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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Feb 14, 2023 19:33:10 GMT
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. The other, less well known "The Room in the Tower."
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Post by dem bones on Feb 15, 2023 11:51:51 GMT
Heitman Otis Adelbert Kline - The Corpse on the Third Slab: Weird Tale of Happenings in a Morgue. Officer Ryan is assigned mortuary night patrol following the theft of an unidentified corpse the previous evening. He packs a flask of hooch to pass the hours, but bootleg liquor is of no comfort when the mystery stiff rises from the third slab ... Isabel Walker - Black Cunjer: A Short Tale of Black Superstition. Workmen refuse to fell the sacred pine trees surrounding Black Conjur's cabin for fear of voodoo reprisal. Hock Oberman, foreman is not the man to allow some frail, ancient, mumbo-jumbo merchant stand in his way. Will W. Nelson - Voodooism: A Special Article About a Weird Cult. The voodoo scene in Mobile, where, at time of writing, a"gris-gris" could be had for $2. Author also considers the exploits of Marie Laveau, late witch queen of New Orleans, "cunning, as well as charitable and wicked." Did Marie possess supernatural powers, or was she merely a successful imposter?
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Post by dem bones on Feb 16, 2023 10:54:07 GMT
Vincent Starrett - Riders in the Dark: A Grim Tale of Self Sacrifice. The Brotherhood (the KKK, presumably?) have passed the death sentence on lawyer Robert Hamelin. Tonight he either surrenders to "justice," or they burn down his home, beautiful wife and all. Adam Hull Shirk - Mandrake: An Uncanny Tale of a Flesh Coloured Plant. Miss Marjorie Marbury is haunted by a shrieking vegetable plucked from her father's grave. The murdered man's soul crying out for justice, or a conspiracy to drive her insane before she inherits his estate? Cast includes a mesmerist named Valdeman. Dorothy McIlwraith revived the story in the May 1953 issue, accompanied by a Virgil Finlay original. Heitman Bryan Irvine - Shades: A Realistic Ghost Story. When their independent newspaper flops, Haldean Steadman and Terrence Garlock found the Black Hawks, a secret society comprising twenty-three of America's shrewdest criminals preying upon sharks. A lucrative venture - until the life-long friends fall in love with the same femme fatale. "Many were the human vultures and money fiends who had gone down to defeat under beautiful Maria Galtier's smiles." As narrated by Steadman during a séance.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 17, 2023 12:15:47 GMT
Heitman Paul Suter - The Guard of Honor: The Author of 'Beyond the Door' Spins Another Eerie Tale in His Masterful Style. Three pals keeping vigil over the coffin of Dr. Wilford Sawyer prior to tomorrow's funeral. Much to the bewilderment of Jugrand and Marvin, their companion, Craddock, a surgeon, joins his late friend in the box. Lost in a trance, Craddock retrieves Sawyer's repressed memory of a tragedy in early manhood. Another story reprinted under Dorothy McIlwraith's editorship (Jan. 1952, Boris Dolgov illustration). Heitman Theodore Snow Wood - People vs. Bland: The Mystery Midnight Visitor Played An important Part in This Murder Trial. Trollusc is hired by said lugubrious one to defend a man accused of murdering his own brother to steal a fortune in bonds. Egbert Bland pleads innocence, the evidence suggests otherwise, until mystery man springs a surprise witness. Guard of Honor is at least grim, if turgid. Black Cunjer and the Sliney, Kline and Starrett stories kept me interested. The rest, not so much. Issue is regarded as of importance for Clark Ashton Smith's Weird Tales debut.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 18, 2023 10:11:49 GMT
"Turton's a one-idea man, and that makes a fellow a bit queer you know." Heitman John Harris Burland - The Strange Case of Jacob Arum: A Sardonic Novel of Witchcraft: Brent Hall, Harthaven, a quiet English village on the marshes, is home to Jacob Arum, sixty, a hook-handed misanthrope and devout member of a local religious sect, "the Peculiar People." Arum's convictions deny him the company of all save his loyal manservant, William Brike, a hunchback who the locals suspect of trafficking with Satan, and his niece, Miss Audrey Pinson, the most beautiful woman ever walked God's earth & so on. Arum refuses to see a doctor because their profession wilfully thwarts God's will. Bedridden following a heart attack, Arum, with the greatest reluctance, requests a visit from Hart, our narrator. He wants Hart to act as his legal executor. The terms of the will are straightforward; £1, 000 to his loyal manservant, William Brike, a hunchback who the locals suspect of trafficking with Satan; the same again to Hart for services rendered, and the rest to Audrey the adorable. Hart's friend, Professor Turton, who has devoted his life to the study of witchcraft, suspects there is nothing drastically wrong with Arum's health, that Brike is playing upon his susceptibility for his own nefarious ends. Hart thinks this is unfair; Brike may look a fright, but he spends every waking hour praying VERY LOUDLY for his master to retain full health; it seems to work, too, because within an hour of Arum's death — a miracle! Longest story in the issue, glad I persevered with it, if only for quite the most barking dénouement I've read since The Curse of the Doones. The Cauldron: True Adventures of Terror, conducted by Preston Langley Hickey On this evidence, the readers were no worse at this game than the professionals — always assuming the following are not the work of Mr. Hickey. John R. Palmer - The Lesson in Anatomy: On a visit to The Hague, Mr. Palmer developed a ghoulish obsession with Rembrandt's The Lesson in Anatomy to the point where one evening he broke into the museum after closing time to study it in detail (very "old man wanking over cannibal porn in The Picture in the House"). During the night, the dissection so skilfully captured to canvas is re-enacted before him ... H. F. K. - The Black Nun: Ghost of Sister Theresa, who took up the veil when her fiancé broke off the engagement to fight in the Civil War. A hospital reunion some months into the conflict brought tragedy for both. Charles White - The Phantom Train: Fatally crushed between box-cars, an engineer dies vowing to wreck this damned train, even if he has to return from Hell to do so. Over seven years, White collects numerous eyewitnesses accounts of a phantom swamp train hurtling along the line to vanish as it approached a bridge, though none are as dramatic as his own. Matt. Byrne Ap'rhys, C.E. - A Strange Manifestation : Author wonders if a woman in white who briefly appeared before him in a Detroit hotel room may have been the ghost of his decade-dead wife.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 19, 2023 12:10:33 GMT
Heitman Valma Clark - The Two Men Who Murdered Each Other: A Remarkable Novelette: The Tragic Story of a Greek Vase, Told in a Masterly Way. As selected by John Betancourt and Marvin Kaye for their The Best of Weird Tales 1923. Thought it best to reread the thing, if only for form's sake. Rival professors Gooding and Bauer, wash up on a desert island, each clutching their half of a priceless Greek artefact and hell-bent on survival at the other's expense ... I'm still at a loss why Rob Weinberg should cite The Two Men ... as one of the most dreadful stories published under Baird's brief editorship — there are worse in this issue alone (begin with The Outcasts, work on through, if you're curious, though I'd not advise it). Might attempt The Evening Wolves at a later date, but otherwise that's about it for this issue, the most difficult to enjoy of the 1923's read to date.
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