H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard
Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) and Robert E. Howard (1906-1936) are two pillars in the New World Gothic castle of fantastic fiction. They are especially interesting in their surprising aspects. They both died young, they both lived sheltered and geographically-constricted lives, they both absorbed influences from wide and deep sources which they then used to create wonderfully complex and vast universes that they have shared with writers long after their passing, and they both lived for sharing their creative energies with other writers through letters and encouraging words, including each other.
Lovecraft the New Englander drew from Poe, Machen, and Dunsany to fashion the crucible from which his Cthulhu Mythos emerged, the indifferent and destructive universe of what humans would call monsters from beyond space and time. He was a master at delineating the gulf between what terrible fate was suggested and why it could not be described in all its horror.
Robert E. Howard the Texan connected to semi-mythic history and the existential journey of one determined man through all the dangers of men and beasts. He is the father of an American sword and sorcery, a juxtaposition of power that seems illogical but also somehow inevitable, almost an allegory of the wars of the 20th Century -- what you cannot see may kill you from afar, and what you can see may kill you up close. The survivor must be ready and skilled and wary at all times.
The legacies of these two writers last and grow to this day in literature, art, and film, even language. We stock their writings and associated contemporary writers as well as some of the more interesting and provocative writers working with the generous heritage that Lovecraft and Howard bequeathed to an increasingly uneasy world.
The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin volume 2: The Devil's Rosary
The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin volume 2: The Devil's Rosary
The second of five volumes collecting the stories of Jules de Grandin, the supernatural detective made famous in the classic pulp magazine Weird Tales.
Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn.
Quinn’s short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales’s original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. In de Grandin there are familiar shades of both Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and alongside his assistant, Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, de Grandin’s knack for solving mysteries—and his outbursts of peculiar French-isms (grand Dieu!)—captivated readers for nearly three decades.
Collected for the first time in trade editions, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero.
The second volume, The Devil’s Rosary, includes all of the Jules de Grandin stories from “The Black Master” (1929) to “The Wolf of St. Bonnot” (1930), as well as an introduction by Jim Rockhill.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction—George A. Vanderburgh and Robert E. Weinberg
“Loved by Thousands of Readers”: The Popularity of Jules de Grandin—Stefan Dziemianowicz
1929
The Black Master (Weird Tales, January 1929)
The Devil People (Weird Tales, February 1929)
The Devil’s Rosary (Weird Tales, April 1929)
The House of Golden Masks (Weird Tales, June 1929)
The Corpse Master (Weird Tales, July 1929)
Trespassing Souls (Weird Tales, September 1929)
The Silver Countess (Weird Tales, October 1929)
The House Without a Mirror (Weird Tales, November 1929)
Children of Ubasti (Weird Tales, December 1929)
1930
The Curse of the House of Phipps (Weird Tales, January 1930)
The Drums of Damballah (Weird Tales, March 1930)
The Dust of Egypt (Weird Tales, April 1930)
The Brain-Thief (Weird Tales, May 1930)
The Priestess of the Ivory Feet (Weird Tales, June 1930)
The Bride of Dewer (Weird Tales, July 1930)
Daughter of the Moonlight (Weird Tales, August 1930)
The Druid’s Shadow (Weird Tales, October 1930)
Stealthy Death (Weird Tales, November 1930)
The Wolf of St. Bonnot (Weird Tales, December 1930)
Praise for The Devil's Rosary
“Connoisseurs of pulp adventure . . . will be delighted.”—Publishers Weekly
Praise for the Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin
"Hercule Poirot meets Fox Mulder . . . gruesomely effective, and purists who object to detective stories with paranormal elements will find that the moment each story crosses the border to the supernatural raises genuine shivers."—Kirkus Reviews
"A collection of wonderfully fun mashups. Seabury Quinn's stories are bloody and action-packed, with the sort of shameless, disreputable charm that characterizes the best of the pulps. Even if there's little that's truly original in his work, his clever assortment of monsters and occult menaces make for tremendously entertaining stories. His admirers have every reason to be thrilled with these comprehensive new collections, and the writer will find new fans among those who enjoy truly weird horror."—Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog
"A fun, spooky trip back to the golden age of weird . . . De Grandin, 'his little blond mustache twitching like the whiskers of an excited cat,' is an exuberant, delightful creation."—Publishers Weekly
“Read this and you will get a blast of the past...It's nice to see the old stories gathered up and being shared again. Stories never die as long as there's still one storyteller left.”—Book Faerie
"Many of these stories have been unavailable for years. I applaud Night Shade Books for bringing these wonderful stories back into print. I can?t wait for Volume Two! GRADE: A"—GeorgeKelley.org