A Rival From the Grave

The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin #4

by Seabury Quinn

The fourth of five volumes collecting the stories of Jules de Grandin, the supernatural detective made famous in the classic pulp magazine Weird Tales.



Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn.



Quinn’s short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales’s original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. In de Grandin there are familiar shades of both Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and alongside his assistant, Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, de Grandin’s knack for solving mysteries—and his outbursts of peculiar French-isms (grand Dieu!)—captivated readers for nearly three decades.



Collected for the first time in trade editions, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero.



The fourth volume, A Rival from the Grave, will include all the stories from “The Chosen of Vishnu” (1933) to “Incense of Abomination” (1938), as well as an introduction by George Vanderburgh and Robert Weinberg and a foreword by Mike Ashley.

Genres: Horror, Mystery, Occult Detective, Anthologies, Fiction, Fantasy, Weird Fiction

723 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 25, 2018

About the author

Best know as an American pulp author for Weird Tales, for which he wrote a series of stories about occult detective Jules de Grandin. He was the author of non-fiction legal and medical texts and editor of Casket & Sunnyside, a trade journal for mortuary jurisprudence. He also published fiction for Embalming Magazine, another mortuary periodical.

Reviews

[Karl]

CONTENTS:

vii - Introduction by George A. Vanderburgh and Robert E. Weinberg
xii - Keeping the Golden Age Alive by Mike Ashley

1933

001 - "The Chosen of Vishnu" (Weird Tales, August 1933)
033 - "Malay Horror" (Weird Tales, September 1933)
056 - "The Mansion of Unholy Magic" (Weird Tales, October 1933)
083 - "Red Gauntlets of Czerni" (Weird Tales, December 1933*)

1934

109 - "The Red Knife of Hassan" (Weird Tales, January 1934)
134 - "The Jest of Warburg Tantavul" (Weird Tales, September 1934)

1935

157 - "Hands of the Dead" (Weird Tales, January 1935)
182 - "The Black Orchid" (Weird Tales, August 1935)
202 - "The Dead-Alive Mummy" (Weird Tales, October 1935)

1936

221 - "A Rival from the Grave" (Weird Tales, January 1936)
248 - "Witch-House" (Weird Tales, November 1936)

1937

277 - "Children of the Bat" (Weird Tales, January 1937)
305 - "Satan’s Palimpsest" (Weird Tales, September 1937)
333 - "Pledged to the Dead" (Weird Tales, October 1937)
356 - "Living Buddhess" (Weird Tales, November 1937)
379 - "Flames of Vengeance" (Weird Tales, December 1937)

1938

405 - "Frozen Beauty" (Weird Tales, February 1938)
430 - "Incense of Abomination" (Weird Tales, March 1938)

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another set of adventures for the redoubtable Jules de Grandin.

While not high literature, they are quite rousing to read, and an excellent example of the pulp fiction genre, and Seabury Quinn deserves more recognition, and to be in the same category (IMO) as Robert E Howard, HPL, and CA Smith for being a stalwart of their genre.

As a warning, since these are different times with different mores, I always try to distance author from art as much as possible, [HPL being a more obvious example] but fair warning: as with much fiction from bygone eras, there are some potential triggers for more sensitive souls.

[Per · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Chosen of Vishnu
https://archive.org/details/WeirdTale...

Malay Horror
https://archive.org/details/WeirdTale...

The Mansion of Unholy Magic
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

Red Gauntlets of Czerni
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

The Red Knife of Hassan
https://archive.org/details/WeirdTale...

The Jest of Warburg Tantavul
https://archive.org/details/weirdtale...

Hands of the Dead
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

The Black Orchid
https://archive.org/details/WeirdTale...

The Dead-Alive Mummy
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

A Rival From the Grave
https://archive.org/details/WeirdTale...

Witch-House
https://archive.org/details/WeirdTale...

Children of the Bat
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

Satan's Palimpsest
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

Pledged to the Dead
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

Living Buddhess
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

Flames of Vengeance
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

Frozen Beauty
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

Incense of Abomination
https://archive.org/details/Weird_Tal...

[Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

The conceited blonde French occultist rides again!

Jules de Grandin was an occult detective in the same vein as Carnacki the Ghost-Finder and John Silence. The stories were published in Weird Tales, a 1930’s and 1940’s pulp magazine that also featured the stories of HP Lovecraft (Cthulhu Mythos) and Robert E Howard (Conan.)

De Grandin is a Frenchman, small and blond haired with tiny feet. He is irascible and totally convinced of his own importance. He appears to be an expert in any type of monster hunting, from vampires to ghosts. He knows strange lore from many lands, having actually lived for a time in such far-flung locations as Laos and Tibet.

As a detective, he is a former member of the French Sûreté. Sometimes the stories feature a colleague of de Grandin, the diminutive Inspector Renouard.

