Under the Moons of Mars: A History and Anthology of "the Scientific Romance" in the Munsey Magazines, 1912-1920 (68 page)

"The greatest benefit derived from the amalgamation undoubtedly will be the return to THE ALL-STORY of George Allan England, who, to my mind, ranks with Edgar Rice Burroughs and Albert Payson Terhtine as one of the three supreme literary artists of the house of Munsey. Mr. England's
Darkness and Dawn
trilogy is on a par with the Tarzan stories, and fortunate indeed is that magazine which can secure as contributors the authors of both.

"Other CAVALIER authors of extreme merit are Zane Grey, whose novels of the West have such a fund of graphic local color; and Edgar Franklin, whose stories, both serious and humorous, have so long entertained the readers of the Munsey magazines. ...

"I now approach a subject which fills me with trepidation.

"Ever since last August I have been engaged in a wordy warfare with some of the readers of THE ARGOSY concerning an alleged author whose erotic, effeminate stories fill me with the most profound disgust. This author was one of the principal contributors to THE CAVALIER; in fact, his tales formed the reason for my ceasing to read the latter periodical. Now he is to be inflicted upon the readers of THE ALL-STORY. For my somewhat severe criticism of this writer, I have received every imaginable sort of ridicule and opposition, both in prose and in verse, through THE ARGOSY 'Log-Book.'

"In order to avoid another such affray in case this letter should be printed, I will here do no more than to quote and uphold the words of our anonymous correspondent, 'One Who Reads Between Lines,' whose letter appears in THE ALL-STORY for May 16. He says, and I say with him, 'Tell Fred Jackson to can all of his heroines and then send the can to the government to be tested as an explosive. ...' "

The September, 1913, issue of THE ARGOSY had printed a communication from H. P. Lovecraft expressing at some length, with impressive rhetorical vehemence, his contempt for Fred Jackson and the type of story he wrote, and requesting his extirpation from the pages of an otherwise noble fiction magazine. The letter kicked off so elaborate and prolonged a debate in the readers' columns of three Munsey magazines as to the abilities or lack thereof of Fred Jackson as to make Lovecraft's name better known than most of the authors'.

Fred Jackson's frequency of appearance in THE CAVALIER and THE ARGOSY resulted from the fact that his specialty was writing love stories. He wrote them awkwardly, with jolting bluntness, and they could prove sickening to anyone who doted on adventure, but they were clean, with a good story line which sometimes took complex twists that rescued them from sameness. He could write a sound adventure story, too, and had written at least one science-fiction novelette based on the Pygmalion theme,
Galatea the Second
, in THE CAVALIER for October 5, 1912, in which a statue of a beautiful young woman apparently comes to life and has to be (aught to eat, speak, dress, and perform the most ordinary actions. She turns out to have been the victim of a scientist's experiment with a drug that turns humans almost as hard as stone for three days and then they recover with all memory expunged. This particular story is handled with great technical writing skill, and while it is also a love story, is far superior to most of Jackson's other work. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that he wrote his novels in great haste (three full-length novels by him appeared in eight months in THE ARGOSY) that dissipated a good natural writing talent.

Lovecraft's reaction to Jackson was to some extent prompted by an extremely prudish upbringing, but also quite legitimately by the annoyance of a fan of strange adventure who was being offered an excessive quantity of conventional love stories. His wrath particularly centered upon the novel
The First Law
, which appeared complete in the April, 1913, THE ARGOSY, a story of a young opera singer who loses her voice after completing a smashing success and who considers marrying a man she doesn't love because her family needs the money, though she is in love with someone else, but is rescued from that fate when he falls in love with and marries her sister, who is his secretary, so his money will still be available to prop up the fading family fortunes.

Letters poured in defending Fred Jackson. The December, 1913, issue had letter headings which read: "Challenge to Lovecraft," "Virginia vs. Providence," "Elmira vs. Providence," "Bomb for Lovecraft."

Miss E. E. Blankenship wrote from Richmond, Virginia: "I think you are very ungenerous in your attitude, Mr. Lovecraft. Your words 'erratic fiction' [she misquoted "erotic"] I fail to acknowledge. Instead I find pages filled with innocence, sweetness, loveliness, and fascination."

