Edgar Hoffmann Price (July 3, 1898 – June 18, 1988) was an

American writer American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry ...

of popular fiction (he was a self-titled "fictioneer") for the

pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 to the late 1950s. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed. In contrast, magazine ...

marketplace."Price, E. Hoffmann" in Server Lee. ''Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction Writers''. New York: Facts on File, 2002. (p. 214-215). He collaborated with H. P. Lovecraft on "

Through the Gates of the Silver Key "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" is a short story co-written by American writers H. P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price between October 1932 and April 1933. A sequel to Lovecraft's "The Silver Key", and part of a sequence of stories focusin ...

Biography

Price was born at

Fowler, California Fowler (formerly, Fowler's Switch) is a city in Fresno County, California, United States. It is located within the San Joaquin Valley. It has a strong agricultural community, with lush grape vineyards and expansive farmland. Fowler is located so ...

. During his early years, he became interested in China as a result of his interactions with a Chinese salesman in his hometown. As a form of punishment, his mother once threatened to leave Price with him. He did not see this as a punishment. His interest in China also had a sexual aspect. His wife later noted that "Oriental women fascinate im. Edgar Hoffmann Price (1898–1988) at West Point in 1923

Edgar Hoffmann Price (1898–1988) at West Point in 1923

Originally intending to be a career soldier, Price graduated from the

United States Military Academy The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a fort, since it sits on strategic high groun ...

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

. He served with the American military in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, before being sent to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

with the

American Expeditionary Force The American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F.) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The A. E. F. was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of General John J. Pershing. It fought alon ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. After returning to the United States, he moved to Manhattan and began to write for pulp magazines. He was a champion fencer and boxer, an amateur Orientalist, and a student of the

Arabic language Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

; science-fiction author

Jack Williamson John Stewart Williamson (April 29, 1908 – November 10, 2006), who wrote as Jack Williamson, was an American list of science fiction authors, science fiction writer, often called the "Dean of Science Fiction". He is also credited with one of t ...

, 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 ''Terror Tales'' was the name of two United States, American publications: a pulp magazine of the weird menace genre of the 1930s, and a horror comic in the 1960s and 1970s. Pulp magazine ''Terror Tales'' was originally published by Popular Publ ...

'', from ''Speed Detective'' to ''Spicy Mystery Stories.'' Yet he was most readily identified as a ''

Weird Tales ''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, prin ...

'' writer, one of the group who wrote regularly for editor

Farnsworth Wright Farnsworth Wright (July 29, 1888 – June 12, 1940) was the editor of the pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' during the magazine's heyday, editing 179 issues from November 1924 to March 1940. Jack Williamson called Wright "the first great fantasy ...

, a group that included Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and

Clark Ashton Smith Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer and artist. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Algernon Charles Swinburne ...

. Price published 24 solo stories in ''Weird Tales'' between 1925 and 1950, plus three collaborations with

Otis Adelbert Kline Otis Adelbert Kline (July 1, 1891 – October 24, 1946) born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, was a songwriter, an adventure novelist and literary agent during the pulp era. Much of his work first appeared in the magazine ''Weird Tales''. Kline was an ...

, and his works with Lovecraft, noted above. His first sale was to ''Droll Stories'' in 1924, followed almost immediately by the first of scores of acceptances by ''Weird Tales'', "The Rajah's Gift" (January 1925). Weird Tales November 1926

"The Stranger from Kurdistan", published in 1925, was another early story to appear in ''

''. This story which featured a dialogue between a certain personage and

Satan Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...

, was criticised by some readers as blasphemous but proved popular with ''Weird Tales'' readers. (Lovecraft professed to find it especially powerful). "The Infidel's Daughter" (1927), a

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

on the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

, also angered some Southern readers, but Wright defended the story. Price worked in a range of popular genres—including science fiction, horror, crime, and fantasy—but he was best known for adventure stories with Oriental settings and atmosphere. Price also contributed to Farnsworth Wright's short-lived magazine '' The Magic Carpet'' (1930–34), along with Kline, Howard, Smith, and other ''Weird Tales'' regulars. For ''Spicy Western Stories'', Price wrote a series about a libidinous cowboy, Simon Bolivar Grimes. For ''Clues Detective Stories'', Price created a series centering on Pâwang Ali, a Malaysian detective in Singapore. Like many other pulp-fiction writers, Price could not support himself and his family on his income from literature. Living in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

in the 1930s, he worked for a time for the

Union Carbide Corporation Union Carbide Corporation is an American chemical corporation wholly owned subsidiary (since February 6, 2001) by Dow Chemical Company. Union Carbide produces chemicals and polymers that undergo one or more further conversions by customers befo ...

