The first thing that comes to mind for many of us when we think of the magazine Weird Tales are the exquisitely exotic and erotic covers created by Margaret Brundage in the 1930s.
If you can tear your eyes away from Brundage’s covers and venture to think about some of the writers gracing the pages, you might think about the triumvirate that we usually accord as the giants of Weird Tales. Of course I’m speaking of H.P. Lovecraft, the master of the Cthulhu mythos; Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, Bran Mak Morn, and more ‘swords and sorcery’; and Clark Ashton Smith, the visionary of fantastic worlds of Poseidonis, Averoigne, and Zothique, among others.
But how often do you think of the most popular and commercially successful (at the time) author of them all?
Seabury Quinn
In 1925, Seabury Quinn (1889-1969) brought us the French occult detective Dr. Jules de Grandin. He continued writing him until 1951, having produced ninety-two stories and novelettes, and one serialized novel.
Quinn described de Grandin as:
“He was a perfect example of the rare French blond type, rather under medium height, but with a military erectness of carriage that made him look several inches taller than he really was. His light-blue eyes were small and exceedingly deep-set, and would have been humorous had it not been for the curiously cold directness of their gaze. With his wide mouth, light mustache waxed at the ends in two perfectly horizontal points, and those twinkling, stock-taking eyes, he reminded me of an alert tomcat.” We also learn that de Grandin was likely the shortest of all the occult detectives at approximately 5’3″ or 5’4″ tall.
And just as Sherlock Holmes had his Dr. Watson, Dr. de Grandin had Dr. Trowbridge as his chronicler and aide. Together they fought everything from vampires, ghouls, ghosts and werewolves to mad scientists, depraved doctors, and just plain psychopaths.
Weird Tales had a reader’s section at the back of the magazine called The Eyrie, wherein they would ask readers to write in and name their favorite story from the preceding issue. It was not uncommon for one of Quinn’s stories to beat out the competition from some very big name writers. For instance, the January, 1936 issue printed:
- A Rival From the Grave by Seabury Quinn
- The Satin Mask by August Derleth
- Horror Insured by Paul Ernst (from the Doctor Satan series)
- The Dark Land by C.L. Moore (from the Jirel of Joiry series)
- The Hour of the Dragon (part 2) by Robert E. Howard (from the Conan the Barbarian series)
- and a reprint of Dagon by H.P. Lovecraft
Quinn’s tale of the little French occult detective beat them all out in reader popularity.
By the way, the cover for the January, 1936 issue can be seen above in the gallery of Margaret Brundage covers. In fact, if you look closely you’ll notice that all of the covers shown above feature a Jules de Grandin story by Seabury Quinn.
And who was Seabury Quinn?
Seabury Grandin Quinn was born in Washington, D.C. in 1889 and lived most of his life there. He graduated from the law school of the National University in D.C. in 1910, and was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia.
After service in World War I, Quinn returned to the States and became a journalist. He became the editor of a mortician’s trade magazine Casket and Sunnyside for fifteen years beginning in 1925. Within it he wrote technical articles of mortuary jurisprudence. His articles were published together in book form in 1933 as A Syllabus of Mortuary Jurisprudence. His second technical book was An Encyclopedic Law Glossary For Funeral Directors and Embalmers, published in 1940. However, his writing was secondary to his career as a lawyer specializing in mortuary jurisprudence. He taught this subject at mortuary schools for many years.
And of course, all this time he published fiction.
