Night Creatures

by Seabury Quinn, Peter Ruber, Joseph Wrzos

The name of Seabury Quinn (1889–1969) is inextricably linked with the 'unique magazine', Weird Tales, to which he contributed some one hundred and fifty-nine stories and articles, making him that publication's most prolific contributor. His most conspicuous success was the series of tales featuring the occult detective Jules de Grandin, which always left readers clamouring for more. Indeed, de Grandin almost became to Quinn what Sherlock Holmes became to Arthur Conan so overwhelmingly popular a creation that he threatened to overshadow completely his author's other successes. However, Seabury Quinn, like Conan Doyle, had a great deal more to offer than a single character. During his lifetime Quinn read widely in the fields of horror, supernatural, and weird fiction, as well as ranging further afield through books devoted to the occult, mysticism, witchcraft, legends, Satanism, and ancient religious customs. He was thus able to imbue his weird fiction with historical and socio

Genres: Horror, Fantasy

268 pages, Hardcover

First published September 5, 2003

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

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is actually a collection of stories by Seabury Quinn published by Ash-Tree Press and edited by Peter Ruber and Joseph Wrzos.

Although I think a stronger De Grandin story could have been chosen (this one is not bad), this is an excellent sampler of Quinn's work, giving the lie to the notion that the man's entire corpus consists of hackwork. It must be remembered that Lovecraft himself expressed the opinon that Quinn was a "brilliant figure" ruined by "the effect of commerce", and among the stories in this book, at least "The Golden Spider", "Glamour", "Is the Devil a Gentleman", and "The Phantom Farmhouse" confirm Lovecraft's opinion of Quinn at his best.

Contents are as follows:

"The Golden Spider"
"The Gentle Werewolf"
"Mortmain"
"Uncanonized"
"The Thing in the Fog" (De Grandin adventure #52)
"Two Shall Be Born"
"Glamour"
"Masked Ball"
"Is the Devil a Gentleman?"
"There Are Such Things"
"The Phantom Farm House"

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seabury Quinn is one of those authors whose works, after being lapped up by the readers over decades, suddenly finds himself overshadowed by other contemporaries who are often producing works shoddier than his, and yet are managing to get them sold just because his works are dated. This handsomely produced collection from the Ash Tree Press is a good representative of his works. The stories in this collection are: -

1) The Golden Spider;
2) The Gentle Werewolf;
3) Mortmain;
4) Uncanonized;
5) The Thing in the Fog (a Jules de Grandin story);
6) Two Shall Be Born;
7) Glamour;
8) Masked Ball;
9) Is the Devil a Gentleman?;
10) There Are Such Things;
11) The Phantom Farm House.

These stories have considerable old-worldly charm, and is much better than those stuff that used to fill the 'Weird Tales' magazine.