Fritz Leiber’s appearances in Weird Tales are both surprising and disappointing. As an outer member of the Lovecraft Circle, it was only natural that Leiber wanted to found in “The Unique Magazine”. But he only appeared eight times and only after some struggle. I have already chronicled the challenges to gaining access to Farnsworth Wright’s final issues here. I have also talked about how Wright rejected the Fafhrd and Grey Mouser series that John W. Campbell happily snapped up. Normally, I would have assumed leiber wrote reams of stories like other WT authors but they were few and not always his most famous.
After initial rejections, Fritz finally appeared in Weird Tales with “The Automatic Pistol” (Weird Tales, May 1940). Shortly before this he sold a classic to John W. Campbell, “The Jewels in the Forest” (Unknown, August 1939), the first Fafhrd & Grey Mouser tale, making “The Automatic Pistol” his second major publication. (Campbell paid a penny a word or better and on acceptance. Weird Tales on publication.) “The Automatic Pistol” is a story of a murdered man’s gun pursuing his killer, which seems like pretty usual fare for Weird Tales. But as John Pelan points out in his introduction to The Black Gondalier and Other Stories (2000):
From the very start his stories took on a modern attitude quite unlike that of his contemporaries in Weird Tales, who were busily scrambling to pen stories of improbably-named cosmic monstrosities and babbling aliens in a misguided homage to H.P. Lovecraft…
Pelan also mentions in Horrible Imaginings (2004): “‘The Automatic Pistol” was so overshadowed by “Smoke Ghost” that many have forgotten what an excellent early story this was.”
With 1940, Fritz was now selling to quite a different magazine under Dorothy McIlwraith. Weird Tales had been sold to a New York firm, one that published the long-running Short Stories, which McIlwraith also edited. The new owners wanted a solid Horror Pulp, and she complied.
Leiber was never prolific until the 1950s, writing only two or three stories a year. Fritz penned three stories in 1941: “They Never Come Back” for the SF Pulp, Future, “Smoke Ghost” and a Fafhrd & Grey Mouser sequel, “The Howling Tower” for Unknown. He didn’t return to Weird Tales until “The Phantom Slayer” (Weird Tales, January 1942). This story has a man sleeping in a room his uncle once rented. A vivid dream proves to be more than just a fantasy. Leiber shows masterful control in what is a traditional tale, perhaps inspired a little by H. P. Lovecraft.
With “Spider Mansion” (Weird Tales, September 1942) Leiber had finally embraced the silliness that was Weird Pulp, writing a tale of giant dwarves, haunted houses and giant spiders. The story embarrassed him in later years. Beginning with “Spider Mansion”, the majority of Leiber’s Weird Tales stories featured mad scientists or doctors. His interest in modern psychology will become more evident as the stories go on.
“The Hound” (Weird Tales, November 1942) despite having the same title as an H. P. Lovecraft story (Weird Tales, February 1924), is one of the classics of modern Horror. David Lashley becomes convinced that a wolf-like hound exists in the dark places of the city. When there is a black out he runs from the thing and only makes it to safety when the lights go back on. This tale, like “Smoke Ghost” was an attempt to create a new version of the ghost story, not a Victorian throwback like HPL’s tale but a story for the modern days of the 1940s. It was the best thing Leiber published in WT.
For four years, Leiber wrote for other magazines, mostly Science Fiction for John W. Campbell’s Astounding. Sadly, Unknown Worlds had disappeared in the paper shortages of World War II. Before that Pulp died, Leiber wrote Conjure Wife (Unknown Worlds, April 1943), his first great Horror novel. McIlwraith might have published this novel in serial but would not have paid as well. Perhaps that was why Fritz did not write another Horror novel (but concentrated on SF novels) until Our Lady of Darkness (1977).
Leiber returned to WT with what feels like a reject from an SF mag, “Mr. Bauer and the Atoms” (Weird Tales, January 1946) has Mr. Bauer become obsessed with the idea of people as walking nuclear bombs after unlocking the secrets of the atom. Like much SF written after1945, new fears around nuclear technology become the modern germ of horror ideas.
“Alice and the Allergy” (Weird Tales, September 1946) has a husband take his wife to see a doctor about her allergies. Leiber does a wonderful job of working in sexual politics worthy of Hemingway between the couple as the ghost of a strangling rapist comes for the wife.
Again a three year gap, in which Leiber became an accomplished writers in Science Fiction. He published his first collection, Night’s Black Agents with Arkham House in 1947. This included “The Automatic Pistol” and “The Hound” along with stories from Unknown.
Leiber threw the dying Weird Tales a bone with “In the X-Ray” (Weird Tales, July 1949) which has a woman go to Dr. Ballard for a swollen ankle. The x-ray exposes the hand of her evil twin who recently died.
His final Weird Tales story was “The Dead Man” (Weird Tales, November 1950), a long novella about yet another scientist, Dr. Redford, who has a subject, Fearing, who can mimic any disease. Fearing is also a fiercely handsome man and has an affair with Mrs. Redford. The narrator is a Science writer, an occupation Fritz held as an associate editor at Science Digest (1945-1956).
The story was adapted by Rod Serling for Night Gallery’s fourth episode (December 16, 1970). It was directed by Douglas Heyes and starred Carl Betz (as Redford), Jeff Corey (as Talmidge, essentially Fritz Leiber), Louise Sorel (as Velia Redford) and Michael Blodgett (as Fearing).
Fritz’s relationship in Weird Tales was complicated, unlike that of Robert Bloch or August Derleth. Leiber never received a cover and only published one significant story out of eight in the magazine. His best work usually appeared elsewhere. As one who did not follow in Lovecraft’s very footsteps, he avoided writing a Cthulhu Mythos tale until the 1970s. The Best of Fritz Leiber (1974), a predominantly SF series of collections, did not include any of his Weird Tales stories (or his Unknown tales either.)
I suppose I could consider this a slight but you have to remember Fritz won the Hugo and Nebula many times as well as The British Fantasy Award. The stories that garnered these awards would have taken priority. Like Robert Bloch, Jack Williamson and Edmond Hamilton, The Best of… series often ignored the early years, largely the Weird Tales years, of the writers it collected. Fritz is no exception. Fortunately John Pelan and Steve Savile have rectified this with their collections of Leiber in recent decades.
