A Brief History of the "Unique Magazine"

Early in 1922, hoping to reproduce the success he was enjoying with two collegiate-oriented publications, Jacob Clark Henneberger and J.M. Lassinger formed Rural Publications, Inc. Hoping to find a market for unusual fiction that would permit a writer to "express his innermost feelings in a manner befitting great literature," Weird Tales was launched in March 1923 and fell flat on its face. The Chicago area authors like Ben Hecht and Emerson Hough, who it was hoped would become contributors, ignored the lurid pulp magazine. After its second monthly issue, Weird Tales adopted a bed sheet size with fewer pages that did little to place it on firmer financial footing.

Whatever the reason, the magazine did not sell well at first. Edwin Baird, a Chicago newspaperman and author, proved to be an uninspired editor. In 1923, Weird Tales failed to publish in August and December. It limped along in 1924, with a delay of several months between its April issue and a thick, 192-page May/June/July issue, published as an anniversary package. With $40,000 in back debts, Henneberger had to make the owner of the company that printed his magazine, chief stockholder in order to keep Weird Tales afloat. Henneberger attempted to recruit H.P. Lovecraft to replace Baird as editor. But the genius from Providence, Rhode Island had just married and the prospect of a move to chilly Chicago did not appeal to him despite a fabulous offer of 10 weeks’ pay in advance and full editorship of the magazine.

Instead, first reader Farnsworth Wright was tapped as the new editor. The first issue under Wright’s stewardship appeared on newsstands in November 1924, marking a turnaround for the pulp. Wright sought out established talents like Ray Cummings, Otis Albert Kline and Seabury Quinn and encouraged them to contribute to Weird Tales. More importantly, however, he had a genius for seeking out new talent and within a few years of taking over editorship, the first stories by Robert E. Howard, E. Hoffman price, Donald Andrei, Frank Belknap Long, Nictzin Dyhalis, H. Warner Munn, Arthur J. Burks and Edmond Hamilton appeared in Weird Tales.

By 1926, Weird Tales was paying authors a cent a word - double the half-cent a word maximum of 1923 and 1924. Later, a few favored writers were paid 1½ cents per word; not much by today’s standards, but enough for Depression-era writers to keep body and soul together and a better pay scale than some science fiction magazines were paying as late as the 1970s.

In 1930, the magazine suffered another financial crisis when the bank it had been using failed. The magazine had to go bi-monthly for a period in 1931, but Wright kept story rates steady and after a short period, the monthly schedule of publication had resumed.

By the mid-1930s, along with a steady diet of stories by Lovecraft, Howard and Quinn, Wright had added some powerful new talent to the Weird Tales stable. Clark Ashton Smith, C.L. Moore, David H. Keller, Jack Williamson, Paul Ernst and a host of others were collectively transforming the shape of the field, writing strange and unusual mood pieces that defied easy categorization, adding a dash of horror or a sprinkle of terror to science fiction tales and broadening the scope of the newly-created genre of sword & sorcery being pioneered by Howard. Moore even introduced a female version of Howard’s Conan the Barbarian, which proved appealing to teenage boys and post-adolescent readers of the Unique Magazine.

Unfortunately, the sale of the magazine in 1938 to William J. Delaney, a shoe manufacturer who had recently gotten into publishing, spelled trouble for Wright. Delaney, who also owned Short Stories, a highly-successful general fiction pulp magazine, moved the editorial offices of Weird Tales from Chicago to New York City so the two magazines could be run jointly. He brought in Dorothy McIlwraith, editor of Short Stories, to serve as Wright’s assistant.

In February 1939, the magazine increased in size from 128 to 160 pages, but at the expense of paper quality, an idea that did not catch on with readers and sales dropped. In an attempt to save money, the magazine reduced rates paid to writers and artists. In the space of just a few months, under Delaney’s direction, the magazine managed to alienate both readers and its contributing talent. Page count was dropped to 128 in September, and the 25 cent cover price was cut to 15 cents, in a further effort to lure readers. But the effort failed. In January 1940, Weird Tales went bi-monthly and Wright, who had been in ill-health for some time, stepped down in May, replaced by McIlwraith.

