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Post by dem bones on Mar 2, 2008 19:38:29 GMT
Seabury Quinn - The Adventures Of Jules De Grandin (Popular, Aug 1976) Vincent Di Fate Lin Carter - A Sherlock Of The Supernatural Seabury Quinn - By Way Of Explanation
The Horror On The Links The Tenants Of Broussac The Isle Of Missing Ships The Dead Hand The Man Who Cast No Shadow The Blood-Flower The Curse Of Everard Maundy
Robert Weinberg - Afterword
Blurb: "THE OCCULT HERCULE POIROT" Journey into the fantastic and terrifying worlds of the unknown.
The greatest supernatural sleuth of them all battles the most fiendish creatures ever to haunt the earth. Jules de Grandin, who reigned as king of the golden age of Strange Stories and Weird Tales, is back to delight readers of today. Long out of print, these stories of his adventures mark the return of the eeriest spellbinding action-entertainment ever to startle, shock, and send shivers down your spine. Watch for Jules de Grandin in action again in other volumes of this great new Popular Library series.The de Grandins were among the most popular stories ever published in Weird Tales, but when the magazine finally collapsed in the early 'fifties, that was the last we got to read of the fiesty Frenchman and his perennially incredulous sidekick Dr. Samuel Trowbridge's adventures. Admittedly, he'd maybe overstayed his welcome by then. Of the later stories I've read like Vampire Kith And Kin, there seems to be a slight lack of spark. Many (but not all) of the best were written and set during the Prohibition era (1920-1933). While de Grandin, Trowbridge and regular guest star Sgt. Costello rarely concluded a story on anything other than a monumental Whiskey binge, de Grandin was forever railing against the draconian law, but this denial of alcohol seemed to bring out the best in the evil scientists, vampires, mummies, demons and sundry monsters and master criminals who set up headquarters in Harrisonville. We have the legendary Robert Weinberg to thank for the six Popular Press paperbacks comprising maybe one-third of de Grandin's most challenging cases. includes: The Horror On The Links: "Name of an old one-eyed tom-cat! It was the truth young Maitland told. It was an ape which accosted him in the bois. An ape in evening clothes!"Harrisonville, New Jersey. In her youth Mrs. Comstock broke off her engagement to mad scientist Otto Beneckendorff when she learned of the sadistic pleasure he derived from vivisection. Beneckendorff swore vengeance. Nothing has been heard of him since he escaped from a Paris madhouse during the war. Mr. Kalmer has recently taken over a gloomy old house on the Andover Road when a young woman is mutilated and two men injured on the golf course after a party at the Sedgemoor Country Club. One of the men, Manly, is the fiance of Mrs. Comstock's daughter, Millicent. Thanks to Beneckendorff/ Kalmer and his infernal serum, he is also a were-gorilla who transforms to beast on the night of the full moon. The very first Jules De Grandin adventure ( Weird Tales, Oct. 1925), although Dr. Trowbridge had featured in an earlier story, The Stone Image). The Isle Of Missing Ships De Grandin and Trowbridge are 'rescued' by cultured Goonong Besar when their ship is captured by his bunch of wreckers. A charming tale in which our heroes get to kill sharks and cannibal natives and even inadvertently dine on the long pig. There's a heroine to rescue, of course, as white women's flesh is very much in demand (for eating) and even some inspired lunacy involving an octopus! Besar is so unspeakably evil that the Frenchman has no qualms about slitting his throat in cold blood rather than have the bother of delivering him into police custody. Andrew Brosnatch, Isle Of Missing Ships ( Weird Tales, Feb. 1926) The Man Who Cast No Shadow: Baron Cznezron must drink the blood of a virgin once every century to prolongue his evil existence. Together with his undead accomplice, (who was hung by an irate woman a few centuries back after a spate of child deaths), he abducts a beautiful girl and imprisons her in the caverns beneath Hazeltown House, Harrisonville. Enter de Grandin, Trowbridge and Costello, just as the spreadeagled girl is about to have her throat slit ... to be continued ....
