Reading
Robert Kenneth Jones’ 1975 study of the shudder pulps provides an interesting
angle on what it was like to work as a pulp fiction author in the early part of
the twentieth century. In addition to
fascinating vignettes of individual writers and detailed descriptions of
typical “weird menace” fiction, Jones provides an economic perspective on the
challenges of publication in this field.
In 1975 several of these authors were still alive, and Jones was able to
interview them at their retirement homes in Florida.
The
shudder pulps were an offshoot of various pulp fiction genres, characterized by
fast pace, frenetic action, graphic violence and scantily clad women—often
threatened or abused. These attributes,
along with a tendency to provide naturalistic explanations at the end are what
distinguish weird menace from pulp fiction generally. The history of their
origin and eventual demise circa 1940 is the focus of Jones’ The Shudder Pulps: A History of the Weird
Menace Magazines of the 1930s (Wildside Press).
Pulp
writers who aspired to make it into the “slicks” and hardcover books may have
disdained the shudder pulps—Lovecraft certainly did—but several of them, like
Edmond Hamilton and Robert E. Howard, submitted stories to them, typically
using pseudonyms. Some examples: Hamilton, under the name of Robert Wentworth,
published World Without Sex (1940) in
Marvel Tales, and Howard published The Girl on the Hell Ship (1936) in Spicy Adventure Stories, (also known as She Devil). It must have been a stressful and challenging
way to make a living, because the low rate of remuneration—about one cent per
word or less—forced authors to emphasize quantity and slapdash submissions over
quality.
The
Marxist in all of us may see this as a special case of workers—writers in
particular—not owning or controlling the means of production, and so at the
mercy of economic forces beyond their control.
(“Writers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your...”)
H.P.
Lovecraft was never able to meet the demands of this industry during his
lifetime. He was forced to rely on a
dwindling inheritance and occasional editing jobs that paid poorly. H.S. Whitehead, though materially better off
than his friend, had a similar level of output.
Both authors died relatively young, Lovecraft at age 46 and Whitehead at
age 50, and both of severe gastric illnesses.
It seems plausible that the uncertainty, impoverishment and anxiety of
writing for the pulps contributed to their shortened lives.
More
successful colleagues, such as Robert E. Howard, produced twice as much or more
fiction in a given year. Howard, and to
a certain extent Clark Ashton Smith, were able to broaden the scope of
publications that purchased their work.
Howard’s stories saw print in magazines ranging from Weird Tales through various genre
periodicals to some of the “spicy” pulps, as did Edmond Hamilton’s work. Interestingly, it was the authors who could
survive the high volume demands of the shudder pulps, people like Paul Ernst,
Hugh B. Cave, Arthur Leo Zagat and Wyatt Blassingame, that remained active the
longest, with careers spanning the mid-1930s to the 1970s and beyond. Several of them were able to move on later in
their careers to the better paying “slick” magazines of the time.
By way
of comparison, H.P. Lovecraft typically produced around 2-3 stories a year for
publication in just one or two magazines of a given genre. Zagat wrote 2-3 short novels and several
short stories, for various publications, across several genres—mystery, horror,
and detective stories—in a single month. Of course, quality or originality was not
Zagat’s concern as it was for Lovecraft. Income
was his focus. Ernst and Cave achieved similar levels of productivity. Cave was still an active writer as late as
2004.
If only
Lovecraft had come up with a series featuring a popular character. It was often through serial fiction featuring
super heroes, ace detectives, fearless reporters and the like that pulp fiction
writers were able to build their readership and increase their earning
power. Lovecraft seems to have attempted
something like this very early on with Herbert
West—Reanimator (1922).
Perhaps
Lovecraft’s character of Randolph Carter or even Abdul Alhazred could have been
developed in the direction of further adventures. Some contemporary writers have done just this
with some of the author’s creations.
Lovecraft’s inability to do this, or to increase his productivity and
scope, doomed him to a difficult life as a pulp fiction author. S.T. Joshi provides a dismaying analysis of
the author’s personal finances in his two volume biography, I Am Providence, The Life and Times of H.P.
Lovecraft (2013).
Then as
now the challenges of getting in to print are complicated by economic aspects
of publication. Unknown authors must
somehow persuade cautious publishers to take the risk of investing in their
futures, a number game involving talent, but also probability and media
exposure. In many ways, e-books, blogs, “author
platforms” and the like are reminiscent of the amateur press associations where
Lovecraft and his colleagues made their first appearance. The challenge is increased for contemporary
novices because of the disappearance of paper as well as brick-and-mortar
bookstores, further reducing visibility for aspiring authors.
Lovecraft
and his colleagues endeavored to progress from pulp magazines to the more
lucrative “slicks” and hardcover books—only a minority succeeded. It is daunting to speculate these days about
what success for a new writer will look like as he or she struggles to emerge
from the “digital pulps” and “on-line amateur press”.
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