The Best of Jules de Grandin Read online

  This edition of The Best of Jules de Grandin © 2020 by the Estate of Seabury Quinn

  Jules de Grandin stories copyright © 1925-1938 by Popular Fiction Publishing Co. Reprinted by permission of Weird Tales Limited. Jules de Grandin stories copyright © 1938-1951 by Weird Tales. Reprinted by permission of Weird Tales Limited.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Night Shade Books, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-949102-26-0

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-949102-42-0

  Cover illustration by Donato Giancola

  Cover design by Claudia Noble

  Printed in the United States of America

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction by George A. Vanderburgh and Robert E. Weinberg

  The Isle of Missing Ships (Weird Tales, February 1926)

  The House of Horror (Weird Tales, July 1926)

  The Great God Pan (Weird Tales, October 1926)

  Restless Souls (Weird Tales, October 1928)

  The Black Master (Weird Tales, January 1929*)

  The Devil’s Rosary (Weird Tales, April 1929†)

  The House without a Mirror (Weird Tales, November 1929)

  Stealthy Death (Weird Tales, November 1930)

  Satan’s Stepson (Weird Tales, September 1931)

  The Bleeding Mummy (Weird Tales, November 1932)

  The Thing in the Fog (Weird Tales, March 1933‡)

  The Hand of Glory (Weird Tales, July 1933‡)

  The Mansion of Unholy Magic (Weird Tales, October 1933)

  Red Gauntlets of Czerni (Weird Tales, December 1933‡)

  The Jest of Warburg Tantavul (Weird Tales, September 1934)

  Hands of the Dead (Weird Tales, January 1935)

  Witch-House (Weird Tales, November 1936‡)

  Suicide Chapel (Weird Tales, June 1938‡)

  The House Where Time Stood Still (Weird Tales, March 1939)

  The Green God’s Ring (Weird Tales, January 1945)

  *Cover by Curtis C. Senf

  †Cover by Hugh Rankin

  ‡Cover by Margaret Brundage

  To

  PETER RUBER

  with fond memories of our good times and travels

  To

  AUGUST W. DERLETH

  with admiration of his multifaceted writing talent

  To

  CHARLES EMERSON (Vincent) STARRETT

  The Last Bookman, born in Toronto, lived in Chicago, and a founding member of The Baker Street Irregulars

  Introducing the Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot of Supernatural, Speculative Fantasy & Macabre Fiction

  by George A. Vanderburgh and Robert E. Weinberg

  WEIRD TALES, THE SELF-DESCRIBED “Unique Magazine,” and one of the most influential Golden Age pulp magazines in the first half of the twentieth century, was home to a number of now-well-recognized names, including Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Manly Wade Wellman.

  But among such stiff competition was another writer, more popular at the time than all of the aforementioned authors, and paid at a higher rate because of it. Over the course of ninety-two stories and a serialized novel, his most endearing character captivated pulp magazine readers for nearly three decades, during which time he received more front cover illustrations accompanying his stories than any of his fellow contributors.

  The writer’s name was Seabury Quinn, and his character was the French occult detective Jules de Grandin.

  Perhaps you’ve never heard of de Grandin, his indefatigable assistant Dr. Trowbridge, or the fictional town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. Perhaps you’ve never even heard of Seabury Quinn (or maybe only in passing, as a historical footnote in one of the many essays and reprinted collections of Quinn’s now-more-revered contemporaries). Certainly, de Grandin was not the first occult detective—Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence, Hodgson’s Thomas Carnacki, and Sax Rohmer’s Moris Klaw preceded him—nor was he the last, as Wellman’s John Thunstone, Margery Lawrence’s Miles Pennoyer, and Joseph Payne Brennan’s Lucius Leffing all either overlapped with the end of de Grandin’s run or followed him. And without doubt de Grandin shares more than a passing resemblance to both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (especially with his Dr. Watson-like sidekick) and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.

  Indeed, even if you were to seek out a de Grandin story, your options over the years would have been limited. Unlike Lovecraft, Smith, Wellman, Bloch, and other Weird Tales contributors, the publication history of the Jules de Grandin tales is spotty at best. In 1966, Arkham House printed roughly 2,000 copies of The Phantom-Fighter, a selection of ten early works. In the late 1970s, Popular Library published six paperback volumes of approximately thirty-five assorted tales, but they are now long out of print. In 2001, the specialty press The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box released an oversized, three-volume hardcover set of every de Grandin story (the first time all the stories had been collected), and, while still in production, the set is unavailable to the general trade.

  So, given how obscure Quinn and his character might seem today, it’s justifiably hard to understand how popular these stories originally were, or how frequently new ones were written. But let the numbers tell the tale: from October 1925 (when the very first de Grandin story was released) to December 1933, a roughly eight-year span, de Grandin stories appeared in an incredible sixty-two of the ninety-six issues that Weird Tales published, totaling well-over three-quarters of a million words. Letter after letter to the magazine’s editor demanded further adventures from the supernatural detective.