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Post by dem bones on Mar 2, 2008 21:01:44 GMT
Seabury Quinn - The Casebook Of Jules De Grandin (Popular, Sept. 1976) Vincent Di Fate Robert A. W. Lowdnes - Teller Of Tales
Children Of Ubasti The House Of Horror The Silver Countess The Corpse-Master Ancient Fires The Serpent Woman The Chapel Of Mystic Horror
Robert Weinberg - Afterword
Blurb: NOTHING SHOCKS JULES de GRANDIN BUT YOU MIGHT NOT BE AS LUCKY!
Take a firm hold on your nerves and keep a close watch over your heartbeat when you accompany Jules de Grandin into the netherworld to do battle with the most fiendish forces of darkness ever to threaten humankind with unspeakable evil.
The statue of a beautiful woman who seduces and destroys ... a family of ghouls who live on human flesh ... a zombie master who rules an army of the dead ... a medieval chapel turned into a fortress by Satan's own order of knights ... a diabolical surgeon who practices his infernal skills on innocent young girls ... These are but a few of the shivery surprises that await you and the greatest of occult investigators in stories that will transport your imagination to the very outer limits of the fearful unknown and secret horrors of the universe.
Watch for Jules de Grandin in action again in other volumes of this great new Popular Library series! More early stories. Sadistic surgeon masterpiece The House Of Horror is the one de Grandin adventure 'most everybody's read, probably via The First Pan Book Of Horror Stories, while The Chapel Of Mystic Horror pits the revived Knights Templar versus the NYPD.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 3, 2008 7:50:42 GMT
Seabury Quinn - The Devil's Bride (Popular, Nov. 1976) Vincent Di Fate JULES de GRANDIN'S GREATEST CHALLENGE AND MOST FEARFUL FIGHT
Even that ultimate investigator of the occult, Jules de Grandin, was touched for the first time by the tendrils of terror when he realized the immensity of the evil threatening all humankind..
Spreading like a soul-destroying cancer over all the earth were cells of the Devil-worshipping organization that hungered for supreme power over humanity — and used both the darkest forces of the spirit and the most seductive female flesh to gain its diabolical ends.
Jules de Grandin knew he would have to cut this monstrous growth off at the root—even if it meant descending into the deepest depths of hell itself.... The only de Grandin 'novel', a six-part serial first published in Weird Tales from Feb through to July 1932, and a thing of fits and starts if I'm any judge. The phantom fighter's investigation into the abduction of Alice Hume on her wedding day reads like a pulp era penny dreadful and puts him in violent conflict with a global Satanic network straight out of Dennis Wheatley's nightmares. My abiding memory is the crucifixion of a young woman by cowled diabolists who prove how nasty and evil they are by pelting her tormented body with snowballs. There's also fun and games on safari in Sierra Leone with everyone dressed up like Pans People for their pure class interpretation of Jungle Rock. E. F. Bleiler writes of The Devil's Bride: "This was considered an unsuccessful jumble of material when it first appeared and there is no reason to change this verdict". Bleiler doesn't care for de Grandin, but then he doesn't like Creeps, the Not At Night's or Pan Horror Stories either so who's listening? The late, great Robert A. W. Lowdnes revived The Devil's Bride over three issues of Magazine Of Horror (26-28) in 1969 with the original line drawings. Sidelined for a re-read as it's been way too long.
