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Whispers was one of the new horror and fantasy fiction magazines of the 1970s.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2017) |
Whispers was one of the new horror and fantasy fiction magazines of the 1970s.
Named after a fictitious magazine referenced in the H. P. Lovecraft story "The Unnamable", Whispers began as an attempt by editor and publisher Stuart David Schiff to produce a modest semi-professional little magazine that hoped to revive the legendary Weird Tales in a small way. The magazine was also a followup to August Derleth's The Arkham Collector, which had ceased after Derleth's death. Whispers was first published in July 1973. [1] It went on to become a more elaborate showcase for dark fantasy fiction and artwork of the 1970s. Schiff's early influences included the story of Aladdin, the Gorgon and the Cyclops, Edgar Allan Poe, Weird Tales and Lee Brown Coye. He subsequently became an avid collector of horror books and materials. [2]
Among the fiction writers featured in the magazine were Manly Wade Wellman, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, and Karl Edward Wagner. David Drake published much of his early fantasy fiction there. Among the artists to contribute were Stephen Fabian, Lee Brown Coye, Vincent Napoli, and many others, both legends in their own right and younger stars. The magazine won the first "Howard" or World Fantasy Award for non-professional publishing in 1975, though it was clearly on a professional level in editorial content and production. When Schiff and his wife had their first child, Geoffrey Ashton Schiff, Schiff brought out a special edition of Whispers devoted to the theme of monstrous and ghastly babies. [3] It ended publication in October 1987 with the issues 23 and 24. [1]
Beginning in 1978, an anthology series, drawing on work published in the magazine and mixing some new material, was published in hardcover by Doubleday and then in paperback by Playboy Press, soon after absorbed by Berkley/Putnam, which began a trend of parallel publication of increasingly infrequent issues of the magazine and a string of anthologies with an ever-larger proportion of original fiction. A total of six anthologies were published through 1987, and later a "Best of" volume was published in 1994.
Schiff also launched a book-publishing arm, Whispers Press, in the latter 1970s, which produced illustrated volumes. The first Whispers Press volume was A Winter Wish, a volume of uncollected poetry by H.P. Lovecraft, edited by Tom Collins. Collins' edition was roundly criticised by S.T. Joshi for its being riddled with typographical errors. Shortly thereafter, Whispers Press issued the short novel Rime Isle by Fritz Leiber. Several other publications were issued, most in both trade and signed/numbered/slipcased editions (including Robert Bloch's Cthulhu Mythos novel Strange Eons), all showing an appreciation of fine bookmaking and quality workmanship. After a sampling from Whispers was published in the Gahan Wilson-edited First World Fantasy Awards volume, Schiff and Fritz Leiber co-edited the Second World Fantasy Awards volume for Doubleday.
Whispers was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine in 1984 [4] and 1985. [5]
Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theater and films, playwright, and chess expert. With writers such as Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber is one of the fathers of sword and sorcery and coined the term.
Robert Albert Bloch was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small amount of science fiction. His writing career lasted 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. He began his professional writing career immediately after graduation, aged 17. Best known as the writer of Psycho (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock, Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was a protégé of H. P. Lovecraft, who was the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while he started emulating Lovecraft and his brand of cosmic horror, he later specialized in crime and horror stories working with a more psychological approach.
Arkham House is an American publishing house specializing in weird fiction. It was founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin, in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to publish hardcover collections of H. P. Lovecraft's best works, which had previously been published only in pulp magazines. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham, Massachusetts. Arkham House editions are noted for the quality of their printing and binding. The colophon for Arkham House was designed by Frank Utpatel.
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.
The World Fantasy Awards are a set of awards given each year for the best fantasy fiction published during the previous calendar year. Organized and overseen by the World Fantasy Convention, the awards are given each year at the eponymous annual convention as the central focus of the event. They were first given in 1975, at the first World Fantasy Convention, and have been awarded annually since. Over the years that the award has been given, the categories presented have changed; currently World Fantasy Awards are given in five written categories, one category for artists, and four special categories for individuals to honor their general work in the field of fantasy.
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either skews or radically reinterprets ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction. Writers on the subject of weird fiction, such as China Miéville, sometimes use "the tentacle" to represent this type of writing. The tentacle is a limb-type absent from most of the monsters of European folklore and gothic fiction, but often attached to the monstrous creatures created by weird fiction writers, such as William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, Clark Ashton Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft. Weird fiction often attempts to inspire awe as well as fear in response to its fictional creations, causing commentators like Miéville to paraphrase Goethe in saying that weird fiction evokes a sense of the numinous. Although "weird fiction" has been chiefly used as a historical description for works through the 1930s, it experienced a resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s, under the label of New Weird, which continues into the 21st century.
