It is easy for readers like myself to forget that Weird Tales writers and other pulpsters had literary ambitions. Dwelling in my fan-boy bubble, I (and many others as well) think that our favorite writers would be proud of their Weird Tales heritage. As remarks by Fritz Leiber in interviews clearly show, this was not the case. Weird Tales has a patina of nostalgia upon it these days. Back in the day, it was small potatoes, obscure, beneath notice.
To really drive this home we need look no further than two collaborators who sold twenty-one stories to Weird Tales and a few more to its better-paying rival, Strange Stories. These men were Mark R Schorer (1908-1977) and August Derleth (1909-1971). Both these men could have been simple footnote writers in “The Unique Magazine’s” twenty-year run, but they were more. Much more.
Read the rest:
https://www.michaelmay.online/2016/07/literary-slumming-august-derleth-and.html
