Tales of Magic and Mystery was a pulp magazine which published five monthly issues from December 1927 to April 1928. It was edited by Walter Gibson, and published a mixture of fiction and articles on magic. It is now mainly remembered for having published a story by H.P. Lovecraft.
Tales of Magic and Mystery was published by Personal Arts, which was owned by International Correspondence Schools (ICS). In 1927 ICS had had success with a mailing titled "Secrets of the Ages". Bill Kofoed and Walter Gibson suggested a magazine to appeal to the same audience as the mailing, and Haddon Press, also owned by ICS, provided cost estimates that seemed very positive. Kofoed checked the numbers with Haddon Press and was convinced they were accurate, and the magazine was launched in December of that year with Gibson as editor. [1]
The contributors included H. P. Lovecraft, with "Cool Air", and Frank Owen, with three stories: "The Yellow Pool", "The Black Well of Wadi", and "The Lure of the Shrivelled Hand". A story by Miriam Allen deFord, "Ghostly Hands", also appeared, though it later became apparent that it had been printed without permission or payment. Gibson later recalled that the Kofoed obtained some of the submissions from stories submitted to Brief Stories, which Kofoed edited; science fiction historian Mike Ashley suggests that Gibson may not have been fully aware of how the submissions were obtained, and believes it is possible that some of the other material printed was also not paid for. [1]
The magazine is now extremely rare, and has become a collectors' item because of the connection to H. P. Lovecraft. Most of Lovecraft's short fiction appeared in Weird Tales , and it is possible that he submitted to Tales of Magic and Mystery because of his interest in Harry Houdini—he had ghost-written a story for Houdini a couple of years earlier, and Gibson was a friend of Houdini's. In addition to fiction the magazine published articles about magic, all of which were written by Gibson, some under pen-names. The articles included one on bullet-catching (illustrated by Earle K. Bergey), one on mysterious people, and a series on Houdini. Overall, the magazine focused more on magic than on fiction, but the stories chosen were readable. [1] The weird and occult fiction genre was dominated by Weird Tales in the years before World War II; [2] Tales of Magic and Mystery and Ghost Stories were the only two magazines to attempt to rival Weird Tales in the years before 1931, [3] when Strange Tales appeared. [2]
After the fifth issue, it became apparent that the reason the cost estimates had appeared so strong was that Haddon Press had forgotten to include the cost of the paper. This made it apparent that the magazine was losing money rapidly, and Tales of Magic and Mystery was immediately shut down. Some of the manuscripts in inventory at the time the magazine was closed down may have been printed in True Strange Stories , another short-lived magazine which Gibson edited the following year. [1]
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1927 | 1/1 | |||||||||||
| 1928 | 1/2 | 1/3 | 1/4 | 1/5 | ||||||||
| Issues of Tales of Magic and Mystery from 1927 to 1928, showing volume and issue numbers. Walter Gibson was editor throughout. [1] | ||||||||||||
Walter B. Gibson was the editor of all five issues of Tales of Magic and Mystery, which remained in saddle-stapled pulp format throughout its run. It was priced at 25 cents, and each issue was 64 pages long. [1]
In 2004, Wildside Press released a facsimile edition of the February 1928 issue, [4] and in 2013, Adventure House released a facsimile of the March 1928 issue. [5]
The Cthulhu Mythos is a mythopoeia and a shared fictional universe, originating in the works of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The term was coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent and protégé of Lovecraft, to identify the settings, tropes, and lore that were employed by Lovecraft and his literary successors. The name Cthulhu derives from the central creature in Lovecraft's seminal short story "The Call of Cthulhu", first published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928.
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, printed early work by H. P. Lovecraft, Seabury Quinn, and Clark Ashton Smith, all of whom went on to be popular writers, but within a year, the magazine was in financial trouble. Henneberger sold his interest in the publisher, Rural Publishing Corporation, to Lansinger, and refinanced Weird Tales, with Farnsworth Wright as the new editor. The first issue under Wright's control was dated November 1924. The magazine was more successful under Wright, and despite occasional financial setbacks, it prospered over the next 15 years. Under Wright's control, the magazine lived up to its subtitle, "The Unique Magazine", and published a wide range of unusual fiction.
Frank Belknap Long was an American writer of horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction. Though his writing career spanned seven decades, he is best known for his horror and science fiction short stories, including early contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos. During his life, Long received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the First Fandom Hall of Fame Award (1977).
Joseph Payne Brennan was an American writer of fantasy and horror fiction, and also a poet. Of Irish ancestry, he was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and he lived most of his life in New Haven, Connecticut, and worked as an Acquisitions Assistant at the Sterling Memorial Library of Yale University for over 40 years. Brennan published several hundred short stories, two novellas and reputedly thousands of poems. His stories appeared in over 200 anthologies and have been translated into German, French, Dutch, Italian and Spanish. He was an early bibliographer of the work of H.P. Lovecraft.
Harold Warner Munn was an American writer of fantasy, horror and poetry, best remembered for his early stories in Weird Tales. He was an early friend and associate of authors H. P. Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn. He has been described by fellow author Jessica Amanda Salmonson, who interviewed him during 1978, as "the ultimate gentleman" and "a gentle, calm, warm, and good friend." He was known for his intricate plotting and the careful research that he did for his stories, a habit he traced back to two mistakes made when he wrote his early story "The City of Spiders".
