{"id":22903,"date":"2026-08-31T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T14:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=22903"},"modified":"2026-05-21T14:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T18:27:07","slug":"harrigans-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2026\/08\/31\/harrigans-file\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Harrigan’s File’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harrigan’s File<\/em> is a collection of science fiction<\/a> tales by August Derleth<\/a><\/strong>, his only explicitly science fiction work. This series of short stories is about newspaper reporter Tex Harrigan<\/strong> and his various strange encounters with “queer people.” It was published in 1975 in hardback by Arkham House<\/a>, and has never been reprinted.<\/p>\n

\"Harrigan's<\/a>The series consists of 17 stories, 14 of which appeared in various magazines between 1951 and 1965. These included Weird Tales<\/a><\/em>, If: Worlds of Science Fiction<\/em>, 10 Story Fantasy<\/em>, Orbit Science Fiction<\/em>, Spaceways<\/em>, Ventura<\/em>, and others.<\/p>\n

We get stories involving aliens, interplanetary travel, science-fictional devices, and the like. But we don’t get invasions, evil scientists, or things like those. These are more “cozy” science-fiction tales.<\/p>\n

For instance, in the first story, “McIlvaine’s Star,” the main character has somehow made contact with aliens on a distant world, but his buddies at the local bar don’t believe him. Later, his alien friends revitalize his body, and when he stops showing up, the police go and visit him. They meet the man’s nephew, who has the same name. He’s inherited the man’s home. All seems well, but it does all look unusual.<\/p>\n

In the next story, “A Corner for Lucia,” a young lady disappears while crossing a road. Her parents think her boyfriend kidnapped her. Her boyfriend thinks they kidnapped her. The police don’t know what happened. A little girl who was there said she just disappeared into a hole. A month later, she returns, totally fine, but then breaks up with her boyfriend. Then, a few months later, she again disappears, but later shows up with a new boyfriend. Where did she go?<\/p>\n

Overall, this was a nice collection. It’s unfortunate that this has never been reprinted. I know that S.T. Joshi<\/a><\/strong> and David E. Schultz<\/a><\/strong> have been reprinting the works of August Derleth of late, and hope they do this one. If they do, I really hope they can include the original cover art done by Frank Utpatel<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harrigan’s File is a collection of science fiction tales by August Derleth, his only explicitly science fiction work. This series of short stories is about newspaper reporter Tex Harrigan and his various strange encounters with “queer people.” It was published in 1975 in hardback by Arkham House, and has never been reprinted. The series consists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":23088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"},"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at 'Harrigan's File' by August Derleth.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[1,135,14],"tags":[1193,502,1209,2629,1184,94,304],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-22903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pulps","category-reprints","category-review","tag-arkham-house","tag-august-derleth","tag-david-e-schultz","tag-frank-utpatel","tag-s-t-joshi","tag-science-fiction","tag-weird-tales"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-5Xp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2026\/04\/harrigans-file-featured.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22903"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23130,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22903\/revisions\/23130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22903"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=22903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}