Elizabeth E. Loop of Elmira, New York, jumped on Lovecraft's extensive vocabulary: "If he would use a few less adjectives and more words which the general public are more familiar with than 'labyrinthine,' 'laureled,' 'luminary,' 'lucubration,' and many others ... I am an admirer of Mr. Jackson's stories, but this letter of Mr. Lovecraft's filled me with a distaste for our friend from Providence."

However, there were two letter headings which blared: "Agrees with Lovecraft."

From Paris, France, A. Missbaum wrote: "Will you go on reading if I start by saying that I entirely agree—I speak in behalf of many of your readers on this side of the pond—with H. P. Lovecraft, who wrote an arraignment which you printed in September's issue? Yes, Fred Jackson is rotten. Give us less love stories (unless they are live ones) and more scientific mystery tales."

A Los Angeles reader protested "three out of the last live novels" by Jackson and sided with Lovecraft.

H. P. Lovecraft read the fusillades and responded in the January, 1914, THE ARGOSY in verse, which Bob Davis titled "Lovecraft Comes Back Ad Criticos," and which in part read:

What vigorous protests now assail my eyes?
See Jackson's satellites in anger rise!
His ardent readers, steep'd in tales of love
Sincere devotion to their leader prove;
In brave defense of sickly gallantry,
They damn the critic and beleaguer me.

Then, closing:

Tis plain you please the fallen public ear.
As once, in Charles the Second's vulgar age,
Gross Wycherly and Dryden soil'd the stage,
So now again erotic themes prevail,
However loud and sterner souls bewail.
Pure fiction wanes and baser writings rise—
But cease, my Muse! No more I'll criticize.

As the readers' battle continued, the February, 1914, THE ARGOSY found the readers' columns leading off with still another Lovecraft poetical retort, this time titled "Ad Criticos: Liber Secundus."

Still louder bawl the bold Boeotian band,
And seize their arms at sentiment's command:
The lovers' legion, martially array'd,
To tender Jack bears its eager aid.
Their acid quills, fresh pluck'd from Cupid's wing,
At me the Myrmidons of Venus fling.

F. V. Bennett, of Hanover, Illinois, who had sided with Lovecraft, renewed his subscription and commented: "I see by 'The Log-Book' that H. P. Lovecraft is getting his now; well, shake, H.P.L. We got it first; don't care, as we started the ball that called a halt to the rush of Jackson soft stuff; keep the good work up and give them as good as they send, man."

To which Bob Davis replied: "I can promise that you won't get too much Jackson in 1914, if you will overlook the story this month—
Winged Feet
."

Davis' statement satisfied neither the critics nor the defenders; thousands of word pro and con continued to run each month. Sometimes there were three or four poems an issue aimed at Lovecraft; his use of verse was widely imitated. The greatest bard arrayed against him was John Russell, of Tampa, Florida, a sampling of his technique from the May, 1914, issue going like this:

Lovecraft has dropped from rime to prose,
To Shew that what he knew, he knows.
I say that really to my view
Twas little that he ever knew.

The intensity of the debate reached the point where in the October, 1914, issue, more than a year after Lovecraft's first letter,
an entire section
, with twenty-four-point boldface type across the page, was titled "Fred Jackson, Pro and Con." Explaining it, the editor said: "Fred Jackson, the most liked and hated writer that ever contributed to THE ARGOSY! Never mind, Fred; the fact that no one is indifferent to you is encouraging. It shows that you aren't mediocre or meaningless, anyway. Wishy-washy people don't make folks mad. We'll still keep on printing a story by you now and then, even at the risk of crabbing our stand-in with a section of ARGOSY readers."

The page led off with two columns, one headed "Jackson Boosters" and the other "Jackson Knockers," with two poems, one by John Russell and one by H. P. Lovecraft, the latter promising to quit the fray and stop taking up so much room in "The Log-Book," but also with a letter from F. V. Bennett ending with the crack: "As for John Russell's poetry, it's—well, in the same class with Jackson."

"Fred Jackson's Coming Back," a full-page headline heralded in the December, 1914, issue, with a brace of letters which asked for it. The idea of devoting special sections to authors had proved so well received that the same issue had two pages titled "What They Think of E. J. Rath." Rath, the pen name of a woman, who would go on to great success, had scored a tremendous popular hit with readers of THE ARGOSY with
The Man with the 44 Chest
in October. There had been a special section on Zane Grey in November, and a number of sections on pros and cons on THE ARGOSY itself.

