Manly Wade Wellman

[Sargeant_Fox]

There's already a thread about Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John stories, but I think he deserves a thread of his own.

Karl Edward Wagner was a fan of his work and wrote the introduction to John the Balladeer (back in print at Valancourt Books, 2021). When Wagner founded the Carcosa imprint with David Drake and Jim Groce, he published two volumes by Wellman: Worse Things Waiting (1973) and Lonely Vigils (1981). After Wellman's death, he became his literary executor.

I enjoyed the Silver John stories so much I decided to try Worse Things Waiting. It's a hefty volume, over 450 pages, richly illustrated by Lee Brown Coye. These fantasy and horror stories span his career, which started in the 1920s writing for pulp magazines like Weird Tales, Astounding Stories, Startling Stories, Unknown and Strange Stories.

Worse Things Waiting contains a 1937 story dedicated to the memory of H. P. Lovecraft, "The Terrible Parchment" (Weird Tales, Vol. 30, nr 2). I've never been crazy about the Mythos as I think each writer should do his own thing. But I liked the story in question because I think Wellman was writing tongue in cheek. The premise is that a man (maybe Wellman) receives a copy of Weird Tales and inside finds a page of the Necronomicon; the protagonist quickly informs his wife it's a fictional book invented by Lovecraft that perhaps the collective imagination of his fans has brought forth into reality (for all I know this is the first instance of the it's-all-true plot writers usually weave around Howie; see Alan Moore's Providence). But then the menace is most un-Lovecraftian: the single page comes to life and attacks them like a crawling creature; it's like a Sam Raimi joke! And in typical Wellman fashion, the almighty Necronomicon is defeated by holy water.

Holy water. Tradition is Wellman's compass. In his horror and fantasy stories he's not trying to reinvent the wheel. His monsters are the classics. There's a werewolf story, full moon transformation included. Dracula shows up in one very good yarn. His vampires are closer to the pre-Dracula, folklore legend. His imagination is steeped in a Christian worldview: the Bible is often an amulet against evil; but he also like folk culture. It's not uncommon for characters to own copies of John George Hohman's Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend (1820), a real-life book of spells and folk remedies. As such the man also loves loves loves witches. In fact I think the book's best story is "The Witch's Cat".

There's a story about young Poe finding inspiration for "The Black Cat" after he walls up a female vampire.

I knew he liked folklore and rural settings from the Silver John stories; but here he kicks it up a notch. There are lots of stories about First Nation heroes. He's consistently sympathetic to them, portraying them as the underdogs whose culture is destroyed by white settlers. You could probably edit an interesting volume just with his First Nation stories. One highlight was "Warrior In Darkness", which at first made me think was horror but by the end has become a heartbreaking story about a contact between two cultures that happens too late to be of use to either one.

Wellman was also a fan of Civil War settings and soldiers, and there are several stories about Confederate stories; again his sympathy goes to underdogs and losers.

Now I'm curious to try next month Lonely Vigils. From what I know, it collects the stories of two supernatural detectives: Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant and John Thunstone. Supernatural detective stories is a subgenre I like, so I'm curious to see what Wellman does with it.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

Days ago I started Lonely Vigils. It started slow, but the John Thunstone character has me pleasantly spellbound.

 

[Randy M.]

Tradition is Wellman's compass. In his horror and fantasy stories he's not trying to reinvent the wheel. His monsters are the classics. There's a werewolf story, full moon transformation included. Dracula shows up in one very good yarn. His vampires are closer to the pre-Dracula, folklore legend. His imagination is steeped in a Christian worldview: the Bible is often an amulet against evil; but he also like folk culture. It's not uncommon for characters to own copies of John George Hohman's Pow-Wows; or, Long Lost Friend (1820), a real-life book of spells and folk remedies. As such the man also loves loves loves witches. In fact I think the book's best story is "The Witch's Cat".