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Post by dem bones on May 13, 2009 22:46:23 GMT
Seabury Quinn - The Horror Chambers Of Jules De Grandin (Popular Library, 1977) Vincent Di Fate The Gods Of East And West The Poltergeist The House Of Golden Masks The Jest Of Warberg Tantaval Stealthy Death A Gamble In Souls
Afterword by Robert WeinbergBlurb "THE OCCULT HERCULE POIROT"
ONLY JULES de GRANDIN COULD HOPE TO SAVE: —A houseful of beautiful young girls forced to wear hideous golden masks while performing unspeakable acts of degradation for their fiendish master —A pair of lovers turned into puppets of evil by a satanic father who reached out for them from beyond the grave —A woman hellishly attacked by a dark Oriental spirit that could only be countered by American Indian magic —The victims of a ghoulish monster from the mysterious Middle East who fed on human blood and devoured human souls
Jules de Grandin never faced more horrifying dangers or rose to greater heights of occult omnipotence than in these and the other chilling cases that comprise his ultimate casebook of uncanny adventures.Hugh Rankin The House Of Golden Masks, Weird Tales, June 1929 Not my absolute favourite of the Popular Library collections, but it's De Grandin and his ever-incredulous colleague Dr. Trowbridge, you're usually guaranteed a memorable time with them, and your fill of illicit liquor once the case has been wrapped up. The House Of Golden Masks reads like it was written for a shudder pulp as opposed to semi-respectable Weird Tales. A gang of Hindu White Slaver hoodlums are abducting young women to participate in their public "whipping dances" which, essentially amounts to the girls being lashed to death as a form of entertainment. You have to wonder why De Grandin holds out such an awful long time before stepping out in his handily procured suit of armour to break up the party, but duty wins over voyeurism in the end. The Jest Of Warberg Tantaval caused something of a The Loved Dead-style outcry on first publication as old Warberg's dying 'jest' at the expense of his son, Dennis and his bride-to-be and supposed 'cousin' Arabella was a particularly sick one. Robert A. W. Lowdnes, a friend and huge fan of Quinn's, admitted that he never could take to story as the subject matter upset him so - Arabella is a closer relation to Dennis than either of them realise - and i should imagine it was pretty strong stuff for 1934. The Casebook Of Jules De Grandin and the hopelessly convoluted but still brilliant 'novel' The Devil's Bride are probably a better bet if you want to catch the psychic sleuth on his very best form, but Horror Chambers is certainly worth your attention if you see a copy lying around.
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Post by dem bones on May 14, 2009 11:28:35 GMT
Seabury Quinn - The Hellfire Files Of Jules De Grandin (Popular Library, 1976) Vincent Di Fate The Devil People The Great God Pan Restless Souls The Wolf Of St. Bonnot The Hand Of Glory Mephistopheles & Company, Ltd.
Afterword by Robert WeinbergBlurb "THE OCCULT HERCULE POIROT"
FOLLOW JULES de GRANDIN AS HE DARES TO DESECRATE THE SACRED RITES OF SATAN! Jules de Grandin, the inimitable, indomitable occult investigator, plunges over the threshold of terror as he pursues the spawn of Satan to their most hidden lairs. No fiend is too foul, no monster too menacing, to deter the great supernatural detective from using his uncanny powers and awesome knowledge to protect the bodies and souls of the innocent — and to send his foes back to the eternal darkness from which they came.
A tribe of Oriental Devil people ... the sinister Greek God Pan ... a wolf man who casts an unholy spell of horror... a world of lost and lusting souls ruled by a vampire king ... a horrifying private club devoted to inhuman rites ... a hand of evil that no ordinary mortal can resist ... all are unforgettable chilling challenges as Jules de Grandin goes after his eerie enemies on their own hunting grounds. i'll try and come up with some garbage to say about these at a later date when i'm not so pushed, though to be honest you're better off with the blurbs. Michel Parry revived Hand Of Glory for his Mayflower Black Magic series - if i'm not mistaken, the highlight is a street riot involving the New Jersey Police versus the re-animated Knights Templar and their undead horses. The Wolf of St. Bonnot has shades of the Sergeant Bertrand case about it, as Giles Garnier, a sixteenth century Loup Garou, returns from the grave to go prowling for girls in Harrisonville. The Great God Pan - a fraudulent occultist gets his just desserts - likely didn't trouble Arthur Machen any.
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Post by dem bones on May 14, 2009 12:13:05 GMT
Seabury Quinn - The Skeleton Closet Of Jules De Grandin (Popular Library, 1976) Vincent Di Fate Manly Wade Wellman - Seabury Quinn
The Drums Of Damballah The Doom Of The House Of Phipps The Dust Of Egypt The Brain-Thief Bride Of Dewer Daughter Of The MoonlightBlurb "THE OCCULT HERCULE POIROT"
WHEN THE JAWS OF DARKNESS OPEN, ONLY JULES de GRANDIN STANDS IN SATAN'S WAY!
