Kaye & Betancourt - The Best Of Weird Tales 1923

[andydecker]

This is completly off-topic for which I apologize, but it is nice to see an ad for a lamp which one has seen countless times in movies of this and the next decade. Makes it more real that people indeed put such things in their homes. One of the more amusing things in the extras of Italian Giallo DVD I heard was the experience of the commentator that people at the time only seldom lived in flats like the one on the screen. I must have seen this lamp at least in a few Karloff movies

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November 1923

Walter F. McCanless - The Phantom Violinist: The Remarkable Tale of a "Haunted Violin." Joel Dalziel is abducted and imprisoned inside a cabin in the mountains to starve to death. After several months search, his father eventually discovers the young man's ragged skeleton. He died cradling his violin, which eventually passes down to his nephew, also Joel. The murderer is among the audience when Joel jnr. performs at the Auditorium. The instrument takes up an eerie melody, seemingly of it's own volition ...

Mary S. Brown - The Magic Mirror: A Strange Tale. Professor Dolber's exploration of the fourth dimension ends with his little girl, Freda, trapped behind the glass of the next door neighbour's triplicate mirror.

Sonia Greene - The Invisible Monster: A Short Tale of Horror. The mass drowning horror at Martin's Beach. Captain Orne drags ashore the corpse of a 50ft fish which, marine biologists agree, is but an infant specimen of a creature hitherto unknown. Some days afterward, Orne, his crew, two lifeguards and several bathers, are involved in an unprecedented tug of war with an unseen aquatic force dragging them out to sea, the participants discovering to their dawning horror that they are unable to let go the rope. Written, or, at the very least suggested by the woman who was briefly Mrs. Lovecraft. According to S. T. Joshi, who knows about these things, "It's pretty bad, although apparently (and unfortunately) not intentionally so." (How Bad Are Lovecraft's Revisions?, Scream Factory #10, Autumn, 1992).

Edwin G. Wood - The Survivor: A Five-Minute Tale With a Powerful Climax. Gold prospectors John Binns and Dick Webb, lost, facing death by dehydration in the desert. Webb is intellectually superior, Binns has the brawn and an unshakable belief in the survival of the fittest at the expense of the puny. Crucially, the latter also has hold of the canteen, and has been helping himself to the half dead Webb's share as they stagger across the sand. Binns gets to thinking it would be a kindness to put a bullet through his partner who is, let's face it, a luxury drain on resources.

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Heitman:

P. A. Connolly - The Crawling Death: A Weird Novelette of Supernatural Terrors. The old Ormond house, Hedgewood. The room with the red panelled door must be kept locked at all times. It is haunted by two extra-large, hairy hands of prodigious strength which resemble monstrous spiders. To date, those whose have allowed their curiosity to get the better of them have not lived to tell the tale. Prior to young newly-weds, the Avery's, taking over the property, Dick Hayden, Haunted House hunter, and Jim Atkins, a society man who has read Bulwer Lytton's The Haunters and the Haunted, resolve to spend a night there-in.

John D. Swain - Lucifer: Here's an Eerie Yarn with a Smashing Climax. Sir William May, widower, inconsolable that his only son is a cruelly deformed cripple, is prepared to do whatever it takes to mend the boy's crooked body. Which is when some fool puts him in touch with a Satanist.

Heitman

Farnsworth Wright - Poisoned: Another Fantastic Tale by the Author of "The Snake Fiend" and "The Teakwood Shrine." "Now it was Aubrey the lawyer who smiled, as he lay in convulsions on the floor." Life-long friends (until now), Aubrey Charles, lawyer, and Aubrey Leclair, apothecary, fall out over a game of cards, and the relationship fast turns toxic. Leclair lets on to Mazie, his once pal's fiancee, that Charles has been paying hush money to the mother of his secret child. Mazie breaks up with him and marries another as a result. Now, after years of avoiding one another, the two Aubrey's are thrown together. Charles proposes that they share a glass of pre-prohibition vintage. Leclair is aware his enemy recently purchased a sachet of poison to "kill a sick dog." Who will blink first?

[dem bones]

Heitman

Arthur Edwards Chapman - The Spider: A Weird Storiette. Alan makes an impulse buy of a gold antique ornament at auction. The jewelled spider was found beside the corpse of Sir Nicholas Goldeby, who had very recently liberated it from a Hindu temple ...

