Today kicks off August. There are some  significant birthdays on August 1, I’ll look at two writers, and editor, and an artist. I’m talking about M. R. James, Raymond Palmer, Edd Cartier, and David Gemmell.

M. R. James (1862-1936) was arguably the greatest writer of traditional English ghost stories. He had few peers. H. Russell Wakefield and E. F. Benson came close, as did A. M Burrage.

James had a very successful academic career, but one does not usually build a lasting legacy in the larger world by being an academic administrator.

Now, by writing some of the scariest ghost stories ever written, that’s how you make a name for yourself and are remembered long after you’ve died.

James tends to be the standard that all writers of classic ghost stories is compared to.

Richard Shaver (l.) with Ray Palmer (r.)

Raymond A. Palmer (1910-1977) was the  editor of Amazing Stories during the forties and later founded Fate magazine. He also wrote a smattering of fiction.

He would be forgotten today if it were not for two things.

First, he was the editor of several short-lived science fiction magazines in the  fifites that never published much of note, with one exception. That was Other Worlds. Eric Frank Russell’s “Dear Devil” was the cover story for the May 1950 issue. It’s regarded as a classic story of first contact. I recommend it if you haven’t read it.

But the thing that Palmer is the most notorious for is something known as The Shaver Mystery. There’s no mystery. Palmer saw a way to make a fast buck from gullible people. As P. T. Barnum is famous for supposedly saying, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

The goes that Palmer and his assistant editor Howard Browne (who went on to write some highly regarded mhysteries) were sitting in their office one day going through the slush. Browne skims a manuscript by a Richard Shaver, comments on it being garbage (iIm apraphrasing here), and tosses it. Palmer retrieves the manuscript and tells Browne it is worth something.

It was worth a lot, it turns out. “I Remember Lemuria” set off a phenomenon that lasted for years. Shaver claimes he could remember a previous civilization from the lost continent of Lemuria. Palmer gladly published everything Shaver sent him. This continued for years, even after Palmer left Amazing. I have copies of two issues of Other Worlds, one the aforementioned issue with the Russell story. The other shows a creature with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a snake. It’s a Shaver story.

Shaver’s tales grew wilder and wilder, involving underground cities and other pulp tropes. The thing is, Shaver insisted it was all true. Palmer never, as far as I know, ever went on record explicitly saying he believe Shaver. But he did act as though he might.

I reviewed a book about all this some years ago. A second came out soon after, which I actually know the locatoin of. It’s not “in a box somewhere” like much of the library still is. Perhaps I should do another post on it.

Now we come to someone whose work is a breath of fresh air after Shaver. That would be David Gemmell (1948=2006).

Gemmell helped keep sword and sorcery alive at a time when it was in eclipse. His works have become, well, Legend. (Sorry. I couldn’t resist. I’ll see myself out.)

Gemmell left us far too young. For a while there was a set of awards named after him. I used to cover them here every year. Sadly, the Gemmell Awards are no more.

Fortunately, his spirit lives on, inspiring a new generation of sword and sorcery writers.

What are your favorite M. R. James or David Gemmell stories/books? Let us know in the comments.

Last, and not least, but because I hate dealing with putting multiple images in the same area, is the artist Edd Cartier (1914=2008). He is one of my favorites. Cartier provided many illustrations for Astounding and The Shadow. Here are some samples of his work.