. Nonetheless he managed to travel widely and maintain friendships with many other pulp writers, including Kline and

Edmond Hamilton Edmond Moore Hamilton (October 21, 1904 – February 1, 1977) was an American writer of science fiction during the mid-twentieth century. Early life Born in Youngstown, Ohio, he was raised there and in nearby New Castle, Pennsylvania. So ...

. On a trip to Texas in the mid-1930s, Price was the only pulp writer to meet Robert E. Howard face to face. He was also the only man known to have met Howard and also H. P. Lovecraft and

(the great "Triumvirate" of ''Weird Tales'' writers) in person. Over the course of his long life, Price made reminiscences of many significant figures in pulp fiction, Howard, Lovecraft, and Hamilton among them. By 1951, he was living in

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in Northern California's Bay Area, approximately south of San Francisco, and northwest of San Jose. Redwood City's history spans its earliest inhabitation by the Ohlone people to being a ...

. His interest in astrology led him to develop a connection with Sri Ram Mahra, a Tibetan theologian. Late in life, Price experienced a major literary resurgence. In the 1970s and '80s he issued a series of SF, fantasy, and adventure novels, published in paperback; '' The Devil Wives of Li Fong'' (1979) is one noteworthy example. He also had published two collections of his pulp stories during his lifetime--''

Strange Gateways ''Strange Gateways'' is a collection of stories by American writer E. Hoffmann Price. It was released in 1967 by Arkham House Arkham House is an American publishing house specializing in weird fiction. It was founded in Sauk City, Wis ...

'' and '' Far Lands, Other Days''. During this period, Price corresponded frequently with the novelist and poet

Richard L. Tierney Richard Louis Tierney (August 7, 1936 – February 1, 2022) was an American writer, poet and scholar of H. P. Lovecraft, probably best known for his heroic fantasy, including his series co-authored (with David C. Smith) of Red Sonja novels, fe ...

. Price was one of the first speakers at San Francisco's

Maltese Falcon Society The Maltese Falcon Society is an organization for admirers of Dashiell Hammett, his 1930 novel '' The Maltese Falcon,'' and hardboiled mystery books and writers in general. Founded in San Francisco in 1981, the organization is no longer active in th ...

in 1981. He received the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1984. A collection of his literary memoirs, ''Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear, Fictioneers & Others'', was published posthumously in 2001. His writing friends and colleagues included

, H. P. Lovecraft,

August Derleth August William Derleth (February 24, 1909 – July 4, 1971) was an American writer and anthologist. Though best remembered as the first book publisher of the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and for his own contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos and the ...

, Robert E. Howard,

Henry Kuttner Henry Kuttner (April 7, 1915 – February 3, 1958) was an American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror. Early life Henry Kuttner was born in Los Angeles, California in 1915. Kuttner (1829–1903) and Amelia Bush (c. 1834–1911), the ...

Seabury Quinn Seabury Grandin Quinn (also known as Jerome Burke; December 1889 – December 24, 1969) was an American government lawyer, journalist, and pulp magazine author, most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin, published in '' ...

Ralph Milne Farley Roger Sherman Hoar (April 8, 1887 – October 10, 1963) was an American state senator and assistant Attorney General, for the state of Massachusetts. He wrote and published science fiction under the pseudonym of Ralph Milne Farley. Family Hoar w ...

Robert Spencer Carr Robert Spencer Carr (March 26, 1909 – April 28, 1994) was an American literature, American writer of science fiction and Fantasy fiction, fantasy. He sold his first story to ''Weird Tales'' at age 15. At age 17 his novel, ''The Rampant ...

, and

among others. Price was a

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

and a supporter of the

Republican Party Republican Party is a name used by many political parties around the world, though the term most commonly refers to the United States' Republican Party. Republican Party may also refer to: Africa *Republican Party (Liberia) * Republican Part ...

. He died at

, in 1988.

