Category Archives: birthday

Bill Crider’s Birthday

Three Weird Birthdays: Benson, Dunsany, and Coye

Today (July 24) marks the birth of three practitioners of the weird tale: authors E. F. Benson (1867) and Lord Dunsany (1878) and artist Lee Brown Coye (1907).

E. F. Benson

During his lifetime, Benson was probably best known for his novels of upper middle class British life. The best known of these were the Mapp and Lucia novels, which have been adapted for television.

Benson’s legacy, though, was with his supernatural tales. Ash-Tree Press collected all his known ghost and spook stories in the early 2000s. Those editions are nice. They’re also expensive and out of print AFAIK. Fortunately Wordsworth has collected all the stories in an inexpensive edition.

I first encountered Benson when I was around ten, give or take a year. My grandparents had a farm in rural Mississippi, and we would stay there in the summers. One day I was poking through the bookcase and found a battered paperback copy of a ghost story anthology. It had probably belonged to my uncle, as my grandparents didn’t read that kind of thing. The book contained the Benson story “Caterpillars”. I became an instant fan. Other Benson stories that have stuck with me have been “Mrs. Amworth” and “The Room in the Tower”.

Lord Dunsany

Lord Dunsany needs little introduction. His work was greatly admired by H. P. Lovecraft. In fact, much of Lovecraft’s early work is written in a style similar to Dunsany’s.

Dunsany was primarily a writer of short stories, many of them only a page or two in length. One of his recurring characters was Jorkens. The Jorkens stories fall into what is primarily a British type of story, commonly called the club story. This is when a group of men (sorry, ladies, these stories were at the height of their popularity when men’s clubs were part of British upper crest society) sit around their club and tell tall tales. P. G. Wodehouse wrote some of these.

The difference between the standard club story and that practiced by Dunsany is that the core of the story involves something fantastic. Other examples include Gavan’s Bar by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt and Tales From the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke.

Lee Brown Coye was an artist. I first became acquainted with his work when I snagged a copy Hugh B. Cave’s Murgunstrumm, published by Carcosa Press. Lately I’ve been reading the reprint of Manly Wade Wellman’s Worse Things Waiting, originally published by Carcosa. It was Lee Brown Coye who gave Karl Edward Wagner the idea that became his classic horror story “Sticks”. Here are some examples of his work.

A Pair of Birthdays

Birthdays for a Pair of Favorites

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Today marks the anniversaries of two favorite writers, men who are no strangers to readers of Adventures Fantastic or fans of classic pulp and adventure literature. They are Rafael Sabatini and Jack Williamson. Plus a third pulpster whose work I’ve not read much of yet. Continue reading →

Henry Kuttner at 103

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On this date, April 7, in 1915, Henry Kuttner entered the world. He left it far too soon.

Posts commemorating Kuttner’s birthday have been pretty standard around here for a number of years. I’m not going to try to come up with something brilliant and original to say. I’m too snowed under with the day job. But I have been thinking about what to write, mostly while I was driving to Portales yesterday for the Jack Williamson Lectureship. (It was awesome! I’ll write about it, I promise.)

Kuttner seems to be getting some attention these days. At least I keep coming across mentions of his name in various places.

A few years ago I started a series of posts on Kuttner’s works that haven’t been reprinted, at least not in book form. I’m going to revise that series, which like many of my projects has gotten buried by Real Life obligations.

Later this year, namely when the semester ends in about six weeks, I’m going to try to read some of those stories and tell you about them. Kuttner wrote what at the time were considered novels, at least in the pulps. Today they would be considered novellas. Because of their length, most weren’t reprinted. As we saw with “A God Named Kroo“, many were just as good, if not better, than what made it into books.

I don’t know what I’m going to start with, but it will be something most of you probably haven’t read before. Stay tuned.

Robert Bloch at 101

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Today, April 5, is Robert Bloch’s birthday. He was born in 1917. For those of you who are poor at math, not sure what day/year it is, or didn’t read the title of the post, that would make him 101 today if he were still alive.

Bloch was one of the most influential writers of horror, crime, and science fiction of the last century. He wrote a number of novels, the most famous being Psycho. And while the Hitchcock film is deservedly considered a classic, you should give the book a try if you haven’t read it. There are some differences. Bloch’s written sequels have nothing to do with the film sequels.