From the all-devouring inferno of hell the twisting trail of the occult forms the path of conquest for Satan and his spawn — and it is this ghoulish gateway that Jules de Grandin guards with his unique psychic skills and eerie insight into his fiendish foes.
Now he faces his most mind-searing challenges as he pits his body and soul against a monstrous voodoo ape-man ... a hideous goblin of horrifying lust ... a five-thousand-year-old menace that emerges from behind a mummy's mask ... a sorceress who is as angelically seductive as she is devilishly deadly ... an all-powerful mind-master ... a mysterious mansion that houses the ultimate in terror ...
As long as evil lives and breeds, Jules de Grandin fights on — and you are invited to enjoy his most unforgettable triumphs over the fearsome forces that haunt us all.
Really must be stuck into these when less pushed - the titles are making me all nostalgic for my first wave of Seebs worship when even the rubbish De Grandins were infinitely preferable to all the new horror fiction doing the rounds (early 'nineties, obviously). Brides Of Dewer is among the very best, pitting "the dapper little Frenchman" versus a hideous demon and most likely inspired by the 'Monster of Glamis' legend. The Brain-Thief is another lecherous Hindu, no doubt a close relative of the White Slavers who set up extreme flagellation club, The House Of Golden Masks in Horror Chambers .... And name of a little blue monkey if the ostensibly timid damsel known as the Daughter Of The Moonlight isn't exposed for deadly, spine-crushing were-owl she is!
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Post by dem bones on Nov 2, 2009 9:29:27 GMT
Seabury Quinn - The Gods Of East And West: (Weird Tales, Jan. 1928) Newly wed Imogene Chetwynde is afflicted by a mysterious wasting illness and, despite his best efforts, Dr. Trowbridge holds little hope for her. De Grandin, fresh from a Medical Society dinner in New York, volunteers his services and learns that the patient's husband, Richard, a railway construction supervisor, has recently returned from India. Among several romantic gifts he picked up for his beloved, a small black statue of Kali, "dripping with blood, encircled with snakes and adorned with human skulls." Unbeknown to herself, Imogene has been prostrating herself before the idol during the night and, as she weakens, so the vampire statue drains her of body and soul! As luck would have it, one of De Grandin's fellow guests at the Med Soc bash was young Dr. John Wolf, a native American witch-doctor. De Grandin informs his friend of the situation and the man known to his people as Johnny Curly Wolf summons the Manitou to put Kali in her place.
To be honest, Quinn doesn't make as much of this clash of The Gods as he might, but then he was probably spent from putting so much into the Imogene pays homage sequence which is a real stormer and allows De Grandin and Trowbridge to play at Peeping Toms yet again.
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Post by andydecker on Nov 2, 2009 11:53:21 GMT
It is astonishing how easily garments falls if de Grandin is in the vicinity. A story without a naked girl isn´t a real de Grandin story. No wonder Quinn was so successful. Of course it is strang that the little frenchman is always so desinterested by all those "white limbs and virginal breasts". Trowbridge I understand, he never had any kind of clue. But de Grandin? I read the story recently, and it was kind of nice that the indian maid was just a red herring. In those stories the foreigner is by default the suspect, and moral America is always threatened by those european or eastern riffraff. The twist with the american witch-doctor is one of the elements why I love this series. Of course it is formula writing, but at least Quinn often combined ideas which at first glance seem to be very disparate. And even if the stories sometimes fall apart specteculary, at least they are never dull.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 2, 2009 12:35:53 GMT
It is astonishing how easily garments falls if de Grandin is in the vicinity. A story without a naked girl isn´t a real de Grandin story. No wonder Quinn was so successful. I think the abundance of quivering female flesh accounts for the obvious enjoyment the phantom fighter takes in his work. It can't be for listening to Trowbridge blurting out "vampires? but that's preposterous, De Grandin!" no matter how many times they've faced them in the past. In House Of The Golden Masks, i was almost expecting him to give his place of concealment away with an involuntary "Phwoar!" once the girls began their bump and grind routine. And Imogine Chetwynde, crawling on all fours, shredding her gown and bobbing up and down "thirty or forty times a minute" before the idol of Kali must have driven him out of his mind! No wonder he's always preventing Trowbridge from intervening at such moments. These Weinberg-edited paperbacks are lovely. Most of them open on a double page map of Harrisonville circa 1934 followed by Virgin Finlay's portraits of De Grandin and Trowbridge for Weird Tales. Quinn was delighted with the results; "These are just perfect .... Jules de Grandin to the life. And where did you get double furrow between the eyes?" Over forty years later, horror author Chet Williamson provided the answer in The Case Of The Moonlighting Physicians ( Weird Tales Collector #6 (Robert Weinberg, 1980) when he casually incriminated the following advertisements which had been run in the pulp magazine Railroad Stories over October and November 1936. Name of a little blue monkey, but the f***ing indignity of it, eh? !!!
