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Post by dem bones on Dec 16, 2022 11:36:44 GMT
Gene Christie [ed.] - The People of the Pit & Other Early Horrors from the Munsey Pulps (Black Dog, 2010) Robert Weinberg - Foreword
Gene Christie - Introduction
A. Merritt -The People of the Pit
Francis Stevens - Behind the Curtain
Edgar Rice Burroughs - Number Thirteen (excerpt)
John Blunt - The Orchid Horror
George Allan England - The Tenth Question
Achmed Abdullah - Disappointment
Owen Oliver - The Pretty Woman
Tod Robbins - The Living Portrait
Talbot Mundy - An Offer of Two to One
J.U Geisy - Beyond the Violet
C. Langton Clarke - The Elixir of Life
Sax Rohmer - The Mystery of the Shrivelled Hand
Damon Runyon - Fear
Perley Poore Sheehan - Monsieur de Guise
Philip M. Fisher, Jr - The Ship of Silent Men
About the Authors Blurb: EARLY HORROR STORIES FROM THE MUNSEY PULPS, 1903-1922
"In general... the Munsey publications did more to publish weird fiction" than any other magazine enterprise of the early 20th century." - H.P. Lovecraft to Richard F. Seawright, March 31, 1932.
Long before the stories in Weird Tales sent shivers down the spine, far in advance of the groundbreaking Dracula, Frankenstein and similar Universal horror films of the 1930s, Frank A. Munsey's pulp magazines were thrilling their millions of readers with edge-of-your-seat tales of terror by fledgling authors who would go on to dominate American popular literature.
Collected within these pages are 15 thrillers by A. Merritt, Francis Stevens, Sax Rohmer, Tod Robbins, Damon Runyon, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Talbot Mundy, George Allan England and others, many reprinted for the first time since their original magazine appearances as long as a century ago.
Edited and with an introduction by Gene Christie.
With a foreword by Robert Weinberg. Author of Horror of the 20th CenturyThis looks promising. Selections from All Story Weekly, Argosy, The Scrap Book and Munsey's, published between 1903-1922. Robert Weinberg's preface deplores much contemporary horror fiction, as exemplified by"a trend called 'Splatterpunk' which is still quite popular," for, unlike the golden age pulps, it "murders good taste." Maybe, but wasn't the same accusation levelled at early Weird Tales (the famously "banned" May-June-July 1924 bumper issue), the "Spicy's" and sex-and-sadism shudder pulps of the mid-late 30s?  Martin Gambee. The People of the Pit, Amazing Stories, March 1927. *: ( All-Story Weekly, Jan. 5, 1918: Amazing Stories, March 1927). Here is an exceedingly clever story about intelligences which are absolutely incomprehensible to us-with almost invisible bodies floating through the air, yet possessing strange powers. A weird story that will remain with you long after you have read it. "I traced them out vaguely. Suddenly I felt unaccountably sick. There had come to me an impression of enormous upright slugs. Their swollen bodies were faintly cut—all except the heads which were well marked globes. They were — unutterably loathsome. I turned from the gates back to the void. I stretched myself upon the slab and looked over the edge ..."