  If Quinn loomed large in the mind of pulp readers during the magazine’s heyday, then why has his name fallen on deaf ears since? Aside from the relative unavailability of his work, the truth is that Quinn has been successfully marginalized over the years by many critics, who have often dismissed him as simply a hack writer. The de Grandin stories are routinely criticized as being of little worth, and dismissed as unimportant to the development of weird fiction. A common argument, propped up by suspiciously circular reasoning, concludes that Quinn was not the most popular writer for Weird Tales, just the most prolific.

  These critics seem troubled that the same audience who read and appreciated the work of Lovecraft, Smith, and Howard could also enjoy the exploits of the French ghostbuster. And while it would be far from the truth to suggest that the literary merits of the de Grandin stories exceed those of some of his contemporaries’ tales, Quinn was a much more skillful writer, and the adventures of his occult detective more enjoyable to read, than most critics are willing to acknowledge. In the second half of the twentieth century, as the literary value of some pulp-fiction writers began to be reconsidered, Quinn proved to be the perfect whipping boy for early advocates attempting to destigmatize weird fiction: He was the hack author who churned out formulaic prose for a quick paycheck. Anticipating charges that
a literary reassessment of Lovecraft would require reevaluating the entire genre along with him, an arbitrary line was quickly drawn in the sand, and as the standard-bearer of pulp fiction’s popularity, the creator of Jules de Grandin found himself on the wrong side of that line.

  First and foremost, it must be understood that Quinn wrote to make money, and he was far from the archetypal “starving artist.” At the same time that his Jules de Grandin stories were running in Weird Tales, he had a similar series of detective stories publishing in Real Detective Tales. Quinn was writing two continuing series at once throughout the 1920s, composing approximately twenty-five thousand words a month on a manual typewriter. Maintaining originality under such a grueling schedule would be difficult for any author, and even though the de Grandin stories follow a recognizable formula, Quinn still managed to produce one striking story after another. It should also be noted that the tendency to recycle plots and ideas for different markets was very similar to the writing practices of Weird Tales’s other prolific and popular writer, Robert E. Howard, who is often excused for these habits, rather than criticized for them.

  Throughout his many adventures, the distinctive French detective changed little. His penchant for amusingly French exclamations was a constant through all ninety-three works, as was his taste for cigars and brandy after (and sometimes before) a hard day’s work, and his crime-solving styles and methods remained remarkably consistent. From time to time, some new skill or bit of knowledge was revealed to the reader, but in most other respects the Jules de Grandin of “The Horror on the Links” was the same as the hero of the last story in the series, published twenty-five years later.

  He was a perfect example of the rare French blond type, rather under medium height, but with a military erectness of carriage that made him look several inches taller than he really was. His light-blue eyes were small and exceedingly deep-set, and would have been humorous had it not been for the curiously cold directness of their gaze. With his wide mouth, light mustache waxed at the ends in two perfectly horizontal points, and those twinkling, stock-taking eyes, he reminded me of an alert tomcat.

  Thus is de Grandin described by Dr. Trowbridge in the duo’s first meeting in 1925. His personal history is dribbled throughout the stories: de Grandin was born and raised in France, attended medical school, became a prominent surgeon, and in the Great War served first as a medical officer, then as a member of the intelligence service. After the war, he traveled the world in the service of French Intelligence. His age is never given, but it’s generally assumed that the occult detective is in his early forties.

  Samuel Trowbridge, on the other hand, is a typical conservative small-town doctor of the first half of the twentieth century (as described by Quinn, he is a cross between an honest brother of George Bernard Shaw and former Chief Justice of the United States Charles Evans Hughes). Bald and bewhiskered, most—if not all—of his life was spent in the same town. Trowbridge is old-fashioned and somewhat conservative, a member of the Knights Templar, a vestryman in the Episcopal Church, and a staunch Republican.

  While the two men are dissimilar in many ways, they are also very much alike. Both are fine doctors and surgeons. Trowbridge might complain from time to time about de Grandin’s wild adventures, but he always goes along with them; there is no thought, ever, of leaving de Grandin to fight his battles alone. More than any other trait, though, they are two men with one mission, and perhaps for that reason they remained friends for all of their ninety-three adventures and countless trials.

  The majority of Quinn’s de Grandin stories take place in or near Harrisonville, New Jersey, a fictional community that rivals (with its fiends, hauntings, ghouls, werewolves, vampires, voodoo, witchcraft, and zombies) Lovecraft’s own Arkham, Massachusetts. For more recent examples of a supernatural-infested community, one need look no further than the modern version of pulp-fiction narratives … television. Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Sunnydale, California, and The Night Strangler’s Seattle both reflect the structural needs of this type of supernatural narrative.

