Strange Tales (cover-titledStrange Tales of Mystery and Terror) was an Americanpulp magazine first published from 1931 to 1933 byClayton Publications. It specialized in fantasy andweird fiction, and was a significant competitor toWeird Tales, the leading magazine in the field. Its published stories include "Wolves of Darkness" byJack Williamson, as well as work byRobert E. Howard andClark Ashton Smith. The magazine ceased publication when Clayton entered bankruptcy. It was temporarily revived byWildside Press, which published three issues edited byRobert M. Price from 2003 to 2007.
Fantasy and occult fiction had often appeared in popular magazines prior to the twentieth century, but the first magazine to specialize in the genre,Weird Tales, appeared in 1923 and by the 1930s was the genre's industry leader.[1]Strange Tales, launched in 1931 byClayton Publications as a direct rival toWeird Tales, was one of a handful of magazines to seriously challenge for leadership of the field.[2] It was edited byHarry Bates, who also edited Clayton'sAstounding Stories of Super Science, which had begun publication the previous year.[1]Strange Tales was launched as a fantasy magazine, but likeWeird Tales it often published science-fiction stories,[1][3] although unlike its rival its focus was on action stories rather than strange ideas.[4] The title was originally planned to beStrange Stories, butMacfadden Publications, who had publishedTrue Strange Stories in 1929, challenged the title and forced Clayton to change it.[5]
Bates paid two cents per word, a higher rate thanWeird Tales, and attracted noted writers of the day. The magazine published "Wolves of Darkness" byJack Williamson, "Murgunstruum" byHugh B. Cave, and "Cassius" byHenry Whitehead.Clark Ashton Smith contributed five stories, including "The Return of the Sorcerer" in the first issue, andEdmond Hamilton andAugust Derleth also appeared in the magazine.[1]Robert E. Howard, later to become famous as the author of theConan the Barbarian stories, sent several stories toStrange Tales; some of the stories Bates rejected, such as "The Thing on the Roof" and "The Horror from the Mound", later appeared inWeird Tales, but Bates accepted "The People of the Dark" after asking for revisions, and it was published in the June 1932 issue.[6] Howard also sold "The Valley of the Lost" to Bates, but it had not yet appeared when Clayton went bankrupt,[6] and did not finally see publication until the 1960s.[7]
H.P. Lovecraft submitted several stories to Bates in early 1931, before the first issue had appeared, but the only work of his that appeared inStrange Tales was Henry Whitehead's "The Trap", part of which had beenghostwritten by Lovecraft, and which appeared in the March 1932 issue.[8][9] In one of Lovecraft's letters he comments that he would not contribute toStrange Tales because "Bates couldn't guarantee me immunity from the copy-slasher's shears and blue pencil", but unpublished letters of his make it clear that his stories were too atmospheric and lacking in action for Bates. Lovecraft's response was dismissive, and he was subsequently contemptuous of both Bates and Clayton in his letters.[9]
The cover art for all seven covers was painted by Hans Wessolowski, under his professional name of "Wesso".[10] Science-fiction historian Robert Weinberg asserts thatStrange Tales published better material thanWeird Tales during its short run, and fellow historianMike Ashley regards it as a "close rival" toWeird Tales.[1]
When Clayton went bankrupt in 1933,Astounding Stories was sold to Street & Smith, which planned to reviveStrange Tales as well but ultimately did not. Some material acquired for this planned revival appeared in the October 1933 issue ofAstounding instead.[11]
Between 2003 and 2007,Wildside Press brought out three further issues, undated and numbered 8 through 10, edited byRobert M. Price.[6] The contents included stories byL. Sprague de Camp,Richard Lupoff, andJohn Betancourt, and a reprint of "The Devil's Crypt", a story byE. Hoffmann Price that had appeared inStrange Detective Stories.[12]
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1931 | 1/1 | 1/2 | ||||||||||
| 1932 | 1/3 | 2/1 | 2/2 | 2/3 | ||||||||
| 1933 | 3/1 | |||||||||||
| All seven issues of the first run ofStrange Tales, showing volume and issue numbers. Harry Bates was editor throughout. | ||||||||||||
The full title wasStrange Tales of Mystery and Terror, and the magazine is sometimes indexed under this title. Each issue was 144 pages long and priced atUS$0.25 (equivalent to about $5 in 2024). The seven issues were divided into two volumes of three and a final volume of a single issue.[1] A reprint anthology infacsimile format, also titledStrange Tales, appeared in 1976 fromOdyssey Press,[1][6] edited by Diane Howard, William H. Desmond, John Howard, and Robert K. Wiener.[13] In addition, all stories from the first four issues, and most from the next two, were reprinted in four magazines edited byRobert A.W. Lowndes from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s:Magazine of Horror,Startling Mystery Stories,Weird Terror Tales, andBizarre Fantasy Tales.[1][7]
The three Wildside Press revival issues were 112 pages, 92 pages, and 58 pages long, respectively; the size increased with each issue, from digest size, to pulp magazine size, to an oversized magazine size. They were not printed on pulp paper.[14] Between 2004 and 2008 Wildside also reissued three of the original magazines in facsimile format; the issues chosen were dated March and October 1932, and January 1933.[15]
Adventure House has reprinted all 7 issues in facsimile format.