Seabury Quinn - Weird Crimes #2: The Grave Robbers: Title a misnomer. Brief article concerns contemporary criminal cases involving pilfering from the bereaved. The favoured method of Benjamin Shermerkey, 21, was to consult the obituary column in the local newspaper, and rob the homes of grieving West Chicagoans as they attended the funerals of loved ones. Samuel F. Ware, undertaker, of Atlanta, Georgia, made a decent profit on digging up the caskets of those he'd buried and flogging them anew, repeating the process until finally caught spade-handed.

Valens Lapsley - The Pebble Prophecy: A Hallowe'en Story. Dame Walcott, black sheep of the family and among the first settlers to be accused of witchcraft, steps down from her portrait in attempt to persuade the narrator to commit auto-asphyxiation. Kaye and Betancourt chose Lucifer for their 'Best of 1923' with Lapsley's story cited in the afterword as worthy of revival. It's been my favourite to date, though that's not saying a lot when even sometimes master of the macabre Farnsworth Wright is off colour. The Crawling Death is quite lively, and The Eyrie .... we'll come to The Eyrie.

[dem bones]

Heitman

Maebelle McCalment - The Closed Room: An Uncanny Short Story. Three years ago, Richard Norman became separated from beloved wife, Camille, during a desert sandstorm. Although he was eventually rescued by prospectors, Camille didn't make it and he came home with a bag of bones. On returning to Denver, Norman now turned the head of Anne Paddington, the fiancee of his best friend, Dr. King Wayland. The pair are wed, but Anne soon comes to rue her mistake! Dear Dick spends his time behind shaded windows in the locked room of the stucco wing, and the silk gowns, lingerie, jewellery and trinkets he purchases are for another .... Hard to fathom why The Closed Room wasn't attacked as a "necrophile" story by the vociferous let's-keep-this-tasteful element among the early readership. Presumably it took The Loved Dead to push them over the edge.

Francis D. Grierson - The Iron Room: Another Paul Pry Story. The detective assists a baffled Colonel Fairboy of Scotland Yard in solving the mysterious death of Roland Vayne, master of electronics and all-round mechanical mastermind, who fell victim of the death trap he'd prepared for a love rival.

Burton Harcourt - The Wax Image: A Weird Chinese Story. Sam Wong, physically hideous proprietor of a New Orleans opium den, is livid at "My velly good flend, Ah Foo" the tea-shop owner for coming on strong with Mrs. Wong. To this end, he fashions a wax image of his enemy to use for shooting practice.

The Closed Room now out in front as personal best thing about the Nov 23 issue. Even Heitman's accompanying artwork looks a little more inspired than usual.

[dem bones]

Heitman

J. Paul Suter - Prisoners of the Dead: An Exceptional Ghost Story by the Author of "Beyond the Door." John Bamber reluctantly gives his word to dying uncle that he'll have nothing further to do with the woman he loves, Mary Lane, while the old man remains in the house. Uncle dies ten minutes later - but his ghost remains behind to haunt the library! So why should Jarvins - butler to the deceased and an accomplished sculptor in wax - and Mrs. Murdock the housekeeper refuse the evidence of their own eyes? It is almost as if there is a conspiracy to drive highly-strung Bamber out of his mind!

Heitman

Oscar Schisgall - The Death Pit: A Novelette of Grim Tragedy. Infuriated that Dr. Philemon is making a fortune while everyone else in the impoverished farming community starves, Timothy Cruze breaks into the medics home and steals $500 from his safe. Alas, young Gilbert Cruze is dangerously ill with fever and, pressurised by wife Agatha, the thief makes an emergency call to the man he's just burgled. Philemon, himself a horrible piece of work, is not best pleased to be summoned from his bed. His mood is to worsens considerably when the delerius Gil brags of how rich they are now dad has turned over the Doctor's place! In the ensuing brutal fist fight, Cruze kills Philemon and disposes of his corpse down the dry well. Agatha insists the boy still needs urgent medical attention, but the murderer won't hear of it as Gilbert has now taken to chanting "The doctor is in the well, the doctor is in the well ..."