"A stairway led down into the pit!" Two gold prospectors in Alaska are approached by a crawling horror which, on closer inspection, proves to be a bloody, dying man. Between gulps of whisky, Mr. Sinclair Stanton confides his terrible experience beneath the valley at the foot of the Injun-shunned mountain of the hand, a weird lost city populated by human-hating sentient lights. Long regarded an SF classic. Also available in Peter Haining's The Fantastic Pulps from 1975. Achmed Abdullah - Disappointment: ( All-Story Weekly: May 19, 1917; Wings: Tales of the Psychic, 1920). To the outrage of Parisian society, the mysterious, melancholy Prince Pavel Narodkine, the city's official #1 eligible bachelor, plays extremely hard to get. He shuns the high life, ignores debutantes, and refuses to invest in a mansion, preferring to make home in a poor district, where he might be at all times surrounded by people. The Prince lives out his miserable existence until the day Dr. Marc Henri is summoned to attend what neither realise is his death bed. Finally, Narodkine confides his woes. Although he has neither love of living nor fear of dying, his life has been one long morbid meditation on the final moment. "I fear death — not dying. I fear that fraction of a second when my body will step from life to death, don't you understand ? I dread the — ah — the utter uselessness of it and, too, the utter ignorance! What is it? What does it feel like? What does the whole mystery consist in? Why are we so helpless against it?" Story builds to a supernatural conclusion. Reader likely to see the punchline coming from a long way off. * I'll try provide scans of the original magazine artwork where available, but please note, brilliant cover painting aside, the book itself is illustration free.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 19, 2022 13:30:06 GMT
John Blunt - The Orchid Horror: ( The Argosy, Sept. 1911). "No such strain could be imagined as was put upon our party in the next fortnight. A bare chronicle of the events that befell us would not convey a tithe of what the suffering really meant. Menaced by reptiles, crawling creatures of every revolting description; attacked by the wild men of that forest region with their deadly blow-guns; racked by swamp fevers, and always pressing on-on into the unknown — in a silence that daily grew more and more oppressive the memory of that trip will be with me always in its harrowing details." Loring falls in love with the most beautiful woman on earth who regrets she cannot marry him unless he first placates orchid-obsessed father with a specimen of the impossibly rare Cattleyea Trixsemptia. Loring duly sets out for the Venezuelan jungle, only to learn that his fiancée makes a habit of this deadly carry on. If there is one thing she loves above rare orchids, it is admirers dying in pursuit of same on her behalf. Talbot Mundy - An Offer of Two to One: ( The Scrap Book, Nov. 1911). Levy the loan shark sneers when a business acquaintance suggests that a man can be killed by auto-suggestion. It might work on some jerk with a weak heart, but not some healthy, robust real man like him. Later that same evening, the moneylender has opportunity to prove his proud boast.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 20, 2022 10:47:12 GMT
J.U Geisy - Beyond the Violet: ( Argosy All-Story Weekly, 27 Nov. 1920). A "Different" Story. Shell shock has the most profound effect on Edward Stinson's eyesight. The lieutenant is blind to everything bar the colour violet and the spirits of the dead as they depart their bodies. "So far as his sight is concerned, Edward Stinson came back to a world of ghosts." The young man falls in love with Miss Allison Towne his nurse, visible to him only as a pair of hovering eyes. One day she falls sick .... George Allan England - The Tenth Question: ( All-Story Weekly, 18 Dec. 1915). Dr Naysmith is drugged unconscious and caged by Mr, Varian an urbane madman with a down on any doctor he perceives as incompetent. "Some years ago, in 1908 to be exact, a surgeon did me a tremendous, irreparable wrong, not through malice, but through ignorance, stupidity and misjudgement." Varian believes it his philanthropic duty to rid society of physicians and surgeons who fail to pass a simple test. Solve the puzzle and Naysmith will be released. Fail, and, like his three predecessors in the cage, he will be exposed to a blast of hydrocyanic acid gas. Francis Stevens - Behind the Curtain: ( All-Story Weekly, Sept. 21, 1918: Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Jan. 1940). A story of exquisitely cruel revenge. The antiquarian's greatest treasures were an ancient carved Egyptian coffin, and a lovely faithless wife —. Santallos the Egyptologist suspects the young wife he neglects of an affair with a mutual friend of her own age. Reworking of Poe's The Cask of Amontillado with a mummy's sarcophagus and ropey ending. As recently encountered in a posthumous Stevens collection, Sunfire! (2020).