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Post by Johnlprobert on Nov 2, 2009 14:26:55 GMT
Mr Quinn was no fool when it came to putting his stories together, and he knew very well that putting a naked or almost-naked lady into a tale would almost guarantee it a nice and naughty cover painting for whichever issue of Weird Tales it went into. I've got the three volume set of De Grandin tales that reproduces all the covers on their dust jackets and Quinn probably got cover space more often than 'worthier' tales because of his judicious use of scenes in which ladies' clothes fell off. That laxative advert is yet another reason I love Vault. I've seen those pictures of De Grandin & Trowbridge before but their origin is a scream
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Post by andydecker on Nov 2, 2009 18:24:27 GMT
Laxative??? I don´t belive it ... Priceless. Say, one thing I never understood. What is the thing with de Grandin´s idiotic swearing? Okay, you couldn´t write "what the fuck" in 1934. This I get. But what is the meaning of this "name of whatever, blue man, blue monkey, etc" It doesn´t even makes sense. I never encountered a similar synonym for swearing in other pulp of the time.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 2, 2009 20:52:48 GMT
Mr Quinn was no fool when it came to putting his stories together, and he knew very well that putting a naked or almost-naked lady into a tale would almost guarantee it a nice and naughty cover painting for whichever issue of Weird Tales it went into. I've got the three volume set of De Grandin tales that reproduces all the covers on their dust jackets and Quinn probably got cover space more often than 'worthier' tales because of his judicious use of scenes in which ladies' clothes fell off. I think Quinn was very taken with Margaret Brundage's paintings and, knowing she was something of a specialist in female nudes, always made certain to include a decent woman in peril scene she could get her teeth into. Alternatively, i guess it could just be that he enjoyed writing those scenes - it's not as if he scrimps on attention to detail. One contemporary Weird Tales author, i'm almost certain it was Lovecraft, was reputedly so offended by these issues that he'd tear off the covers before he could even think of reading the magazine. hey andy, never mind his "idiotic swearing", what i'd like to know is how comes the words SCIENCE FICTION came to be emblazoned on the covers!
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Nov 2, 2009 20:54:32 GMT
Man after my own heart. Inspiration to us all
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Post by williemeikle on Nov 2, 2009 21:18:54 GMT
Laxative??? I don´t belive it ... Priceless. Say, one thing I never understood. What is the thing with de Grandin´s idiotic swearing? Okay, you couldn´t write "what the fuck" in 1934. This I get. But what is the meaning of this "name of whatever, blue man, blue monkey, etc" It doesn´t even makes sense. I never encountered a similar synonym for swearing in other pulp of the time. In Scotland it's still pretty common to curse "in the name of the wee man"
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Post by andydecker on Nov 2, 2009 22:32:02 GMT
Lol, that was idiotic, wasn´t it? Makes you wonder about those martini dinners those editors were famous for These editions are among the best they ever did. A good foreword, the map, the portraits. Even a good selection of stories.
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