Effie W. Fifield - The Amazing Adventure of Joe Scranton [Part 2 of 2]: Not read the first instalment but gist seems to be that Scranton, an astral traveller, involuntarily switched bodies with Jack Walsh, recently arrived from England where court authorities believe him to be Jack the Ripper (!). As a consequence, Scranton is facing divorce from wife Josephine for a drunken assault perpetrated by the usurper. He has also served ten months hard labour in the workhouse for the wife-beating he didn't commit. Walsh confesses all on the eve of his execution but, of course, his lurid tale is too fantastical to believe.

John Martin Leahy - Draconda [Part 1 of 6]: A Tremendous Novel of Weird Adventure on the Planet Venus. Even were I in possession of all six issues, not sure I'd have either the stamina or the will to tackle this SF epic. The Last of the Teeheemen is WT serial enough for one year.

[dem bones]

Which leaves ...

The Eyrie: ... which is notable for Baird's raving over an incredible story and accompanying letter received from a Mrs. Isa-Belle Manzer. The editor requests the readers' opinion on whether or not he should publish The Transparent Ghost; "Another remarkable feature of this extraordinary yarn is that you may start reading it at any point and lose none of its charm. You can read it forward, or backward, or either way from the middle — and you'll never know you're off the track." Otherwise, praise for various including Austin Hall's The People of the Comet, James Ravenscroft's The Bloodstained Parasol, and Edgar Lloyd Hampton's The Old Burying Ground, quite the opposite for Don Mark Lemon's allegedly 'humorous' The Autobiography of a Blue Ghost.

Fast forward two issue's, and here's a contemporary reader's verdict on the November 1923 number.

From The Eyrie, Weird Tales, February 1924

"Dear Sir: May I express my opinion of the current issue of WEIRD TALES? I have read most of the previous issues, and believe that the magazine fills a decided need, but, of course, there is room for further improvement there always is, in anything. Let me ask that what I have to say be regarded as my personal opinion only; that is what you want, I believe. If I say a story is poor, that doesn't mean that it is poor, but simply that I think it is. So here goes.
"In the first place, by all means let us have "The Transparent Ghost,' by Mrs. Isa-belle Manzer. We frequently hear in a general way of some of the queer stories submitted to editors, but it is seldom that we have an opportunity to actually see one in full.

"DRACONDA is good. It is a little too technical in parts, but its very technicality makes it convincing, and is also the means of some clever humor, such as the suggestion that the sun's path is in the form of a corkscrew or a fish hook, and that the gas 'geocoronium' is surrounded by another gas called 'perhapsium.' I shall look forward with interest to the next installment.
"And this brings me to another point. It is unfair to your readers to print a serial story without any indication in either the title of the story or the index that it is to be a serial. Let serials stand on their own merits, and not on the fact that the reader has unwittingly read it to the 'to be continued' line before he realizes that it is not complete: A magazine to which I am partial displays prominently in both the index and the heading of all serial stories the legend 'A four-part story — part I' or II, or III, as the case may be. The reader who starts it knows exactly what to expect when he gets to the last page, and for how many issues the story will run. I commend this to your attention.
"THE CRAWLING DEATH is fair — a little too illogical to be good.
"THE CLOSED ROOM is a good story, logical when the fact that Norman's mind is diseased is taken into consideration.
"THE PHANTOM VIOLINIST is a space filler only — neither good nor bad.
"LUCIFER is excellent. Well written and convincing, and, very properly for this kind of a story, no attempted explanation. In my opinion purely ghost stories are not complete without a rational explanation, while stories based on the occult, or on well-known superstitions, are stronger without any attempt to explain.
"THE SPIDER is not even a good space filler.
"THE AMAZING ADVENTURE OF JOE SORANTON is a good idea, fairly well handled, but would have been a little more satisfying with a happy ending. This particular story needs it.
"THE IRON ROOM is a good average detective story, but has no place in WEIRD TALES —it is not in any way a weird tale.
"PRISONERS OF THE DEAD is very good contains a good plot, logically worked out and satisfyingly explained.
"THE DEATH PIT ranks next to 'Lucifer' in excellence among the stories in this number. The plot is good, the required element of horror and tragedy is there, and the story is not spoiled at the end by the police and Tim's arrest for murder.
"THE WAX IMAGE is also very good, and in line with my idea regarding stories based on popular superstitions, makes no attempt to explain. A very good story, and well written.
"POISONED is good, but would have been better had not both of the principal characters borne the same given name. This confuses the reader, who has to stop and think as to who is who, and detracts from the interest that should be given to the plot. The ending is good.
"THE MAGIC MIRROR is a delightful little piece, more like a fairy tale than a weird story. I enjoyed this.
"THE INVISIBLE MONSTER is good. The writer's style is an attempt, with some success, to pattern after Poe, and the style helps the story.
"THE PEBBLE PROPHECY is unconvincing. As a story based on superstition it is a failure, because the prophecy was false, and the ghost is unconvincing unless explained.
"THE TELL-TALE HEART. In your last number I noted a question as to whether these old masterpieces of weird fiction should be continued. My vote is 'Yes.' Stories like "The Pit' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart' give your present writers a mark to shoot at.
"By far the best story you have published for some time was the one in the October number of the clergyman who had the adventure with the three werewolves, the loup-garou of the French Canadian. This was excellent, competently written, and very satisfactorily ended. I was afraid as I came to the end of the story that there would be an attempt at a happy ending, with a love-match and a marriage, but I was agreeably disappointed. I regret to say that I have forgotten the name of the tale, but the story remains with me." ("The Phantom Farmhouse" by Seabury Quinn — Editor.)
"This letter has stretched out to a greater length than I intended, for which I hope you will accept my apologies. The magazine on the whole is good, and deserves success.