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Post by dem bones on Dec 21, 2022 11:13:37 GMT
First pair are the stuff of Weird Tales under Edwin Baird's editorship. Owen Oliver - The Pretty Woman: ( All-Story Weekly, 24 March 1917). ( A "Different" Story. Asylum inmate confides in a visitor who "understands" him just why he was duty bound to murder dear, sweet, Bessie Markham. The silly little goose made him fall in love with her — and she a married woman, too! When his attempts to fool Bessie into believing her husband a murderer failed, there was nothing for it but to kill them both. C. Langton Clarke - The Elixir of Life: ( The Argosy, Dec. 1903). Allan Mortimer is drugged and strapped down by MAD SCIENTIST Dr. Armitage for liquidization of his vital forces. Armitage would've gotten away with it, too, were not Mortimer carrying home a tea casket full of gunpowder. Perley Poore Sheehan - Monsieur de Guise: ( The Scrap Book, Jan. 1911). Cedar Swamp setting for sweet, gentle love story of a phantom recluse and his beloved wife, the Duchesse Anna Marie, who nightly duet at the piano. As previously revived by Stefan Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg & Martin H. Greenberg in Vault favourite 100 Ghastly Little Ghost Stories, 1993. |
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Post by dem bones on Dec 22, 2022 12:25:12 GMT
Sax Rohmer - The Mystery of the Shrivelled Hand: (Munsey's, Feb. 1922). The Strange Story of Vengeance of the White Sheik of Tanta. Gizereh, Cairo. Addeley, a dissolute English millionaire, abducts the wife of Abdullah, the White Sheik, and demands she dance for him before guests. When her husband launches a rescue bid, Addeley severs his arm with a swipe of his sword. When next we hear of him, Adderley has returned to Westminster with the girl, who, understandably, despises him, as do the members of his club. The Sheik's ghost — and a casket containing his mummified hand — follow in pursuit ...
Damon Runyon - Fear : (All-Story Magazine , Nov. 1908). Simmons, the Chief of Police, beats a confession of murder from a from small-time crook despite the man's water-tight alibi. Simmons finds it laughable that men like John Kinzie, who put their lives on the line every time they commit a felony, can be terrified out of their wits by the fear of physical harm. What cowards they are! Why, there's nothing in this world could possibly unnerve him!
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Post by Swampirella on Dec 22, 2022 12:51:37 GMT
Sax Rohmer - The Mystery of the Shrivelled Hand: ( Munsey's, Feb. 1922). The Strange Story of Vengeance of the White Sheik of Tanta. Gizereh, Cairo. Addeley, a dissolute English millionaire, abducts the wife of Abdullah, the White Sheik, and demands she dance for him before guests. When her husband launches a rescue bid, Addeley severs his arm with a swipe of his sword. When next we hear of him, Adderley has returned to Westminster with the girl, who, understandably, despises him, as do the members of his club. The Sheik's ghost — and a casket containing his mummified hand — follow in pursuit ... Damon Runyon - Fear : ( All-Story Magazine , Nov. 1908). Simmons, the Chief of Police, beats a confession of murder from a from small-time crook despite the man's water-tight alibi. Simmons finds it laughable that men like John Kinzie, who put their lives on the line every time they commit a felony, can be terrified out of their wits by the fear of physical harm. What cowards they are! Why, there's nothing in this world could possibly unnerve him! The excellent Rohmer story can be read here:
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Post by helrunar on Dec 22, 2022 22:12:39 GMT
How lovely that one of Sax's less well known stories was included. Great to see.
