Pulp Fiction > Weird Tales

Are you waiting for your ship to come in?

Are you one of those who have been idly gazing out into the Sea of Literature wondering when the craft you are looking for will appear on the horizon? Then come down to the harbor, for your vessel is making port. Twelve times a year Weird Tales comes in, a stately galleon laden with the treasures of fancy from the seven seas. Each month an argosy of bizarre and unusual tales -- imaginative stories such as are offered nowhere else, rich treasures of the mind, sparkling jewels of literature, tales that lift you out of the humdrum workaday world into that deathless country of the imagination.

From March of 1923 to September of 1954, Weird Tales was the most influential of all pulp magazines in the horror and fantasy genres. This magazine provided a publishing forum which focused "on the weird, the bizarre, the unususal," which initially was considered taboo and avoided by all other fiction magazines.

The "Unique Magazine" provided an opportunity for a new generation of writers to develop their craft and to explore new possibilities in the area of supernatural occult stories and what they termed "highly imaginative" stories. From this bold editorial viewpoint, they sparked the literary careers of authors who are now regarded as the founding fathers of modern day horror and fantasy fiction.

The author list included Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, August Derleth, Edmund Hamilton, Robert E. Howard, Carl Jacobi, Henry Kuttner, Frank Bellknap Long, Seabury Quinn, Donald & Howard Wandrei, and Manly Wade Wellman among many others.

Weird Tales also developed a legendary reputation for fantastic cover and interior art from such artists as Margaret Brundage, J. Allen St. John, and Virgil Finlay.

Weird Tales returned to the newstands during the 1970s and 1980s to continue the legendary publishing tradition. In 1998, seventy five years since its debut, Weird Tales is once again publishing the best in weird fiction. Weird Tales stories have been reprinted in magazine replicas and in anthologies.

Featured Titles

    Don't Dream by Donald Wandrei

This 416-page tome includes stories originally published in venues including Weird Tales, Astounding Stories, Fantasy Magazine, Argosy, and Esquire; some from The Minnesota Quarterly, and a number of pieces never published before this book was assembled.

Genre: Pulp Fiction

    The Devil's Bride by Seabury Quinn

HE DEVIl'S BRIDE was the only full-length mystery featuring French occult detective Jules de Grandin. Inspired by Aleister Crowley, and rich with Lovecraftian visions of a gibbering xenomorphic evil from the "dark" continents, THE DEVIl'S BRIDE is an epic tale of black magic, murder and mutilation, rape and torture, and genocidal race war.

Genre: Pulp Fiction

    Weird Talers by Bobby Derie

Here we find studies of the expansive and at times contentious correspondence of H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard; Howard's association with such colleagues in the pulp world as Clark Ashton Smith, Henry S. Whitehead, and Frank Belknap Long; Howard's sporadic involvement with such fans as R. H. Barlow, Stuart M. Boland, and Francis T. Laney; a discussion of Howard's writing for amateur papers; and numerous other topics.

Genre: on Pulp Fiction

    The Best of Weird Tales 1923 by Pulp Reprint

Collected here are 13 of the best short stories published in Weird Tales' first year of publication, 1923 -- classics by many who would later play an integral part in the Unique Magazine, such as H.P. Lovecraft, Frank Owen, and Farnsworth Wright.

Year: 1923
Genre: Pulp Fiction

    The Weird Tales of Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard

Before he conquered books, comics, and movies, Robert E. Howard's immortal character Conan the Cimmerian was born in the pages of the pulp magazine Weird Tales. Reprinted as they originally appeared in that legendary publication from 1934 to 1936, this ferocious anthology gathers many of the barbarian's most famous adventures.

Year: 1934