Karl Edward Wagner was an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher of horror, science fiction, and heroic fantasy, who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and originally trained as a psychiatrist. He wrote numerous dark fantasy and horror stories. As an editor, he created a three-volume set of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian fiction restored to its original form as written, and edited the long-running and genre-defining The Year's Best Horror Stories series for DAW Books. His Carcosa publishing company issued four volumes of the best stories by some of the major authors of the so-called Golden Age pulp magazines. He is possibly best known for his creation of a series of stories featuring the character Kane, the Mystic Swordsman.
Lee Brown Coye was an American artist.
A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.
The Arkham Sampler was an American fantasy and horror fiction magazine first published in Winter 1948. The headquarters was in Sauk City, Wisconsin. The magazine, edited by August Derleth, was the first of two magazines published by Arkham House. It was published on a quarterly basis. The cover design was prepared by Ronald Clyne and was printed in alternating colors for the eight quarterly issues. Each issue had a print run of 1,200 copies with the exception of the Winter 1949 "All Science-Fiction Issue", of which 2,000 copies were printed. The Autumn 1949 issue was the last edition of the magazine.
The Night Side is an anthology of fantasy and horror stories edited by American writer August Derleth and illustrated by Lee Brown Coye. It was first published by Rinehart & Company in 1947. The stories had originally appeared in the magazines Amazing Stories, Collier's Weekly, Weird Tales, Saturday Review, The London Mercury, Unknown, Astounding Stories, Esquire, The Briarcliff Quarterly, Cosmopolitan, Blue Book, Top-Notch and Fantastic Adventures or in the collections The Clock Strikes Twelve, The Children of the Pool, Fearful Pleasures, Nights of the Round Table and My Grimmest Nightmare.
Sleep No More is an anthology of fantasy and horror stories edited by August Derleth and illustrated by Lee Brown Coye, the first of three similar books in the 1940s. It was first published by Rinehart & Company in 1944. Featuring short stories by H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and other noted authors of the macabre genre, many of the stories made their initial appearance in Weird Tales magazine. The anthology is considered to be a classic of the genre, and is the initial foray by Coye into the field of horror illustration.
Strange Ports of Call is an anthology of science fiction stories edited by American writer August Derleth. It was first published by Pellegrini & Cudahy in 1948. The stories had originally appeared in the magazines Blue Book, Amazing Stories, Weird Tales, Science and Invention, Astounding Stories, Coronet, The New Review, The Black Cat, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Wonder Stories, Comet, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly and Planet Stories.
Worlds of Tomorrow is an anthology of science fiction stories edited by American writer August Derleth. It was first published by Pellegrini & Cudahy in 1953. Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines Worlds Beyond, Fantastic, Fantasy, The Magazine of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Science Fiction, If, Fantastic Adventures, Future, Startling Stories, Astounding Stories, Weird Tales, The Fantasy Fan and Thrilling Wonder Stories. Abridged editions were published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in 1955, Berkley Books in 1958 and Four Square Books in 1963.
New Worlds for Old is an anthology of science fiction stories edited by American writer August Derleth. It was first published by Four Square Books in 1963 and contains nine stories from Derleth's earlier anthology, Worlds of Tomorrow. Many of the stories had originally appeared in the magazines Fantastic, Fantasy: The Magazine of Science Fiction, Worlds Beyond, Astounding Stories, The Fantasy Fan, Fantasy and Science Fiction and Weird Tales.
The Fantasy Fan was the first fan magazine in the weird fiction field and therefore holds an important place in the history of the American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine. Issued monthly, it was first published in September 1933, and discontinued 18 issues later in February 1935. The magazine was edited by Charles Hornig.
Fedogan & Bremer is a weird fiction specialty publishing house founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1985 by Philip Rahman and Dennis Weiler. The name comes from the nicknames of the two founders when they were in college.
Weird Tales was a series of paperback anthologies, a revival of the classic fantasy and horror magazine of the same title, published by Zebra Books from 1980 to 1983 under the editorship of Lin Carter. It was issued more or less annually, though the first two volumes were issued simultaneously and there was a year’s gap between the third and fourth. It was preceded and succeeded by versions of the title in standard magazine form.
Joseph Vernon Shea (1912–1981) was an American author of horror, fantasy, poetry, and essays; and a correspondent of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and August Derleth.
Heroes and Horrors is a collection of fantasy and horror short stories by American writer Fritz Leiber, edited by Stuart David Schiff and illustrated by Tim Kirk. It was first published in hardcover in December 1978 by Whispers Press, and in paperback in August 1980 by Pocket Books. The paperback edition omits the illustrations.