The Jackson debate was to continue for years, and a complete reprint of the material by Lovecraft and the people who referred to him by name would make a worthwhile small booklet in a limited edition, aimed at special collectors. There is a possibility that the quantity of criticism he received may have been the reason why his letter in ARGOSY WEEKLY for November 15, 1919, appeared under the pen name of Augustus T. Swift. He asked for story endings "without the hugging and kissing," and added, "There is such a thing as being fed up too full with the love business."

His main reason for writing was to praise Francis Stevens, an outstanding writer of fantasy. "
Citadel of Fear
, if written by Sir Walter Scott or Ibanez, that wonderful and tragic allegory would have been praised to the skies. ... After the profound intellectual and moral impression created by the
Citadel of Fear
, it is hardly necessary to say that I plunged into
Avalon
with equal eagerness. I see by the first installment that I am not to be disappointed, for the same masterful evidence of huge mystery, gigantic tragedy, and original and extraordinary situations are immediately shown."

Francis Stevens was still a major object of his affections in another letter written as Augustus T. Swift in ARGOSY WEEKLY for May 22, 1920: "I note with joy that your one thousandth issue of March 6 is to celebrate by printing the first installment of
Claimed
, by Francis Stevens. ... Mr. Stevens, to my mind, is the highest grade of your writers. ... In other words, he realizes that psychology plays the most important part in life's comedy, tragedy, and romance, and that revolvers, daggers, and rifles are no longer exclusively popular as tokens of affection or otherwise between gentlemen and gentlewomen of honor."

There is no reason to believe that Lovecraft stopped reading ARGOSY WEEKLY in 1920, and we know beyond a doubt that he read it continuously from 1905 to 1920, when he was thirty years old, and that his enthusiasm for its authors and their works was unabated. Since H. P. Lovecraft, after the writing of
Supernatural Horror in Literature
, which first appeared in THE RECLUSE in 1927, gained considerable respect as a critic of fantastic and supernatural fiction, his views on the Munsey pulps must be regarded seriously. Practically nothing of the material, styles, or attitudes of the writers of the Munsey pulps, even those he praised most highly, is observable in his work—underscoring, perhaps, that the writers who are most pleasing to a budding author are not necessarily the most important influences on their writings.

IT WOULD BE easy to pass over the H. P. Lovecraft-Fred Jackson episode as a meaningless tempest in a teapot, stirred up by blind chance. From the vantage of historical perspective it proved considerably more significant than that. It uncovered a sharp difference in the readership, with cleavage much deeper than had been suspected.

THE ARGOSY deliberately appealed to a masculine audience with most of its material, but also slanted a substantial portion toward women to secure a broader base of readership. In the process they had watered down the adventure and conventionalized the love stories.

The excitement in "The Log-Book" which often prompted headings like "Our Readers Cheer and Groan" or "How Do
You
Like THE ARGOSY?" was a symptom of a troubled readership and not the calculation of editorial objectivity or cleverness. The major complaints were repeated over and over again, so there was no wishing them away. There was almost universal agreement that virtually all of the short stories were terrible. The idea of a complete novel was good, but when the reader didn't like it, the issue was spoiled for him. A novel by Fred Jackson seemed to arouse protests from a quarter of the readers. Letter after letter said they liked THE ARGOSY of the early years of the century much better. The lack of fantastic stories was a frequent complaint.

THE ARGOSY had been running 240 pages for fifteen cents. They quietly dropped the number of pages to 224 at no decrease in price in the issue of January, 1915, an indication of circulation decline. Then, abruptly, with the October, 1915, issue, the price dropped to ten cents, the pages to 192, but with smaller type to maintain the wordage, and serials were resumed. A four-page blue insert in that issue from Frank A. Munsey rationalized the return, but his flip-flops of logic were now greeted cynically.

Suddenly serial novels were good things again, not anachronisms for monthlies, as had been authoritatively proclaimed, and the times had not passed them by. Ironically, the first serial was by the controversial Fred Jackson, titled
The Diamond Necklace
(October-December, 1915), but it was a murder mystery and not a love story. There was a return to fantasy, though only temporarily, eight stories published that year and two of them important.