Der Orchideengarten (Phantastische Blätter) translates to The Orchids-garden: Fantastic Pages. It was a horror magazine that was published in German between 1919 and 1921. It ran for fifty-one issues. The contents were weird but also mostly reprints from famous authors like Guy de Maupassant, Theophile Gautier, Villiers de l’isle-Adam, H. G. Wells, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving and many others. This is a significant publication before Weird Tales that I do not hear of in the histories of the Pulps. Yes, being German it may not have had much impact in North America. Not really a Pulp, it isn’t part of that vast array of publications. But in terms of the Weird, perhaps as a last gasp of the Yellow Nineties and the Decadents like Beardsley, it may be significant. I find it unlikely that such a magazine shouldn’t have been important to writers like Hans Heinz Ewer.
Since I don’t read German, for me the highlight here is the illustration work. Much of it is taken from works by classic artists like Gustave Dore but there are new drawings and covers by Rolf von Hoerschelmann, Otto Linnekogel, Karl Ritter, Heinrich Kley, Alfred Kubin, Eric Godal, Carl Rabus, Otto Nückel and Max Schenke. I have wonder if artists like Boris Dolgov and Hannes Bok were familiar with Der Orchideengarten, perhaps through Maxfield Parrish, their mentor?
