Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years 1923-25

A collection of Weird Tales magazine stories edited by Jonathan Maberry and Justin Criado is released today. Houdini's "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" is one of the 13 stories included. Below is the description.

First hitting newsstands in 1923, Weird Tales magazine quickly became a literary monster in discovering and publishing the best horror, sci-fi and fantasy writers of its day. 

The pulp magazine was one of the earliest publications, if not the first, to feature strange tales of occultism and alien invasions that simply didn't fit into any other magazine at that time. 

The stories struck a chord with those early audiences, and as a result, Weird Tales created asubgenre as "weird" could be attached itself to various genres. Marquee names like master magician Harry Houdini and cosmic horror creator H.P. Lovecraft graced the magazine's pages during those early years with several debut stories, alongside authors who were already giants in their own right-Otis Adelbert Kline, Seabury Quinn, and Greye La Spina. Many lesser known, but no less influential, writers like Frank Belknap Long Jr., Mary S. Brown, Lyllian Huntley Harris, Hasan Vokine, Arthur J. Burks, and H. Warner Munn turned out disturbing yarns that have stood the test of time only to be resurrected nearly a century later. 

From the macabre and morbid to unexplainable stories of the occult, this collection features those early authors across thirteen tales of terror from the impactful years of 1923 to 1925 that are best enjoyed at the witching hour. 

Unfortunately, Houdini's two other weird tales, "The Spirit Fakers of Hermannstadt" and "The Hoax of the Spirit Lover", didn't make the cut. Maybe they weren't weird enough?

You can purchase Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years 1923-25 in hardcover or paperback from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

Related:

• Weird Tales Presents: The Strange World of Harry Houdini
• "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" by HorrorBabble
• Houdini the writer