"If you use this or any portion of it in 'The Eyrie' please do not use my name."


— Reader and Well-wisher.

[dem bones]

Mythbank have reissued Weird Tales April and May 1923 in facsimile editions at less than £6 each (UK) which is certainly reasonable. Print job not the most magnificent, but then that is also the case with the Wildside Press November reprint, and theirs are usually impeccable.

[dem bones]

The Wildside reissues have stalled, so in the meantime there's this, out today for those who fancy sampling the early stuff via a greatest hits selection. The Seabury Quinn entry is a non-fiction entry and not to be confused with the later de Grandin story of the same title.

Jonathan Maberry & Justin Criado [eds.] - Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years 1923-25 (Word Fire Press, July 2022)

Jonathan Maberry - Foreword: Confessions of a Weird Kid

Houdini - Imprisoned with the Pharaohs
Otis Adelbert Kline - The Thing of a Thousand Shapes.
Mary S. Brown - The Magic Mirror
Lyllian Huntley Harris - The Vow on Halloween
Seabury Quinn - The Werewolf of St. Bonnot
Frank Belknap Long Jr. - The Sea Thing
Hasan Vokine - Sleigh Bells
H. P. Lovecraft - The Festival
H. Warner Munn - The Werewolf of Ponkert
Arthur J. Burks - Vale of the Corbies
Seabury Quinn - The Tenants of Broussac
Otis Adelbert Kline - The Phantom Wolfhound
Greye La Spina - The Gargoyle

Original publication information
About the editors
If you liked ....

Blurb:
First hitting newsstands in 1923, Weird Tales magazine quickly became a literary monster in discovering and publishing the best horror, sci-fi and fantasy writers of its day.

The pulp magazine was one of the earliest publications, if not the first, to feature strange tales of occultism and alien invasions that simply didn't fit into any other magazine at that time.

The stories struck a chord with those early audiences, and as a result, Weird Tales created a subgenre as "weird" could be attached itself to various genres.

Marquee names like master magician Harry Houdini and cosmic horror creator H.P. Lovecraft graced the magazine's pages during those early years with several debut stories, alongside authors who were already giants in their own right-Otis Adelbert Kline, Seabury Quinn, and Greye La Spina. Maybe lesser known, but no less influential, writers like Frank Belknap Long Jr., Mary S. Brown, Lyllian Huntley Harris, Hasan Vokine, Arthur J. Burks, and H. Warner Munn turned out disturbing yarns that have stood the test of time only to be resurrected nearly a century later.

From the macabre and morbid to unexplainable stories of the occult, this collection features those early authors across thirteen tales of terror from the impactful years of 1923 to 1925 that are best enjoyed at the witching hour.