cheers, Hel
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Post by dem bones on Dec 23, 2022 12:45:05 GMT
The excellent Rohmer story can be read here: Several of these can be found on Archive.org. Been having a good time with this selection. Edgar Rice Burroughs - Number Thirteen (excerpt): ( All-Story Magazine, Nov. 1913 as "A Man Without a Soul." First published in book form as The Monster Men, 1929). Professor Maxon sets up camp on a remote Southeast Asian island to pursue his unethical experiments away from prying eyes. Maxon has outdone Victor Frankenstein in creating an ominous thirteen creatures, each a significant improvement on its predecessor. But the project is not without considerable risk, and now two of these 'men without souls' have escaped the vats and fled into the jungle. Worse, far worse, the cretinous Number One has abducted Virginia, the professor's mandatory beautiful daughter! Number one staggers on with his prize, only to meet Number Thirteen, who takes an immediate fancy to Virginia — just as well, really, as her father intends for them to wed (Maxon's devious colleague, Dr Carl Von Horn, is determined to have a good go on her before this happens). The lab-created supermen engage in a death struggle.... I'm not the biggest fan of extracts from longer works unless, like this one, they work as self-contained stories in their own right. Want to read the damn novel now. |
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Post by dem bones on Dec 27, 2022 21:37:21 GMT
 Virgil Finlay, Fantastic Novels Magazine, Nov.1949 : ( All-Story Weekly, 5 April, 1919: Fantastic Novels Magazine, Nov.1949). The dread desire he had never acknowledged looked out at him from that tormented canvas — taunting him with the bloody deed it meant to do ..... and the face of the killer was his own! Narrated by Gustave "I am not insane!" Ericson, Mad Scientist, from his padded cell in the Lunatic Asylum. Ericson's frustration got the better of him when foppish colleague, Paul Grey, not only married the girl they both loved, but claimed his partner's greatest triumph, Zodium - proved to extend the average life span by ten years - as his own. Seething over the twin betrayal in a New York Hotel, Ericson is approached by Anthony Worthing, genius portrait artist, who requests his services as a model. It transpires that Worthing paints only those individuals preordained to commit murder. On completion of his masterpiece, a gloating Worthing informs the subject, "I have painted your soul." Henceforth the figure on the canvas constantly mocks and harangues Ericson, demanding he destroy not only Grey but also his own father. When the scientist throws acid at the canvas, his image comes back nastier than ever .... Pacey The Portrait of Dorian Gray meets Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde thrills. Illustration depicts the protagonist (in asbestos safety suit) exposing the portrait to lethal gas, the purple veil — but what will happen should his tormentor endure? |
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Post by helrunar on Dec 28, 2022 12:43:34 GMT
Amazing work as always by Finlay--this one is quite exceptionally phantasmagoric.
Happy Day After Day After Boxing Day!
cheers, Hel.
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Post by helrunar on Dec 28, 2022 13:13:39 GMT
Miss Scarlett, thanks so much for the link to Sax Rohmer's story! It really was a nice little gem. I enjoyed reading it very much.
A very characteristic Sax Rohmer line: "London can be infinitely more lonely than any desert."
cheers, Hel.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 28, 2022 16:02:18 GMT
 Hannes Bok : ( All-Story Weekly, 3 Jan. 1920: Fantastic Novels Magazine, Feb.1941: Startling Mystery Stories #11, Winter 1968-1969). A masterpiece of weird fiction conceived in the eerie vastness of a mysterious ocean. Finally for The People of the Pit, an atmospheric, rationalised zombie novella. The captain of the steamship Lanoa soon comes to regret answering a distress signal amid a freak cold spell and manic electrical storm. The stricken, silent vessel, aglow with a menacing phosphorescence, is manned by walking corpses, ghastly yellow of skin and bone-freezing to the touch. |
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Post by Swampirella on Dec 28, 2022 16:57:36 GMT
Miss Scarlett, thanks so much for the link to Sax Rohmer's story! It really was a nice little gem. I enjoyed reading it very much. A very characteristic Sax Rohmer line: "London can be infinitely more lonely than any desert." cheers, Hel. You're welcome, Hel. I also really liked it. |
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Post by helrunar on Dec 28, 2022 20:07:57 GMT
Amazing art from Hannes Bok. My thought upon contemplating this drawing was, "obviously, his bunkmate looked nothing at all like his photograph on Grindr."
cheers, Hel.
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