Haven't read Worse Things Waiting yet. but I only have about five stories left in Lonely Vigils. I agree with what you say. What struck me was the contrast with Lovecraft. HPL was all about the latest scientific discovery but drew inspiration for prose from 17th and 18th century writers, while Wellman was as you say, "steeped in a Christian worldview," while writing in 20th century vernacular; meanwhile, HPL had a very narrow view of what consituted worthwhile society while Wellman shows a good deal of empathy toward Blacks and Native Americans. It's easy to see Wellman as a man of the world.

Anyway, the Enderby story was entertaining but nothing great. The Judge Pursuivant stories were rather better. While I'm not fond of Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin stories, these remind me of them in that they seem to draw the main character from another source: Quinn from Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, and Wellman from John Dickson Carr's Dr. Gideon Fell -- Fell appears to be drawn from the real life G. K. Chesterton, and I found it interesting that in one of the stories the Judge references Chesterton. (I also get a kick from Wellman's psychic detectives referencing de Grandin.)

But Wellman hits his stride with Thunstone. I expected to put the book aside after awhile so I wouldn't get tired of it -- pulp stories by a single author really aren't meant to be read one after the other. Instead I've just kept going. I'm impressed by how many changes Wellman can ring on what would seem like a limited kind of story.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

I found the Enderby story very bland and already I've forgotten what it was about.

Of Judge Pursuivant I especially liked "The Black Drama", for the ingenious way he uses Lord Byron in that story. It reminds me of a story in WTW where Edgar Poe is the protagonist.

Already in the Pursuivant stories he starts tweaking clichés. There's a haunted house story about a new house built over another that burned down; but the spirit is confined to the 3D dimensions of the previous house, being higher and thinner than the new one; so there places the spirit can't go. I think I never saw that idea before.

Once again, Wellman shines in his stories involving Native Americans and Eskimos. He gives them agency, for starters. "The Golden Goblins" is as satisfying as one of Tarantino's revisionist revenge flicks.

Rowley Thorne was a fun opponent to give Thunstone; one of the good things about reading old stuff is learning what was hot back then; it's great that one point Aleister Crowley was so mainstream pulp writers based evil wizards on him.

The "Shonokins saga", if you will, is one of the book's highlights. The idea that there was a race of magical men before the American Indians, who displaced them, and now they lie in wait plotting their return to power, is pretty cool.

It took me a few stories to realize the parallels between Thunstone and Saint Dunstan. It's as curious as the parallels Wellman would go on to make between Silver John and Jesus Christ.

Apropos of his Christian worldview, it's perhaps fairer to call it classic supernatural. From the names and books he mentions, he clearly soaked up a lot of the non-fiction of the time. The fact that the Society for Psychical Research is name-dropped early on says a lot. And elsewhere he quotes from Reginald Scott's The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584). He also relies a lot on Montague Summers. What's incredible, to me, is that no matter how many times the supernatural is beaten by silver, herbs or a bible verse, he always makes it sound unexpected and poignant. That's quite a talent.

Sadly, I don't have more Wellman to read now; everything currently in print I've read, and I'm not much of a second-hand book scavenger. But he should have more stuff available, he's a very good storyteller.

 

[Randy M.]

Sadly, I don't have more Wellman to read now; everything currently in print I've read, and I'm not much of a second-hand book scavenger. But he should have more stuff available, he's a very good storyteller.

Agreed. He was a capable, imaginative writer, which you can't always say about the old pulp writers.

 

[Sargeant_Fox]

Actually, after some hesitation, I went and bought a DMR volume called Heroes of Atlantis & Lemuria (2019). It collects Wellman's stories about one Conan-like hero called Kardios. It's not strictly a Wellman volume, it also contains stories by Frederick Arnold Kummer Jr. and Leigh Brackett. I'm not keen on sword-amd-sorcery stories, but Wellman hasn't disappointed so far, and it's always good to branch out and try new things.