The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales: The Evolution of Modern Fantasy and Horror

by Justin Everett (Editor), Jeffrey H. Shanks (Editor)

When the pulp magazine Weird Tales appeared on newsstands in 1923, it proved to be a pivotal moment in the evolution of speculative fiction. Living up to its nickname, “The Unique Magazine,” Weird Tales provided the first real venue for authors writing in the nascent genres of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Weird fiction pioneers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Catherine L. Moore, and many others honed their craft in the pages of Weird Tales in the 1920s and 1930s, and their work had a tremendous influence on later generations of genre authors.In The Unique Legacy of Weird The Evolution of Modern Fantasy and Horror, Justin Everett and Jeffrey Shanks have assembled an impressive collection of essays that explore many of the themes critical to understanding the importance of the magazine. This multi-disciplinary collection from a wide array of scholars looks at how Weird Tales served as a locus of genre formation and literary discourse community. There are also chapters devoted to individual authors—including Lovecraft, Howard, and Bloch—and their particular contributions to the magazine.As the literary world was undergoing a revolution and mass-produced media began to dwarf high-brow literature in social significance, Weird Tales managed to straddle both worlds. This collection of essays explores the important role the magazine played in expanding the literary landscape at a very particular time and place in American culture. The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales will appeal to scholars and aficionados of fantasy, horror, and weird fiction and those interested in the early roots of these popular genres.

Genres: Nonfiction, Horror, Literary Criticism, Essays, Weird Fiction, History

426 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 15, 2015

Reviews

[Nicolai Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anthology of academic essays on the history of the magazine Weird Tales, its significance, its community and literary intelligentsia, the genre of weird fiction and some of the most prominent weird fiction writers during the magazine’s first decades (it first appeared in 1923, had its heyday in the 1930’s and ceased publication for the first time in 1954). Which basically means the trio of – The Lovecraft Circle - H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith.

Having read very little of Howard before this, I enjoyed the essays on him and his writing the least, unfortunately, but most of the other essays, particularly the ones about Lovecraft and Smith – and what exactly differentiates them - were my favorites. Geoffrey Reiter helped me better understand Smith’s world views through his world-building, and I’m especially pleased to finally read some analysis of Smith’s poetry.

I think this is a great book to read if you want to dive deep into the core of the Weird Tales as a magazine, but also if you want to learn more about Lovecraft, Smith, Howard and the establishment and evolution of weird fiction (+ sword-and-sorcery). They all seemed to have been inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, but they also wanted to create something bold, new and different, despite the relatively low popularity and small paycheck, and they did it while also creating a community around it and encouraged and inspired each other. It’s really quite awesome what they accomplished, and I’ll definitely come back to many of these essays in the future!

Here is a detailed table of contents and my ratings of each essay:


Justin Everett and Jeffrey Shanks - Introduction: Weird Tales-Discourse Community and Genre Nexus - ★★★★★


Part 1: The Unique Magazine: Weird Tales, Modernism and Genre Formation

1. Jason Ray Carney - "Something that swayed as if in unison": The Artistic Authenticity of Weird Tales in the Interwar Periodical Culture of Modernism - ★★★★★

2. Jonas Prida - Weird Modernism: Literary Modernism in the First Decade of Weird Tales - ★★★★

3. Daniel Nyikos - The Lovecraft Circle and the “Weird Class”: “Against the Complacency of an Orthodox Sun-Dweller” - ★★★★★

4. Nicole Emmelhainz - Strange Collaborations: Shared Authorship and Weird Tales - ★★★★

5. Morgan Holmes - Gothic to Cosmic: Sword and Sorcery Fiction in Weird Tales - ★★★


Part 2: Eich-Pi-El and Two-Gun Bob: Lovecraft and Howard in Weird Tales

6. Clancy Smith - A Nameless Horror: Madness and Metamorphosis in H.P. Lovecraft and Post-modernism - ★★★★

7. Bobby Derie - Great Phallic Monoliths: Lovecraft and Sexuality - ★★

8. Jeffrey H. Shanks – Evolutionary Otherness: Anthropological Anxiety in Robert E. Howard’s “Worm of the Earth” - ★★

9. Justin Everett -Eugenic Thought in the Works of Robert E. Howard - ★★


Part 3: Masters of the Weird: Other Authors of Weird Tales

10. Scott Connors – Pegasus Unbridled: Clark Ashton Smith and the Ghettoization of the Fantastic - ★★★★

11. Geoffrey Reiter – “A Round Cipher”: World-Building and World-building in the Weird Works of Clark Ashton Smith - ★★★★★

12. Jonathan Helland – C. L. Moore, M. Brundage and Jirel of Joiry: Women and Gender in the October 1934 Weird Tales - ★★★★

13. Paul W. Shovlin – Psycho-ology 101: Incipient Madness in the Weird Tales of Robert Bloch - ★★★

14. Sidney Sondergard – “To Hell and Gone”: Harald Lawlor’s Self-Effacing Pulp Metafiction - ★★★

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of scholarly essays from academic journals on the earlier version (1923-1953) of Weird Tales, the magazine, its editors, the stories, and its authors, even its fans, but only one of the artists who contributed the covers or the interior art, curiously enough. There are a number of articles on the big three: Lovecraft, Howard, and Smith. But even the lesser-known writers get coverage.

One of the best things about this collection of essays were the ones that provided biographical information. Scott Connors' article titled "Pegasus Unbridled: Clark Ashton Smith and the Ghettoization of the Fantastic" was probably my favorite, if I had to pick just one. It documents in detail the difficulties Smit had in getting his work published. In the early 1930s he was hopeful and extremely productive. Editors had a surplus of Smith stories they had bought and could run in their magazines whenever they wanted to. But as time went on Smith's life got harder and he faced so many disappointments from a reading public who couldn't properly appreciate him. The detailed analysis of all these factors was so well written and fascinating. Smith was uncompromising. He blamed the reading public for being idiots, by and large stuck to his aesthetics, and having read him I see where he was coming from. Smith was right, of course. On the other hand, I understand why the public has such a hard time appreciating him. I too find his work challenging to read, sometimes hard to appreciate, and I go through it very, very slowly. It takes me a while to go from one Smith story to the next. Nevertheless, at his best, I respect the hell out of what Smith was trying to do.

That's only one small point made in an essay with so many good points. Connors includes a lot about Smith's relationships with other writers, his editors, etc. He also writes a lot about how limited the market for well-written supernatural fiction was and how it got even narrower. Smith tried to write science fiction and other popular works simply to be able to make sales, but he just hated it. It wasn't what he wanted to write at all. So eventually his output slowed to a trickle.

This collection had tons of essays about various weird fiction writers that was so informative. I could go on and on. For example, take C.L. Moore of Jirel of Joiry fame. I read it and didn't care for it. But now that I know the context around it, the revolution it represents in weird fiction, and that it was only one of Moore's works, and probably not her best, well, I'm much more eager to give Moore another try.

I highly recommend this book for fans of the classic 1923-1953 period of weird fiction. There's hardly a single aspect of it that it doesn't touch on, and it goes deep into some of the most interesting ones, stays shallow perhaps on others of interest, such as the art or the fan base influence. If you are not well read in these authors or have limited interest in the period or type of literature they wrote, this book will be too much. You're not ready. Pass it up until you reach the point in your life when like me you come to the realization that these folks were writing the literature that should be the canon, what should be "the classics," rather than the pedestrian stuff Norton anthologies and university classrooms are peddling.