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Post by dem bones on Nov 12, 2022 13:47:21 GMT
Robert Weinberg [ed] - The Sin Eaters: Five Stories from Weird Tales (Wildside, 2011: originally Robert Weinberg, 1979) Robert Weinberg - Introduction
G. G. Pendarves - The Sin Eater
Seabury Quinn - Living Buddhess
Paul Ernst - Dread Summons
Seabury Quinn - Satan's Palimpsest
G. G. Pendarves - The Withered HeartPart I of an imaginary anthology of standout tales from the Unique Magazine. This installment covers some of the most obvious authors. G. G. PendarvesMany, but not all, of the tales that Pendarves wrote for WT are collected in Thing of Darkness. Most are conventional “psychic investigator” stories. Her work is more interesting when it deviates from this formula. I'm having difficulty choosing between her best-known story, The Eighth Green Man (1928; it's told in such an over-the-top style that it shouldn't work—but it does, somehow, exclamation points and all) and the lesser-known The Withered Heart (1939), which takes her typical approach and then gives it a nasty, no-happy-endings-here edge.  Henry del Campo: ( Weird Tales, Nov. 1939). Dire catastrophe followed the opening of Count Dul's half-forgotten grave. Newly wed Rafe Dewle inherits Braunfel Manor House in Borrowdale, Cumbria, and with it, a casket containing the still-beating heart of a two centuries dead ancestor with instructions on how to revive him. Should Rafe perform the necromantic ritual on Walpurgis night, Count Dul will grant him "whatsoever boon he asks." Jonquil, Rafe's spoilt, glam wife, covetous of vast sums of money, demands that, come May 31st, he perform the ritual over the Black Magician's grave as instructed. His best friend, our narrator, is equally insistent he do no such thing. Darkness falls. The trio set out to the lone tomb on the waste ground.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 18, 2022 9:50:56 GMT
L-R Margaret Brundage: Virgil Finlay Seabury Quinn - Satan's Palimpsest: ( Weird Tales, Sept. 1937). A tale of weird evil and sudden death a story of Jules de Grandin. House party at Phil Classon's mansion turns to horror when, first a dissolute playwright, then the host commit hari kiri before an ikon in the gun-room. Ostensibly, the ancient Greek mosaic depicts a saint surrounded by dancing cherubs, but an unfortunate few — the two victims, de Grandin, and our heroine for the occasion, Karen Kirsten, star of the motion pictures — discern something darker; an obscene demon cavorting on a consecrated altar. Karen performs a striptease, Jules models his violet silk pyjama's and mauve dressing gown combo, but its friend Trowbridge steals the show, laying into 'Satan's palimpsest' with a double-headed axe as it's choking hands squeeze till de Grandin's eyeballs near pop from their sockets. Upstaging even  Virgil Finlay: ( Weird Tales, Nov. 1937). When the old butler investigated the scream, he found that a dread summons had been answered. With the purchase of old man Hill's pride and joy - his 40-room Chicago mansion - Herb Meller's revenge on the late financier is complete. How sweet that he should have ruined his daughter, Beatrice, in the process! Hill always disparaged Meller as no mark glorified crook who came from the slums and would end his days in prison. Well, who's laughing now? Next week the mansion will be demolished to make way for a luxury hotel, but Meller can't resist one final, gloating look around. The butler, who has volunteered to act as caretaker til the place comes down —"The old fool! Anyone who worked without a fat reward was an idiot, in Herb Miller's estimation" — ushers him inside ... |
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Post by helrunar on Nov 18, 2022 18:45:55 GMT
What a gorgeous drawing! Was that for "Satan's Palimpsest"? (And what a title for Quinn to select for that item.)
cheers, Hel.
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Post by andydecker on Nov 18, 2022 21:06:07 GMT
What a gorgeous drawing! Was that for "Satan's Palimpsest"? (And what a title for Quinn to select for that item.) cheers, Hel. The cover is for the Quinn story. It is credited on the content page.
It is quite a shame that the Brundage erotic style of illustration had vanished by 1939. I never was a big fan of her frail girls - especially not her Conan covers which for me are the opposite of what Howard is about - but if one studies her ephemeral and dreamy pictures she is undeniable a great artist.
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Post by helrunar on Nov 19, 2022 2:39:33 GMT
To be completely candid--and why bother to lie--I am not a fan of Margaret Brundage's paintings. But even so I am always a bit startled when I come across one of Clark Ashton Smith's caustic comments about her work, because she did have a way with the feminine form (I've read that the models were her daughters), and CAS was from all I have ever been able to learn about him, an enthusiastic acolyte at the altar of Woman (as used to be said in his day).