Reading ritual aside, you've been warned.

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Companion volume to the above. Four stories by H. P. Lovecraft makes this SO MUST HAVE/ betrays a cosmic lack of imagination, depending on your POV.

Jonathan Maberry & Justin Criado [eds.] - Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years 1926-27 (Word Fire Press, July 2022)

Jonathan Maberry - Foreword: Writers Are Weird

E. Hoffman Price - The Peacock's Shadow
Seabury Quinn - The White Lady of the Orphanage
H. P. Lovecraft - The Terrible Old Man
A. Merritt - The Woman of the Wood
August Derleth - Bat's Belfry
Seabury Quinn - The Curse of Everard Maundy
H. P. Lovecraft - The Tomb
E. Hoffman Price - Saladin's Throne-Rug
Frank Belknap Long, Jr. - The Dog-Eared God
H. Warner Munn - The City of Spiders
H. P. Lovecraft - The Cats Ulthar
Manley Wade Wellman - Back to the Beast
Greye la Spina - A Suitor From The Shades
H. P. Lovecraft - Pickman's Model
Edmund Hamilton - The Atomic Conquerers

Original Publication Information
About the Editors

Blurb:
Spectral visitations...

World-conquering spiders...

An ancient feud with an enchanted forest...

Demonic paintings...

Zombies, mummies, vampires...

... and more.

Founded in 1922, Weird Tales is an iconic publication of fantasy, science fiction and horror stories. Weird Tales is the forerunner to today's pulp and speculative fiction genres.

Within these pages you'll find some of the best of the classic stories originally published in Weird Tales during the years 1926 and 1927, collected into a single volume. Featuring stories by legendary authors such as Seabury Quinn, E. Hoffman Price, Greye La Spina, Edward Hamilton, Frank Belknap Long Jr., H. Warner Munn, August W. Derleth, A. Merritt, and H.P. Lovecraft.

[andydecker]

Jul 18, 2022 11:25:50 GMT dem bones said:

Companion volume to the above. Four stories by H. P. Lovecraft makes this SO MUST HAVE/ betrays a cosmic lack of imagination, depending on your POV.

Hm, considering collections like 100 Wild Little Weird Tales which had 2 Lovecraft stories (and very minor ones too) and that you can get the complete HPL for .99 cents  in different editions this is indeed a bit disappointing. Regardless this is not a bad selection. But one has to wonder if there were not four more stories also suited for that kind of thing.

[dem bones]

Jul 18, 2022 13:48:09 GMT andydecker said:

Hm, considering collections like 100 Wild Little Weird Tales which had 2 Lovecraft stories (and very minor ones too) and that you can get the complete HPL for .99 cents  in different editions this is indeed a bit disappointing. Regardless this is not a bad selection. But one has to wonder if there were not four more stories also suited for that kind of thing.

It's a fair selection but deplorably unadventurous. Pre-'thirties Weird Tales had so much more going for it than the big name authors. I'm already dreading next year's centenary ....

[andydecker]

Jul 18, 2022 17:19:57 GMT dem bones said:

It's a fair selection but deplorably unadventurous. Pre-'thirties Weird Tales had so much more going for it than the big name authors. I'm already dreading next year's centenary ....

God, 100 years? For a magazine which never sold well and never could be resurrected it is always baffling how big its influence was and kind of still is. And a lot of the stories are still enjoyable.

[dem bones]

Edwin Baird [ed.] - Weird Tales, July-August 1923 (MythBank, 2021)

R. M. Mally

Francis Stevens - Sunfire [Part I of II]
George Warburton Lewis - The Outcasts
B. W. Sliney - The Room of the Black Velvet Drapes
Culpeper Chunn - Doctor X
Valma Clark - The Two Men Who Murdered Each Other
John Harris Burland - The Strange Case of Jacob Arum
Isabel Walker - Black Cunjer
Clark Ashton Smith - The Red Moon (verse)
Bryan Irvine - Shades
Will W. Nelson - Voodooism
Earl Wayland Bowman - Señorita Serpente
D. L. Radway - The Room in the Tower
Vincent Starrett - Riders in the Dark
Adam Hull Shirk - Mandrake
Clark Ashton Smith - The Garden of Evil (verse)
Theodore Snow Wood - People vs. Bland
Paul Ellsworth Triem - The Evening Wolves [Part II of II]
Otis Adelbert Kline - The Corpse on the Third Slab
Paul Suter - The Guard of Honor