In my mind, though, Bloch was better as a short story writer. The reason I think that may be in part because I’ve a fondness for short fiction. He started writing for Weird Tales when he was just 17, IIRC. While is early stuff is pretty rough around the edges, it was no worse that what Farnsworth Wright was buying at the time, and soon became better than much of the stuff by authors long forgotten. Bloch was an earlier correspondent of Lovecraft. Much of his early work was lovecraftian pastiche. He soon developed his own voice and went on to write some great horror and dark fantasy fiction, such as “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”, “The Man Who Collected Poe”, and the Hugo Award winning “The Hell-Bound Train”. If Bloch had any faults, it was that he couldn’t stand Robert E. Howard’s Conan. (That’s a pretty big fault, if you ask me, but Bloch’s body of work is sufficiently good that I’m willing to overlook it.)

Over the last few years I’ve gotten into the habit of blogging about an author’s work on their birthday. At the moment, I’m swamped with the day job and slowly going under. That’s why it’s been like a ghost town around here lately. I’ve either not had the time to write (blog posts or fiction) or not had the energy when I had the time. So, no, I’m not dead. (Sorry to disappoint some of you.) I’ve just been dealing with Real Life.

I’m hoping to read something short this evening. If so, I’ll try to post about it here once I get this mountain of exams graded. I hope to do that, but I may not be able to pull it off.

But don’t let that stop you from raising a glass is Robert Bloch’s memory and celebrating his work by reading a short story or two.

Algernon Blackwood’s Birthday

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Algernon Blackwood was born on this date, March 14, in the long ago year of 1869. He died December 10, 1951.

Blackwood is best remembered today for his horror and ghost stories. I’ve not read much of his work. The only story I’m certain I’ve read is “The Willows”. His complete work is available in an inexpensive electronic edition. I’ve got a copy, and I’ll try to read something of his tonight.

For Christopher Anvil’s Birthday: “We From Arcturus”

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Christopher Anvil (real name Harry Christopher Crosby) was born on this date (March 11) in 1925. He passed away on November 30, 2009.

Although he had a couple of stories published in the early 1950s, Anvil’s most productive years were from 1957 through the 1970s. While a handful of stories appeared in the quarter century, he was most productive in the 1960s and 70s.

Anvil tended to approach his fiction with a sense of humor. He’s one of the few writers I’ve found who can make me laugh out loud. Most writers can’t. He’s not as well known as he should be. Fortunately Baen has reprinted pretty much all of his short fiction.

In honor of his birthday, I’m going to look at the story “We From Arcturus”. It’s available in The Trouble with Humans. Spoilers ahead. Continue reading →

Frank Frazetta at 90

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Frank Frazetta would have turned 90 today (February 9) if he were still alive.

It’s hard to know what to write for this post. Frazetta’s stature in the fields of fantasy art and comics cannot be overstated. His work has graced the covers of some of the most fundamental titles in the canon. (I’ll probably get hate mail for even suggesting there’s such a thing as a canon.)

It was Frazetta’s covers to the Lancer (later the Ace) paperback reprints of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories that helped to put that character on the map.

And then there were the Burrough’s covers. And Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane. And…You get the idea.

Frazetta casts a long shadow, and that’s a good thing. He brought a vitality to fantasy art that had been lacking. I was fortunate to see some of his originals on exhibit a couple of years ago.

It’s been less than a decade since we lost him. He’s still missed. Raise a glass tonight in his honor.

An Observation of Lloyd Alexander’s Birthday

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Lloyd Alexander was born on this date, January 30, in 1924 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the author of a number of books, mostly for younger readers. He is best known for The Prydain Chronicles. The final volume, The High King, won the Newberry Medal in 1969. The Newberry is given for outstanding works of children’s literature.

I read part of The High King when I was a kid, but I didn’t know at the time that the book was the final book in a series. We’d just moved to Fort Worth, and I was reading through the Newberry winners at the public library. Since The High King had a Newberry sticker on it, I picked it up. I didn’t understand a lot of what was going on in the book and never finished.

A number of years ago, the SFBC published an omnibus edition of The Prydain Chronicles. I bought a copy, but I never got around to reading it. Has anyone read it, and if so, what did you think of it?

Update: Fletcher Vredenburgh has posted cover art for three different editions of The Prydain Chronicles. Check it out.