Seabury Quinn
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Seabury Grandin Quinn (aka Jerome Burke) (1889 - 1969) was a pulp magazine author most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin, published in Weird Tales with great success.
His first published work was "The Law of the Movies", in The Motion Picture Magazine, December 1917. (His story "Painted Gold" may have been written earlier.) "Demons of the Night" was published in Detective Story Magazine in March 19, 1918, followed by "Was She Mad?" on March 25, 1918. He published "The Stone Image" in 1919. He introduced Jules de Grandin as a character in 1925, and continued writing stories about him until 1951.
His first book, Roads (a surprising new origin for Santa Claus, drawn from the original Christian legends), was published by Arkham House in 1948.
His writing was secondary to his career as a lawyer specializing in mortuary jurisprudence. He taught this subject at mortuary schools for many years, and for some 15 years was the editor of Casket & Sunnyside, a leading trade journal. His Jerome Burke stories are still published in the Dodge embalming magazine.
Quinn was a contemporary of Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith.
Seabury Quinn Jr.
Quinn's son, Seabury Grandin Quinn, Jr. taught drama at Ohio University at Athens, Ohio from 1968-1995. The younger Quinn is also an annual panel member of the Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights' Festival, the yearly festival featuring new works by Ohio University's graduate playwrights.