McIlwraith proved to be a capable editor willing to pay money for good stories. Under her stewardship, the magazine encouraged the development of such talents as Robert Bloch, Ted Sturgeon, August Derleth, Fritz Leiber, Ray Bradbury, Joseph Payne Brennan and Manly Wade Wellman.

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, McIlwraith tried to make the March 1948 issue a special one. It featured a lot of top-name talent, but it was clear that the golden days of the magazine were now behind it. In May 1951, the magazine began reprinting more and more material, trying to fill the gap left by the desertion of major talents who had moved on to better-paying markets. Arkham House, the publishing company founded by Derleth and Andrei to preserve the works of weird fiction between hardcovers, was now a major competitor and the magazine had to turn to writers not as well-known or as talented as those who had appeared in its early pages. The pulp was reduced to a digest-sized magazine in September and continued with marginal financial success, limping along until its final issue was published in March 1954.

But what an enormous legacy it left behind! During its original run of 279 issues, Weird Tales fulfilled the ambitious goal espoused so eloquently by Otis Albert Kline in a 1924 editorial - establishing a long-term marketplace for stories about the unusual and bizarre, creating a haven where writers could let their imaginations soar and providing several generations of readers with thrilling adventures. The open-minded policy espoused by Kline and practiced by Wright and McIlwraith encouraged hundreds of writers to break the traditions that had existed up until that time. The covers of Weird Tales featured some of the most striking fantasy and horror art ever created and it was within its pages that the genius of artists like Virgil Finlay, Hannes Bok and Lee Brown Coye found early expression and flourished.

In 1973, through the efforts of Sam Moskowitz and Leo Marguiles, Weird Tales underwent its first resurrection, returning from the dead for only four pulp-sized issues before succumbing once more because of distribution problems. In 1978, Robert Weinberg and Victor Dricks, two long-time fans, purchased the title with the hope of reviving the magazine again.

In 1981, Weinberg and Dricks licensed the use of the title to Lin Carter, who revived it as a paperback edited by Lin Carter for Zebra Books. Again, business and contractual problems led to the demise after just four issues.

The title was then licensed to the Bellerophon Network, a publishing company owned by Brian Forbes. However, the magazine was poorly funded and failed after only two bed sheet-sized issues were published in 1984 and 1985.

In 1988, Weinberg and Dricks licensed the title to George H. Scithers, who used the Terminus Publishing Company to revive the magazine. Darrell Schweitzer and John Gregory Bettancourt were assistant editors for the first two years. Schweitzer took full editorship with the Spring 1991 issue, but the license to use the Weird Tales title was revoked with the Spring 1994 and the magazine changed its name to Worlds of Fantasy & Horror.

In March 1998, the Weird Tales title was licensed to DNA Publications, the publisher of Absolute Magnitude and Dreams of Decadence.

"I’m extremely proud and excited to be able to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Weird Tales by bringing the name back into the publishing arena," Lapine said in an announcement of the title acquisition. "I’m looking forward to taking Weird Tales into the next millennium. I understand the importance of the title and I plan to publish it with dignity, respect, and honor that it deserves."

Under special arrangement, Worlds of Fantasy & Horror will change its name back to Weird Tales with the publication of the 75th anniversary issue of the Unique Magazine. George Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer will continue in their capacity as editors of the magazine and DNA Publications, Inc., will be honoring all subscriptions in full. Weird Tales currently has a fiction inventory that includes works by Tanith lee, Melanie Rem, Brian Stableford and S.P. Somtow and is accepting new submissions. Those interested in joining the ranks of the "magazine that never dies," should send their submissions to Weird Tales, 123 Crooked Lane, King of Prussia, PA 19406-2570.

Meanwhile, as the millennium approaches, other Weird Tales projects are afoot. Weinberg and Dricks, the owners of Weird tales, Ltd., have licensed the use of the title to Bettancourt and his Wildside Press for his "Weird Tales Library," a series of books that will gather together some of the best - and most obscure - material published within its pages during the past 75 years.