Spicy Mystery Stories

by E. Hoffmann Price

This famous "weird menace" pulp magazine -- which included Spicy Mystery, Spicy Adventure, Spicy Detective, and others -- published a titilating mix of fantasy, horror, mystery, and suspense, punctuated by episodes of torture, sadism, sex, and other risque elements. Although tame by current standards, and sometimes of dubious literary merit, these publications presented tales which thrilled a sensation-hungry audience. Despite the themes and constraints of the market, writers who would later become famous -- including Hugh B. Cave, E. Hoffman Price, Robert Leslie Bellem, and many more -- were frequent contributors. This issue of Spice Mystery Stories includes contributions from Robert Leslie Bellem, Atwater Culpepper, Ellery Watson Calder, Carl Moore, E. Hoffman Price, Jerome Severs Perry, Don King, Charles R. Allen, Charles A. Baker, Jr., and Arthur Wallace.

Genres: Pulp

132 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Originally intending to be a career soldier, Price graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point; he served in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I, and with the American military in Mexico and the Philippines. He was a champion fencer and boxer, an amateur Orientalist, and a student of the Arabic language; science-fiction author Jack Williamson, in his 1984 autobiography Wonder's Child, called E. Hoffmann Price a "real live soldier of fortune."

In his literary career, Hoffmann Price produced fiction for a wide range of publications, from Argosy to Terror Tales, from Speed Detective to Spicy Mystery Stories. Yet he was most readily identified as a Weird Tales writer, one of the group who wrote regularly for editor Farnsworth Wright, a group that included Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Price published 24 solo stories in "the Unique Magazine" between 1925 and 1950, plus three collaborations with Otis Adelbert Kline, and his works with Lovecraft.

Reviews

[Hayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful taste of the great shudder pulps. A fabulous reprint, the only thing missing is the old pulp paper smell.