Werewolves of Weird Tales - 1923-1935

(Feel free to sing “Werewolves of Weird Tales” to Warren Zevon’s classic song. I know I did. I know you will, too.)

When people talk about Horror fiction in the first half of the 20th century they inevitably end up at Weird Tales. It was the home of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Manly Wade Wellman and a young Richard Matheson as well as so many others.

It shouldn’t be any surprise that a Horror Pulp that ran for over twenty years published a few werewolf stories. Quite a few, as the lycanthrope was part of the Horror dynasty that Stephen King talks about in Danse Macabre (1981). Along with the vampire, the witch, the mummy and Frankenstein’s monster, the werewolf or shapechanger is a classic.

Weird Tales’ editor Farnsworth Wright did deluge the magazine with hairy men right off the mark. 1923 featured only one werewolf story but it’s a doozy. 1924 came and went and only the Lovecraft rewrite “The Ghost-Eater” with E. M. Eddy Jr. But 1927 opened the floodgates with three of Wright’s top writers: Robert E. Howard, Greye La Spina and H. Warner Munn. Each of these would do something of note: Howard would write the first story with a werewolf that was a man with a wolfshead (the classic movie version to come), Greye would write one of the best novels to appear in Weird Tales and Munn created a long running series around Ponkert. Famously, Munn took a suggestion from one of Lovecraft’s letters, why does someone tell the story from the werewolf’s point-of-view, and ran with it. Unfortunately the series would remain unfinished until the 1980s.

The 1920s

1923

“The Phantom Farmhouse” (October 1923) by Seabury Quinn

1924

“The Ghost-Eater” (April 1924) by E. M. Eddy Jr. & H. P. Lovecraft

“Weird Crimes: The Wolf of St. Bonnot” (May-June-July, 1924) by Seabury Quinn

1925

“Out Of The Long Ago” (January 1925) by Seabury Quinn

Invaders From the Dark (April May June 1925) by Greye La Spina

“The Werewolf of Ponkert” (July 1925) by H. Warner Munn

1926

“The White Dog” (February 1926) by Feodor Sologub

“Wolfshead” (April 1926) by Robert E. Howard

“The Werewolf” (May 1926) by H. B. Marryat (Capt. Frederick Marryat)

Art by Andrew Brosnatch

“Things That Are God’s” by C. Franklin Miller (April 1926)

“The Fiend of the Marsh” (November 1926) by R. E. Lewis & Martha M. Cockrill

1927 saw another superstar appear in a werewolf story. Seabury Quinn, who had written that first tale, returned with occult detective Jules de Grandin in “The Blood Flower”. de Grandin and Trowbridge would face off against werewolves several more times. Quinn would also write more werewolf stories without the detectives that expand the werewolf theme, like “The Gentle Werewolf”.

1927

“The Lost Race” (January 1927) by Robert E. Howard

“The Blood-Flower” (March 1927) by Seabury Quinn

“The Return of the Master” (July 1927) by H. Warner Munn

“The Wolf-Woman” (September 1927) by Bassett Morgan

Art by Hugh Rankin

“Loup_Garou” (October 1927) by Wallace West

“The Wolf” (November 1927) by Sewell Peaslee Wright

“Folks Used to Believe: The Werewolf” (November 1927) by Alvin F. Harlow

“The Lord of the Tarn” (November 1927) by G. G. Pendarves

1928

“The Hyena” (March 1928) by Robert E. Howard

“The Werewolf’s Daughter” by H. Warner Munn (October November December 1928)

The 1930s

The 1930s saw more shapeshifter stories, not always about wolves. “The Bagheeta” by Val Lewton is of interest because the story doesn’t actually contain a were-leopard but would inspire Lewton’s film franchise The Cat People (1942).