H. P. Lovecraft

When Lovecraft visited New Orleans in June 1932, Howard telegraphed Price to alert him to the visitor's presence, and the two writers spent much of the following week together. A disproven myth claims that Price took Lovecraft to a New Orleans brothel, where Lovecraft was amused to find that several of the employees there were fans of his work; the same apocryphal story was originally told about

sometime earlier. The meeting of Price and Lovecraft began a correspondence that continued until Lovecraft's death. They even proposed at one time forming a writing team whose output would, "conservatively estimated, run to a million words a month", in Lovecraft's whimsical prediction. They planned to use the pseudonym "Etienne Marmaduke de Marigny" for their collaboration; a similar name was used for a character in "Through the Gates of the Silver Key", the only collaboration of Price and Lovecraft to transpire. Another collaboration between Lovecraft and Hoffmann Price is the short tale "Tarbis of the Lake". That story had its origins in Price's enthusiasm for an earlier Lovecraft tale. "One of my favorite HPL stories was, and still is, '

The Silver Key "The Silver Key" is a fantasy short story by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written in 1926, it is considered part of his Dreamlands series. It was first published in the January 1929 issue of ''Weird Tales''. It is a continuation of "The Drea ...

'," Price wrote in a 1944 memoir. "In telling him of the pleasure I had had in rereading it, I suggested a sequel to account for

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

Randolph Carter Randolph Carter is a recurring fictional character in H. P. Lovecraft's fiction and is, presumably, an alter ego of Lovecraft himself. The character first appears in "The Statement of Randolph Carter", a short story Lovecraft wrote in 1919 bas ...

's doings after his disappearance." After convincing an apparently reluctant Lovecraft to collaborate on such a sequel, Price wrote a 6,000-word draft in August 1932; in April 1933, Lovecraft produced a 14,000-word version that left unchanged, by Price's estimate, "fewer than fifty of my original words," though ''

An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia ''An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia'' is a reference work written by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. It covers the life and work of American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. First published in 2001 by Greenwood Publishing Group, it was reis ...

'' reports that Lovecraft "kept as many of Price's conceptions as possible, as well as some of his language."Joshi and Schultz, p. 213. In any case, Price was pleased with the result, writing that Lovecraft "was right of course in discarding all but the basic outline. I could only marvel that he had made so much of my inadequate and bungling start."Carter, p. 94. The story appeared under both authors' bylines in the July 1934 issue of ''Weird Tales''; Price's draft was published as "The Lord of Illusion" in ''

Crypt of Cthulhu ''Crypt of Cthulhu'' is an American fanzine devoted to the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. It was published as part of the Esoteric Order of Dagon amateur press association for a short time, and was formally established in 19 ...

'' No. 10 in 1982. Price visited Lovecraft in Providence in the summer of 1933. When he and a mutual friend showed up at Lovecraft's house with a six-pack of beer, the teetotaling Lovecraft is said to have remarked, "And what are you going to do with so ''much'' of it?"

Bibliography

Science fiction

*''Operation Misfit'' (1980) *''Operation Longlife'' (1983) *''Operation Exile'' (1985) *''Operation Isis'' (1986)

Fantasy

*'' The Devil Wives of Li Fong'' (1979) *''The Jade Enchantress'' (1982)

Collections

*''

'' (1967) *'' Far Lands, Other Days'' (1975) *''Three Cliff Cragin Stories'' (1987) *''Satan's Daughter and Other Tales from the Pulps'' (2004) *''Valley of the Tall Gods and Other Tales from the Pulps'' (2006)

Nonfiction

*''The Weird Tales Story'' (1999) *'' Book of the Dead: Friends of Yesteryear, Fictioneers and Others'' (2001)

Notes

References

*S. T. Joshi and David Schultz, ''An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia'', Hippocampus Press (New York), 2004. *Lin Carter, ''Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos'', Ballantine Books (New York), 1974.

External links

* *
E. Hoffmann Price
at the '' Encyclopedia of Science Fiction''
E. Hoffmann Price
at the ''

Encyclopedia of Fantasy ''The Encyclopedia of Fantasy'' is a 1997 reference work concerning fantasy fiction, edited by John Clute and John Grant. Other contributors include Mike Ashley, Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones, David Langford, Sam J. Lundwall, Michael Scott R ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Price, E. Hoffman 1898 births 1988 deaths 20th-century American novelists American fantasy writers American science fiction writers Western (genre) writers American mystery writers American male novelists American short story writers Cthulhu Mythos writers American Buddhists World Fantasy Award-winning writers Writers from California American male short story writers People from Fowler, California 20th-century American male writers