Tales of Magic and Mystery was a short-lived contemporary of Weird Tales which published a mix of weird fiction and fact articles about magic and the supernatural. It’s famous today for having been edited by Walter B. Gibson, creator of the Shadow and amateur prestidigitator and for having a story by H. P. Lovecraft published in one of its issues. Hard to find in any shape, and quite sought after for the Lovecraft association; issues are scarce and expensive. I’ve never read an issue till now, when a scan of the first issue was uploaded to the Internet Archive by pulp reader, collector and scanner extraordinaire Darwination.
The magazine is trimmed, priced at 25 cents for only 64 pages. The cover is interesting but uninspiring; it’s unsigned. The logo is similarly bland; together they resemble a cheap poster or flyer for a magic show. The price is high. Despite using four color printing for the cover, the magazine looks cheaply produced. The paper is higher quality than the usual pulp run, so I’m told.
The content mix is half non-fiction and half fiction. Much of the fiction is reprints from Brief Stories, which was at the time owned by Personal Arts Co., the publisher of this magazine. Both fiction and non-fiction are lavishly illustrated, with about 40% of the space devoted to headings, spot illustrations and photographs. The editor is Walter B. Gibson, whose name is not present in the table of contents.
The inner front ad is for the International Correspondence Schools (ICS), a staple advertiser in the pulps. In this case, there’s a deeper connection to this magazine. The owner of ICS was the owner of the Personal Arts Co., making this a rare case where the advertising company owned the magazine. The other example I can think of is from the 1970s, when Popular Publications was sold to direct marketing executive David Geller.
The cover artist is possibly Earle K. Bergey. I know, I know, it’s quite unlike any other work by Bergey, but here’s why I think it could be Bergey.
- There are a couple of signed interior illustrations, admittedly in a different style, by Bergey, inside the issue.
- In another issue, the frontispiece is signed by Bergey, and is in a similar style to both the covers and many unsigned interiors.
Sparse evidence, you say, and I agree. Do you have a better guess or some information I don’t? Leave a note in the comments.
Let’s take a look at the contents. Non-fiction first. Strange Personalities of the Past and Present by Alfred Maurice aka Walter B. Gibson is a collection of snippets about magicians of the past and present. The Miracle Man of Benares is about Howard Thurston dealing a miracle-working mendicant who materialized money. Bullet Catching describes the history of the bullet catching magic trick. The Ghost Maker tells us of Etienne-Gaspard Roberts who might have been the first magician to conjure up phantasmagoria. Houdini, the only official credit in this issue for Walter Gibson, is a rehash of some famous incidents in his career. Six pages of Magic Tricks You Can Do finishes the magical content.
Original stories in this issue: The Adventure of the Mummy’s Hand by Jack Hazlitt is a pastiche of Theophile Gautier’s famous The Mummy’s Foot. Done by a professional writer, and profusely illustrated, it held my interest till the ending, which was weak.
The Devil’s Darling by Eric Jules is a horror tale of a mad doctor, a staple of pulp fiction then and later. Average.
Slave of the Poppy is well below average.
Fiction Reprints: The Black Well of Wadi by Weird Tales regular Frank Owen is ok. The plot is non-credible but the writing is enjoyable if lush. The illustrations’ style, similar to the frontispiece, reminded me of Aubrey Beardsley’s work.
ONE night as we sat out there in the desert under the star-dotted sky, he told me a fragment of his history.
“Quite some time ago,” he said slowly, “I loved a girl as beautiful and fragile as an orchid. We were to marry; but she died, and all happiness and hope went from me. I sought the comfort of barren places; and with only a camel and a few necessities roamed here among the sand dunes. And in the course of my wanderings I met an old man called Haji. A bit of a wizard, he.”
The Black Pagoda is the first instalment of a three part lost world serial set in Tibet. Interesting start. Also published in Brief Stories.
On the whole, an interesting experiment, but not likely to be successful. If I was a reader, I’d be asking what I was getting for my quarter. 30 pages of fiction, half of it reprints isn’t going to cut it. No matter how gorgeous the illustrations are.
You can read the magazine here: https://archive.org/details/tales-of-magic-and-mystery-v-01n-01-1927-12.-personal-arts-darwin-ia