneo. These appeared in both U.K. and U.S. magazines. In the U.K., many of his works appeared in the Not at Night series. He was for a time married to the editor of the series, Christine Campbell Thomson, though they later divorced, apparently not on good terms, as his children apparently didn’t know much about their father. In the U.S., many of his works appeared in Weird Tales.
His most well-known work is “Boomerang,” which first appeared in Switch on the Light (U.K., 1931). It is part of his “Warwick” series of short stories, the other being the “District Officer Peter Dennis” series. The story was later adapted into an episode of Rod Serling‘s Night Gallery TV series, “The Caterpillar” (March 1, 1972). Set in Borneo (of course), it tells of a man who plots the demise of a romantic rival, but things go awry. This is the first U.S. publication of the original story.
More recently, in 2025, Johnny Mains collected a nearly complete collection of Cook’s short stories as His Beautiful Hands: The Short Fiction of Oscar Cook. Published by Ramble House, it contains 37 stories, along with an introduction that goes into his life and career, and two further essays on certain of his works. This is not a complete collection, as it is missing one known work: “The Owl’s Warning” from Pep Stories, October 1927. I would think that, with all the people who are scanning pulp magazines, this one would have shown up. Hopefully, it will.
I am still working through this collection, as it is more than 500 pages, but others should check it out.
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