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Farnsworth Wright was the editor of the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the magazine's heyday, editing 179 issues from November 1924 to March 1940. Jack Williamson called Wright "the first great fantasy editor".
Wildside Press is an independent publishing company in Cabin John, Maryland, United States. It was founded in 1989 by John Betancourt and Kim Betancourt. While the press was originally conceived as a publisher of speculative fiction in both trade and limited editions, its focus has broadened since then, both in content and format.
Robert Augustine Ward "Doc" Lowndes was an American science fiction author, editor and fan. He was known best as the editor of Future Science Fiction, Science Fiction, and Science Fiction Quarterly, among many other crime-fiction, western, sports-fiction, and other pulp and digest sized magazines for Columbia Publications. Among the most famous writers he was first to publish at Columbia was mystery writer Edward D. Hoch, who in turn would contribute to Lowndes's fiction magazines as long as he was editing them. Lowndes was a principal member of the Futurians. His first story, "The Outpost at Altark" for Super Science in 1940, was written in collaboration with fellow Futurian Donald A. Wollheim, uncredited.
Robert Edward Weinberg was an American author, editor, publisher, and collector of science fiction. His work spans several genres including non-fiction, science fiction, horror, and comic books.
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Peter H. Cannon is an H. P. Lovecraft scholar and an author of Cthulhu Mythos fiction. Cannon works as an editor for Publishers Weekly, specializing in thrillers and mystery. He lives in New York City and is married with three children.
Henry St. Clair Whitehead was an American Episcopal minister and author of horror and fantasy fiction.
H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror was a quarterly horror magazine edited by Marvin Kaye and published by Wildside Press. The magazine was named after H. P. Lovecraft, an American author.
Marvin Nathan Kaye was an American mystery, fantasy, science fiction, and horror author, anthologist, and editor. He was also a noted magician and actor. Kaye was a World Fantasy Award winner and served as co-publisher and editor of Weird Tales Magazine.
Adventure Tales is an irregularly published magazine reprinting classic stories from pulp magazines of the early 20th century. It is edited by science fiction writer John Gregory Betancourt and published by Wildside Press. In 2011 it was published biannually. Each issue has a theme or a featured author related to pulp magazines. Its headquarters is in Rockville, Maryland.
Strange Stories was a pulp magazine which ran for thirteen issues from 1939 to 1941. It was edited by Mort Weisinger, who was not credited. Contributors included Robert Bloch, Eric Frank Russell, C. L. Moore, August Derleth, and Henry Kuttner. Strange Stories was a competitor to the established leader in weird fiction, Weird Tales. With the launch, also in 1939, of the well-received Unknown, Strange Stories was unable to compete. It ceased publication in 1941 when Weisinger left to edit Superman comic books.
Strange Tales was an American pulp magazine first published from 1931 to 1933 by Clayton Publications. It specialized in fantasy and weird fiction, and was a significant competitor to Weird Tales, the leading magazine in the field. Its published stories include "Wolves of Darkness" by Jack Williamson, as well as work by Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. The magazine ceased publication when Clayton entered bankruptcy. It was temporarily revived by Wildside Press, which published three issues edited by Robert M. Price from 2003 to 2007.
Ghost Stories was an American pulp magazine that published 64 issues between 1926 and 1932. It was one of the earliest competitors to Weird Tales, the first magazine to specialize in the fantasy and occult fiction genre. It was a companion magazine to True Story and True Detective Stories, and focused almost entirely on stories about ghosts, many of which were written by staff writers but presented under pseudonyms as true confessions. These were often accompanied by faked photographs to make the stories appear more believable. Ghost Stories also had original and reprinted contributions, including works by Robert E. Howard, Carl Jacobi, and Frank Belknap Long. Among the reprints were Agatha Christie's "The Last Seance", several stories by H.G. Wells, and Charles Dickens's "The Signal-Man". Initially successful, the magazine began to lose readers and in 1930 was sold to Harold Hersey. Hersey was unable to reverse the magazine's decline, and publication of Ghost Stories ceased in early 1932.
Science-fiction and fantasy magazines began to be published in the United States in the 1920s. Stories with science-fiction themes had been appearing for decades in pulp magazines such as Argosy, but there were no magazines that specialized in a single genre until 1915, when Street & Smith, one of the major pulp publishers, brought out Detective Story Magazine. The first magazine to focus solely on fantasy and horror was Weird Tales, which was launched in 1923, and established itself as the leading weird fiction magazine over the next two decades; writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard became regular contributors. In 1926 Weird Tales was joined by Amazing Stories, published by Hugo Gernsback; Amazing printed only science fiction, and no fantasy. Gernsback included a letter column in Amazing Stories, and this led to the creation of organized science-fiction fandom, as fans contacted each other using the addresses published with the letters. Gernsback wanted the fiction he printed to be scientifically accurate, and educational, as well as entertaining, but found it difficult to obtain stories that met his goals; he printed "The Moon Pool" by Abraham Merritt in 1927, despite it being completely unscientific. Gernsback lost control of Amazing Stories in 1929, but quickly started several new magazines. Wonder Stories, one of Gernsback's titles, was edited by David Lasser, who worked to improve the quality of the fiction he received. Another early competitor was Astounding Stories of Super-Science, which appeared in 1930, edited by Harry Bates, but Bates printed only the most basic adventure stories with minimal scientific content, and little of the material from his era is now remembered.