According to an official list of Jules de Grandin stories, there is perhaps enough left for one more volume. I’m looking forward to it. I want to touch briefly on each tale. I try to give no spoilers, but a warning here soothes the folks who fear them!
• “The Chosen of Vishnu” deals with a Western woman who was raised in a temple in India. Upon escaping to the USA, she is tracked by devotees… Kudus for the marigolds!
• “The Malay Horror” concerns a lady haunted by a most unusual ghost…
• “The Mansion of Unholy Magic” is a story of the Putnam Mansion. The estate is haunted by crowds of bloodthirsty cadavers…
• “Red Gauntlets” is a case of possession by an evil spirit…
• “The Red Knife of Hassan” presents the case of a woman’s body dredged from the bay. It sets in motion a battle with an ancient cult of assassins.
• “The Jest of Warburg Tantuval” concerns a man who plans devilry for his son and wife. It will be from beyond the Grave! Best in Book!
• “The Hands of the Dead” is about a young woman maimed by a horrible accident. After surgery, she finds she has skills she did not have before…
• “The Black Orchid deals with a man and his niece. For some reason, they are suffering from blood loss, as if a vampire was loose in the house…
• “The Dead Alive Mummy” is a dark tale of an unearthed mummy. The tablet in its sarcophagus promises that the mummy will live again…
• “A Rival from the Grave” involves a man named Frasier Taviton. When his wife passes away, he remarries. The event sets off a horrific haunting. Kudos for the use of x-rays! Who you gonna call?
• “The Witch House” tells the story of a young woman accused of witchcraft and drowned as punishment. After 200 years, another young woman finds herself in danger. What a strange little white kitten!
• “Children of the Bat” is a story of a deadly lady. A woman is found crucified to the wall of a nightclub, the victim of a Mexican Secret Society. A message is found inscribed on a bat’s wing left at the scene…
• “The Devil’s Palmist” is a tale of a religious icon concealing a secret evil…
• “Pledged to the Dead” is about the graveyards of haunted New Orleans and a pale young lady apparently living there. Kudos for the snake!
• “The Living Buddhess” features a young woman possessed by an Oriental spirit…
• “Flames of Vengeance” deals with a family under a curse that was first placed on an ancestor while he was in India…
• “Frozen Beauty” presents the tale of a young woman whose body has been frozen in dry ice…
• “Incense of Abomination” concerns devil worship and young men driven to suicide…

This book is great! The volumes are nice and look good on the shelf. I give it five stars and look forward to volume five!

Quoth the Raven…

[Tracy Rowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Old genre fiction is often delightful, sometimes perturbing, and almost always informative in terms of the history of the genre in question. The Jules de Grandin stories were new to me, as was the author, Seabury Quinn. The stories in this volume, #4 of 5, were all published in Weird Tales in the 1930s, and though obviously dated, they are still remarkably fresh and appealing.

De Grandin is an occult detective, in much the same way Harry Dresden is. Though not the first of his kind, de Grandin was extremely popular in his time. There's a bit of Sherlock Holmes about him, which never hurts, but his adventures are lively pulp stories with vaguely sexual overtones, and filled with one-dimensional villains (often non-white, about which more in a moment) and beautiful young women in grave danger. It's all good fun. Mostly.

The part that isn't is, of course, the author's treatment of non-white characters as monstrously evil, depraved, stupid, or just quaint. He sometimes writes them with cartoon accents and inflections (The rendering of an elderly Chinese servant made me cringe.) To a lesser extent, the women in the stories are simply objects to be rescued, lusted after, or used. That it was the common way of writing this genre of story in that era isn't really good enough to make it acceptable, but it does go a long way toward explaining what's going on. A thoughtful reader can certainly enjoy the stories without endorsing the more questionable elements.

So, read them for fun, and for the sake of the history of this genre. And don't skip the introductions which are informative and interesting. If you're a fan of the genre, these stories are real pleasures.

[Steve Rainwater · Rating 3 out of 5]

More Jules de Grandin mysteries...

See my review of volume one for the background, everything in that review applies to this volume. The writing continues to improve a bit over time. This volume had a higher percentage of supernatural stories compared to the stories where de Grandin debunks some believed supernatural occurrence. I find the latter more entertaining so not quite as many wins in this volume. On the other hand this volume contains the first straight up science fiction story - about a woman who had been put in suspended animation by a now deceased scientist and de Grandin must reverse-engineer the process in order to wake the sleeper. Overall, I continue to enjoy the stories enough that I'm moving on to Vol 5 next.

[Shawn Manning · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where do I begin

I am well acquainted with Mr.Quinn's writing, so I expected a fair amount of bigotry, but he really swings for the bleachers, here. Not only is every ethnicity disparaged, but he also seems pretty comfortable with incest and murder.
I confess, the draw here, for me has always been the over the top dialogue. In that he delivers. The stories themselves aren't any complex bits of detective work, but suffice.

In short, if you are easily offended, it's best you avoid this one.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun pulp as always

As with the first three volumes from Night Shade Books, Jules De Grandin strikes again, thwarting evil at every turn whether by human or supernatural by design. As always, this is fun pulp. But, not to be construed as unimportant like the literary critics would like you to believe. This straight forward prose may not be fancy, so what?

[Jose Gomez-Rivera · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Jules de Grandin and Seabury Quinn you know you're in for pulp at its best

I love Jules de Grandin and the rock licking occult adventures he champions. It is all too true that the writing and plots are uneven in quality but they all offer excitement; like different quality rollercoasters .

[Dan Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fine selection of Quinn's pulp supernatural detective's tales. The casual racism was perhaps more evident in some, particularly in the author's attempts to represent the patois of Haitian and Irish characters. The stories are a product of a time when such things were more common.

[Annarella · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great discovery!
I read one story at a time and it was wonderful and entertaing.
A very good book, highly recommended!

[John Savadel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't care for it. Put it down before finishing the first story. Very dated prose, and slow pacing.

[Carolyn Evans]

Interesting

The stories are spooky, but there are uncomfortable stereotypes from the period in which these stories were written as well.

[D J Rout · Rating 3 out of 5]

the tales move more inot the ghostly than the horrific, and begin to sound the same. a reasonably enjoyable read, but not up to the standards of the first two books in this series.