The Horror Pulps

[bendk]

Does anyone besides me have a weakness for old horror pulp fiction? The stories are over-the-top, but the adjective-laden prose does contain a certain charm for those receptive to it. They are the literary equivalent of a B-Movie. In these pages you can read how "A Satanic Spirit Spreads Havoc in an Unholy Campaign of Destruction" or "From the Well of Silence Comes the Mocking Laughter Of a Loathsome Lord of Evil". How can you resist "Abyss of the Wailing Dead", "Hall of Crawling Desire","The Molemen Want Your Eyes", "Debutantes for the Damned", or "I, Satan, Take Thee, Sin Child..". It might not be literature, but it's fun. The cover art contributes a lot to the collectibility of these magazines. The scantily clad women in peril went right for the jugular of the reader demographic.








There are a few publishers that reprint pulp replicas. The best, IMO, is Girasol Collectibles. These are a bit pricey at $25 each (on average) but they have the look and feel of the real thing. They are facsimiles, including all the stories and advertisements.

http://www.girasolcollectables.com/

http://www.adventurehouse.com/

The following site contains many covers photos. My favorites are in the Spicy line, so the link will take you there first, but they also have Weird Tales, Horror Stories, Terror Tales, etc.

http://www.coverbrowser.com/search?q...mystery&page=2


A good overview of the the Weird Menace pulps can be found in the book The Shudder Pulps by Robert Kenneth Jones. (This doesn't cover Weird Tales). The hardcover edition is shown here.

[G. S. Carnivals]

I have never collected actual pulp magazines, but I have compensated somewhat. I own a wonderful coffee table book called The Pulps: Fifty Years of American Pop Culture which was compiled and edited by Tony Goodstone. It reprints many pieces of fiction in facsimile format which is great because one is treated to the original visual appearance of the works including illustrations, blurbs, and even vintage advertising. The book covers the pulp genres of Adventure, Sports, Aviation and War, Western and Frontier, Detective and Mystery, Innocence, Sex, Supernatural, Science Fiction, and Heroes. The Pulps also presents several pages of color cover plates representing the various genre magazines. I highly recommend this book.

Two other pulp facsimile books I own are Hard-Boiled Dames edited by Bernard Drew and Secret of the Earth Star which features pulp science fiction by Henry Kuttner (Starmont House, 1991). Weird Tales: 32 Unearthed Terrors edited by Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Robert Weinberg, and Martin H. Greenberg at least reproduces original story artwork and blurbs.

I also own several other anthologies devoted specifically to pulp-era fiction in the weird, science fiction, and crime genres. I wax nostalgic for a bygone era I never lived through, alas.

[Odalisque]

I have a small collection of old issues of Weird Tales. There's something about the crumbly yellowing paper of the originals... the smell of them... the feel of them upon my fingers... all amounting to something rather wonderful... something that reprints don't capture. Most of the stories are rubbish, of course, but there's something wonderful about them, too. Reprints seek to reproduce only the best, which is all very well, but not the full pulp experience.

[Joel]

I used to collect some 1940s pulps (especially Weird Tales), but I find pages that crumble when you touch them a bit depressing. I do collect book reprints of pulp fiction, both horror and crime – from the Arkham House classics (or cheaper reprints) to the likes of Woolrich and Hammett. I think the best of pulp fiction is as good as anything in the weird fiction and crime fiction genres.

Because I'm mostly reading reprint collections and anthologies, I feel the 1940s Weird Tales is rather underrated relative to the 'Golden Age' 1930s version. True, there's no more new Lovecraft, Howard or Smith – but you have early Bradbury, Leiber and Sturgeon, some of the best of Bloch and Wellman: groundbreaking work that resonates with modern weird fiction. I don't personally feel that the English ghost story tradition has stood up half as well – it's rather like comparing the challenge and intensity of Hammett or Woolrich with the cosy puzzle-solving of Agatha Christie. There are, of course, great stories in both traditions, but I don't accept the literary snobbery that consigns American pulp fiction to a lower stratum than books written as 'literary' collections in the UK.

But of course, the picture is more complex than that. American pulp horror was more influenced by the fevered Gothic imagination of Machen and Hodgson than the English ghost story was. In Wells, Machen, Blackwood and Hodgson we see brilliant possibilities abandoned by the English ghost story writers, but taken up and developed by American pulp fiction. That was the first, and most far-reaching, cultural British Invasion.

[Odalisque]

Quote Originally Posted by Joel

But of course, the picture is more complex than that. American pulp horror was more influenced by the fevered Gothic imagination of Machen and Hodgson than the English ghost story was. In Wells, Machen, Blackwood and Hodgson we see brilliant possibilities abandoned by the English ghost story writers, but taken up and developed by American pulp fiction. That was the first, and most far-reaching, cultural British Invasion.

Without checking, I feel pretty sure that Wells, Machen, Blackwood and Hodgson were all reprinted in Weird Tales, something that maybe confirms your idea.

I can't put my hand on it at this minute, but somewhere I have a printing of an M R James letter responding to a copy of Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature someone had sent him. His revealed attitude to both Lovecraft and Machen seemed to me unpleasantly snobbish.

[Joel]

The two Blackwood stories were new, and included the excellent 'Roman Remains'. The two Machen stories were minor. The only Hodgson story reprinted in WT was 'The Hog', though four of his sea horror stories appeared in the 1970s Moskowitz-edited revival of WT. Three good Wells stories were reprinted. What's notable is that work by these authors blended in naturally with new work by American authors in WT. But so, to be fair, did reprints of ghost stories by E.F. Benson and six new stories by H.R. Wakefield, at least one of which ('A Black Solitude') had a cover illustration. from the 1940s onwards, August Derleth's anthologies blended the weird fiction traditions or sub-genres in an audacious and memorable way.

[Odalisque]

Quote Originally Posted by Joel

The only Hodgson story reprinted in WT was 'The Hog'...

Which begs the question, did Hodgson write The Hog? I once intended to attempt to settle that question by comparing such things as the structure of sentences in The Hog with those in stories Hodgson is known to have written. My initial work with this revealed what seemed to me significant differences in style. But the work proved to dull and laborious for me. (Or, as others might put it, I was too lazy too complete the work.)

This link about Hodgson's authorship of "The Hog" might be of interest:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/alt...c59fb0d8227ae1

Mark S.

[Evans]

Quote Originally Posted by Odalisque

I can't put my hand on it at this minute, but somewhere I have a printing of an M R James letter responding to a copy of Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature someone had sent him. His revealed attitude to both Lovecraft and Machen seemed to me unpleasantly snobbish.

Here it is:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveMRJLetter.html

I seem to remember something about Machen having written James a letter praising his Canon Alberic's Scrapbook.

Quote Originally Posted by Joel

The two Blackwood stories were new, and included the excellent 'Roman Remains'. The two Machen stories were minor.

Out of interest which stories were they?

[Odalisque]

Quote Originally Posted by Evans

Quote Originally Posted by Odalisque I can't put my hand on it at this minute, but somewhere I have a printing of an M R James letter responding to a copy of Lovecraft's Supernatural Horror in Literature someone had sent him. His revealed attitude to both Lovecraft and Machen seemed to me unpleasantly snobbish. Here it is: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveMRJLetter.html

That's it! The passage on Machen I had in mind is: Arthur Machen has a nasty after-taste: rather a foul mind I think, but clever as they make 'em.