The Cauldron

John R. Palmer - The Lesson in Anatomy
H. F. K. - The Black Nun
Charles White - The Phantom Train
Matt. Byrne Ap'rhys, C.E. - A Strange Manifestation

The Eyrie
Edwin Baird/ Ernest Hollenbeck/ Eleanor Gause/ Richard Jenkins/ Jack Bohn/ A. L. Mattison/ Abe Yochelson/ Mrs. Walter Jackowiec/ Henry W. Whitehill/ Weird Tales Fan, Jr./ Charles Pracht/ W. C. Young/ John Richards/ H. M./ One of the Bunch/ Agnes E. Burchard/ Mrs. Frances Miller/ Miss Zahrah E. Preble.

News Items
British-American Exploring Party Discovers Ancient Temple of Moon God/ A Weird Prophetic Dream and Its Gruesome Fulfillment/ Savages Burn Man Alive to Appease "Goddess"/ American Has 1,500,000 Dope Fiends/ Monte Carlo Casino Yields Huge Annual Profit/ Girl Afflicted with Strange Malady/ Woman Weds Twins; Can't Tell Them Apart/ Caterpillar Army Halts Train/ Man Is Tried for Thirty-Three Murders/ Author Sues "Egyptian Spook"/ Lecturer Derides Material Theories of Evolution/ Will Tombs of Old Mexico Outrival King Tut's?/ Deed 2,230 Years Old Unearthed/ Woman and Girl Fight Bloody Duel/ Spirit Objects to Holding Hands/ Death Held No Terror for Bernhardt.

From what I can gather, this is as far as MythBank got with their WT facsimiles — let's hope not, especially as early signs suggest a ropey issue even by Baird's standards. Most stories illustrated throughout, some signed, as many again not, but all would appear to be the work of William Heitman, so — you know, don't expect miracles.

Heitman (?)

Francis Stevens - Sunfire: Harrowing and Weird Events Startle the Five Adventurers Who Land Upon a Far-off Island. Serial, part one of two. As recently read in the Stevens collection of the same name. Explorers, a lost race, human sacrifice, a girl, a giant centipede, and a massive diamond. See Sunfire! not that it will do you any good.

George Warburton Lewis - The Outcasts: A Story of Stark Adventure With An uncanny Climax. A starving fugitive, lost and freezing in the hills, meets with a friendly stray dog, all skin and bone like himself. He resolves to eat it.

B. W. Sliney - The Room of the Black Velvet Drapes: A Creepy Narrative of Weird Events Is .... A journalist interviews Ormond Weir, author of The Human Mind, "the most amazing psychological treatise ever published" at his domed mansion. Weir abandons his guest in a circular soundproofed room, empty but for twelve sarcophagi, where inevitably, curiosity gets the better of him. He must know who or what is inside those mummy cases!

Sliney's The Man Who Was Saved made Christine Campbell's More Not At Night, and this, thank goodness, is another delightfully deranged horror. "Come here, or my creatures will tear you to bits!"

Culpeper Chunn - Doctor X: A Good Short Story. Professor Sven Borgen disappears after accomplishing his greatest scientific achievement — successfully transplanting the brain of his colleague, Professor X, into that of the old man's 22-year-old son, fatally injured in a motoring accident.

Heitman The Outcasts

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Heitman

Earl Wayland Bowman - Señorita Serpente: A Strange Tales of the Mayan Snake Worshippers. Cortesana Serrano, the most beautiful girl in San Bendito, is enslaved to a demon Gila. A kiss from her lips and lovers are either sent insane or metamorphise into blunt nosed rattlesnakes. American cow punchers th' Ramblin' Kid and Senor Skinny arrive in town.

Heitman

D. L. Radway - The Room in the Tower: A Terrifying Ghost Story. A castle in Scotland. Narrator requests of his hostess, Lady Garvent, that he spend a night in the haunted tapestried chamber. His persistence is rewarded with a bedside visit from a shrouded skeleton brandishing a goblet.