To me Brundage's sense of color looks somewhat sickly and her ability to convey form just seems somehow off. I sometimes think of her as Maxfield Parrish (a popular artist of the 1920s) with nudes. Lots of nudes, and of course, monsters and sometimes "heathen" appurtenances.
But glad you can enjoy them! There's so little to really enjoy these days, we must celebrate anything we can get our paws on that does the trick.
Steve
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Post by dem bones on Nov 20, 2022 10:20:53 GMT
What a gorgeous drawing! Was that for "Satan's Palimpsest"? (And what a title for Quinn to select for that item.) cheers, Hel. The cover is for the Quinn story. It is credited on the content page.
It is quite a shame that the Brundage erotic style of illustration had vanished by 1939. I never was a big fan of her frail girls - especially not her Conan covers which for me are the opposite of what Howard is about - but if one studies her ephemeral and dreamy pictures she is undeniable a great artist.
Finlay's striking male nude also accompanies Satan's Palimpsest. It's deserving of a better de Grandin/ story.  Ray Quigley: ( Weird Tales, Dec. 1938). A strange and powerful novelette of possession and dual personality, by the author of "Thing of Darkness." Lamorna House, Trink, Cornwall. Much to the relief of wife Rosaina and all who know him, Mark Zennor, a centuries old Black Magician, reaches the end of his latest life cycle. On his deathbed, the diabolist imposes on his nephew, Stephen Lynn, to perform a ritual whereby he will become Zennor's sin-eater. It is a small price to pay in return for the mansion, it's invaluable occult library and most of all, the woman he loves — the iminent widow, Rosaina. Stephen agrees to carry out his uncle's last request and thereby enslaves his soul to Zennor's evil will. Rosaina's last hope is that Adrian Sant, her late husband's despised rival, can best Zennor's black sorcery and retrieve the man she loves from Hell. No let up in the action — feline-abuse, human sacrifice, demonology, torture by the four elements etc. This would likely have been personal pick of the selection had it not been for the same author's outstanding The Withered Heart. |
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Post by helrunar on Nov 20, 2022 16:04:29 GMT
Awesome art for that Pendarves yarn, and it sounds like a cracking good tale. There was something else by this author that I was interested in years ago, but I think it had never been reprinted from WT when I checked the ISFDB listing. Nice that Weinberg anthologised these.
cheers, Hel.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 21, 2022 11:33:24 GMT
The Paul Ernst story is very good, too. It's just a shame the de Grandin's are neither of them that strong.  Margaret Brundage: ( Weird Tales, Nov. 1937). A tale of Jules de Grandin, a dire lama in devil-ridden Asia, and the dreadful change that befell a lovely American girl. Graystone Towers, New Jersey. A floating ball of fire invades an innocent rooftop dance party. Touched by the glowing globe, Miss Dearborn faints dead away. to be whisked off home to by de Grandin and Sam Trowbridge. The Doctor grows concerned for both his patient's physical health and her sanity, for Sylvia seems convinced she is someone else. At the height of the delusion, her own features melt into those of a male usurper! Jules is of a mind that the girl has been ousted from her body by an entity of Asian origin. On his insistence, they take a cab to the Bowery to consult another of his brilliant friends, Dr. Wong Kim Tien, "greatest living authority on Mongolian lore and Oriental magic in the world." Trowbridge is incandescent. "Whatever are you maundering about? — at your confounded ghost hunting again? ... Good lord, you mean you've dragged me from the bedside of a desperately sick girl to consult a mumbo-jumbo occultist — and a Chinaman in the bargain." Dr. Tien identifies the ancient evil one as the black Lama, Dor-je-tshe-ring, a near immortal on account of his capability to commandeer a new body whenever the need arises.  Virgil Finlay "... the slant-eyed, thick lipped face of a Mongolian idiot was replacing Sylvia Dearborn's cameo-clear countenance" |
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Post by andydecker on Nov 21, 2022 16:00:09 GMT
"Whatever are you maundering about? — at your confounded ghost hunting again? ... Good lord, you mean you've dragged me from the bedside of a desperately sick girl to consult a mumbo-jumbo occultist — and a Chinaman in the bargain." Good old Trowbridge. As ever a tactful man. The persistent attitude of the doctor to close his eyes before what is happening around him is after a while more annoying than de Grandin's ticks. He must be a really good friend and great host for the Frenchman to not throw him under a bus after a while.
Love the Finlay. For all his clean "good girl" art, he sometimes had a mean streak in his work.
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