The Curse of Jules de Grandin: Pierre d’Artois

The Curse of Jules de Grandin haunted one man: E. Hoffman Price (1898-1988) and his creation, Pierre d”Artois. The success of a character in a Pulp magazine will often spur the appearance of several imitators. Take Sherlock Holmes, for instance. The tales of Martin Hewitt by Arthur Morrison were not of the same caliber as Conan Doyle’s Baker Street bunch. But they did fill the pages of The Strand while readers eagerly waited for more Holmes. Doyle’s own brother-in-law, E. W. Hornung created Raffles in this spirit as well. Everybody wanted to be the next Mystery superstar, while Holmes’ creator plotted his death.

In Weird Tales, the scene played out a little differently. At “The Unique Magazine” Jules de Grandin was king. In 1930 if you said occult detective you answered “Jules de Grandin”. But Seabury Quinn didn’t have that stage all to himself. E. Hoffman Price, a man who would make his name in the Adventure magazines, tried too. His occult detective was Pierre d’Artois.

E. Hoffman Price had an advantage that seems to have helped and not. He was friends with the editor, Farnsworth Wright. Price was one of a group of writers (calling themselves The Varnished Vultures) that included Otis Adelbert Kline and Robert S. Carr, who cooked exotic meals and drank wine with the man in charge. (Price has the distinction of having met “The Triumvirate”: H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, personally.) While this might have helped Wright to keep Price in mind, give him cover treatment perhaps, the editor was bound to follow the dictates of his readers.

Pierre d”Artois is described as a “swashbuckling, French occult detective” by Alexander Kreitner in his introduction to E. Hoffman Price’s Pierre d’Artois: Occult Detective & Associates Megapack (2017). This points out the first unfortunate thing about the d’Artoid character: he is French: Weird Tales readers could not grasp there being two French occult detectives! Later when Manly Wade Wellman introduced his occult detectives: Keith Pursuivant and John Thunstone, no on really chirped about Jules de Grandin. Wellman’s guys weren’t French. D’Artois’s Watson, Glenn Farrell may not be a Doctor Trowbridge but sidekicks rarely count. Farrell is a pretty good stand-in for Price himself, a world traveler and adventurer. he would be the hero of other tales by Price.

The first d”Artois story was “The Word of Santiago” (Weird Tales, February 1926). Price based the character of d’Artois on his fencing instructor, so this tale features swordplay. Unfortunately it also appeared literally after “Isle of Missing Ships”, de Grandin’s third story. While Wright may not have known yet how popular de Grandin and Trowbridge were going to be, this seems unfortunate. The story garnered no comments in “The Eyrie”.

The friendship between editor and author only began after Price submitted the second story. In The Weird Tales Story by Robert Weinberg (1977), Price writes an entire chapter on his memories of Wright. Here is what Wright wrote to the author upon receiving the tale: “Please permit me to thank you for the latest story, ‘Peacock’s Shadow’. It has all the exotic witchery in its imagery, that one would expect to find only in Gautier. I would be false to our readers were I to reject it, for it will give tone to Weird Tales— in fact, I think it would give tone to Blackwood’s or to Century or Harper’s.” High praise, indeed!

The second story, “The Peacock’s Shadow” (Weird Tales, November 1926) fared a little better in the readers’ polls, tying for second place with two other tales. Margaret Harper of Claymont, Delaware wrote: “E. Hoffman Price’s tale of devil-worship, The Peacock’s Shadow, was thrilling, and held me fascinated.”

Then Price makes a terrible mistake in hindsight. Wright tried to expand the Weird Tales franchise with Oriental Tales. Price was certainly was the king of that short-lived magazine. Seabury Quinn and Robert E. Howard also wrote for it. But this sidestep into Oriental Tales meant that “The Bride of the Peacock” (Weird Tales, August 1932) didn’t appear until six years after the last d’Artois story. In those six years, Seabury Quinn and his French detective appeared over thirty times before d’Artois returned. During this time Quinn cemented his reputation as Weird Tales most popular author.

J. D. Arden of Detroit makes this clear with: “I was right glad to welcome E. Hoffman Price back to the fold of Weird Tales writers. He has come back in a big way. If it weren’t for the Jules de Grandin story, Bride of the Peacock would be my choice of the best story in the current issue. But whenever Jules is prancing in Weird Tales, there is only H. P. Lovecraft who can beat him out of first place.”

Despite Arden’s comments, “The Bride of the Peacock” took first place in the readers’ poll. This was the only time d”Artois would win that accolade.

“The Return of Balkis” (Weird Tales, April 1933) saw less love. Edward Walden of River Falls, Wisconsin wrote: “Then there was Price’s Return of Balkis, which though not equal to his Girl From Samarcand, still rang the bell…” and Otto J. Precht of Bellmore, Long Island said: “Mr. Price’s story, The Return of Balkis, merits a letter of commendation. The red-blooded character, Nureddin, warms the heart. But I regret very much that Mr. Price had to kill him. Why didn’t he let him live so that he could rob more caravans?” “The Return of Balkis” did not place in the readers’ poll.

“Lord of the Fourth Axis” (Weird Tales, November 1933) saw a pattern forming here. Julius Hopkins of Washington, D. C.: “Price’s Lord of the Fourth Axis didn’t go quite far enough. I am sure we readers would like to have had the horrible hordes of the Master do some wholesale slaughtering, as in Howard’s stories, before being stopped by the hero.” No mention in the polls. This story would have an influence on Price’s later collaboration with H. P. Lovecraft.

“Satan’s Garden” (Weird Tales, April–May 1934) should have been Pierre d”Artois’s swan song but the readers were losing interest. The first installment got this letter from Alvin Earl Perry of Rockdale, Texas: “Congratulations! You have secured a masterpiece of fantastic literature in E. Hoffman Price’s two-part serial, Satan’s Garden, and I can hardly wait for the concluding installment.” The second portion received no comments. Both months Price lost out to C. L. Moore and her tales of Northwest Smith.

“The Devil’s Crypt” (Strange Detective Stories, January 1934) is an anomaly. I have to assume it was rejected by Farnsworth Wright, perhaps for being too much of a Mystery story. Strange Detective Stories was a very minor Pulp that lasted for 3 issues. It featured minor stories by Robert E. Howard, Arthur J. Burks and Hugh B. Cave.

“Queen of the Lilin” (Weird Tales, November 1934) was Price’s last attempt before abandoning the series for other writing. Fred Anger of Berkeley, California was positive: “By the beard of the prophet! Several things concerning the November issue have aroused my ire, and several others have done just the opposite. Queen of the Lilin surpasses all the others by its sheer beauty. It certainly takes E. Hoffman Price to write weird literature. I hope you intend to get more of his work.”

Weird Tales did publish more Price (“Spotted Satan” with Otis Adelbert Kline (January 1940) for instance) but not d’Artois. Price moved into better paying Shudder Pulps and adventure magazines. You have to remember Weird Tales paid one cent on publication while Shudder Pulps often paid three cents on acceptance. Despite the fact that Price wrote over 500 stories, he is best-remembered as the author of “The Stranger From Kurdistan” (Weird Tales, July 1925) and other Ismeddin stories, the H. P. Lovecraft collaboration “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” (Weird Tales, July 1934) and “The Peacock’s Shadow” if not d”Artois himself.

Looking back, perhaps this wasn’t so bad. Would Price want to have been saddled with one character the way Seabury Quinn was? Ninety-three Jules de Grandin stories and the title as Weird Tales‘ favorite author may look good from the outside but it came with a price. Was it worth it?