  Early in the series, de Grandin is presented as Trowbridge’s temporary house guest, having travelled to the United States to study both medicine and modern police techniques, but Quinn quickly realized that the series was due for a long run and recognized that too much globe-trotting would make the stories unwieldy. A familiar setting would be needed to keep the main focus of each tale on the events themselves. Harrisonville, a medium-sized town outside New York City, was completely imaginary, but served that purpose.

  Most of the de Grandin stories feature beautiful girls in peril. Quinn discovered early on that Farnsworth Wright, Weird Tales’s editor from 1924 to 1940, believed nude women on the cover sold more copies, so when writing he was careful to always feature a scene that could translate to appropriately salacious artwork. Quinn also realized that his readers wanted adventures with love and romance as central themes, so even his most frightening tales were given happy endings (… of a sort).

  And yet the de Grandin adventures are set apart from the stories they were published alongside by their often explicit and bloody content. Quinn predated the work of Clive Barker and the splatterpunk writers by approximately fifty years, but, using his medical background, he wrote some truly terrifying horror stories; tales like “The House of Horror” and “The House Where Time Stood Still” feature some of the most hideous descriptions of mutilated humans ever set down on paper. The victims of the mad doctor in “The House of Horror” in particular must rank near the top of the list of medical monstrosities in fiction.

  Another element that set Quinn’s occult detective apart from others was his pioneering use of modern science in the fight against ancient superstitions. De Grandin fought vampires, werewolves, and even mummies in his many adventures, but oftentimes relied on the latest technology to save the day. The Frenchman put it best in a conversation with Dr. Trowbridge at the end of “The Blood-Flower”:

  “And wasn’t there some old legend to the effect that a werewolf could only be killed with a silver bullet?”

  “Ah, bah,” he replied with a laugh. “What did those old legend-mongers know of the power of modern firearms? … When I did shoot that wolfman, my friend, I had something more powerful than superstition in my hand. Morbleu, but I did shoot a hole in him large enough for him to have walked through.”

  Quinn didn’t completely abandon the use of holy water, ancient relics, and magical charms to defeat supernatural entities, but he made it clear that de Grandin understood that there was a place for modern technology as well as old folklore when it came to fighting monsters. Nor was de Grandin himself above using violence to fight his enemies. Oftentimes, the French occult investigator served as judge, jury and executioner when dealing with madmen, deranged doctors, and evil masterminds. There was little mercy in his stories for those who used dark forces.

  While sex was heavily insinuated but rarely covered explicitly in the pulps, except in the most general of terms, Quinn again was willing to go where few other writers would dare. Sexual slavery, lesbianism, and even incest played roles in his writing over the years, challenging the moral values of the day.

  In the end, there’s no denying that the de Grandin stories are pulp fiction. Many characters are little more than assorted clichés bundled together. De Grandin is a model hero, a French expert on the occult, and never at a loss when battling the most evil of monsters. Dr. Trowbridge remains the steadfast companion, much in the Dr. Watson tradition, always doubting but inevitably following his friend’s advice. Quinn wrote for the masses, and he didn’t spend pages describing landscapes when there was always more action unfolding.

  The Jules de Grandin stories were written as serial entertainment, with the legitimate expectation that they would not be read back to back. While all of the adventures are good fun, the best way to properly enjoy them is over an extended period of time. Plowing through one story after another will lessen their impact, and greatly cut down on the exc
itement and fun of reading them. One story a week, which would stretch out this entire five-volume series over two years, might be the perfect amount of time needed to fully enjoy these tales of the occult and the macabre. They might not be great literature, but they don’t pretend to be. They’re pulp adventures, and even after seventy-five years, the stories read well.

  Additionally, though the specific aesthetic values of Weird Tales readers were vastly different than those of today’s readers, one can see clearly see the continuing allure of these types of supernatural adventures, and the long shadow that they cast over twentieth and early twenty-first century popular culture. Sure, these stories are formulaic, but it is a recipe that continues to be popular to this day. The formula of the occult detective, the protector who stands between us and the monsters of the night, can be seen time and time again in the urban fantasy and paranormal romance categories of commercial fiction, and is prevalent in today’s television and movies. Given the ubiquity and contemporary popularity of this type of narrative, it’s actually not at all surprising that Seabury Quinn was the most popular contributor to Weird Tales.

  We are proud to present this volume collecting the best Jules de Grandin stories written by Seabury Quinn, organized chronologically, as they originally appeared in Weird Tales magazine.

  This volume has been graced by tremendous artwork from renowned artist Donato Giancola, who has given Quinn’s legendary character an irresistible combination of grace, cunning and timelessness. We couldn’t have asked for a better way to introduce “the occult Hercule Poirot” to a new generation of readers.

  Finally, if Seabury Quinn is watching from above, and closely scrutinizing the shelves of bookstores, he would undoubtedly be pleased as punch, and proud as all get-out, to find his creation, Dr. Jules de Grandin, rising once again in the minds of readers around the world, battling the forces of darkness … wherever, whoever, or whatever the nature of their evil might be.

  When the Jaws of Darkness Open,