I've posted the latest story in The Supernatural Writings of Stuart Palmer: the second tale of Karl Brandt, "ghost-layer." I've also learned more interesting information about Palmer and his time with Ghost Stories.
In The Monster in the Cellar, Karl Brandt and his sidekick Stanley Horton investigate the case of a boarding house plagued by a smelly, hairy poltergeist. Does it have anything to do with the injured, mentally-impaired young woman living there?
The narrative, which appeared in the October 1929 issue, bears some resemblance to Victor Rousseau's Ivan Brodsky story "The Major's Menagerie," which Weird Tales reprinted in January 1927. Also, perhaps, to Fitz James O'Brien's "What Was It?", which was also reprinted in Ghost Stories, September 1926. Whatever Palmer's possible influences might have been, "The Monster in the Cellar" is a pretty good tale on its own.
Incidentally, the doctor treating the brain-injured woman is Dr Park Graham, the narrator/protagonist of "Stigma." So you might call the three stories "Stigma," "A Sleeper Bewitched," and "The Monster in the Cellar" a little Palmer-verse! I didn't find any other related stories, but there may be more, in the stories that I couldn't find online.
"The Monster in the Cellar" is credited directly to narrator Stanley Horton (as opposed to "by Stanley Horton, as told to Stuart Palmer"). There is one other Stanley Horton piece: "Shelley—The Living Ghost," published in the April 1930 issue. I'd like to believe that this is another Karl Brandt story, but both Siegler's 1973 Ghost Stories index and Mike Ashley's 2000 index mark the piece as an "article," rather than a story. I can't find the issue online to verify, one way or the other.
Interestingly, neither Siegler nor Ashley call out "Stanley Horton" as one of Palmer's pseudonyms, even though Ashley does notice that "A Sleeper Bewitched" is a "collaboration" between Horton and Palmer. I'm not sure why that would be, since both researchers called out "Theodore Orchards" explicitly as Palmer's pseudonym. The Orchards persona was also the narrator/protagonist of a story ("The Curse of the Red Mummy") as well as being the author of several "non-fiction" articles.
Stuart Palmer, Ghost Stories Editor #
Since I last posted, I've had a chance to read Ghost Stories: The Magazine and its Makers, a collection of stories from the magazine, edited and with additional information by John Locke. From the book, I learned that Palmer was actually the last editor of Ghost Stories, for a brief period in 1931, after the original publisher, McFadden, sold the magazine to Harold Hersey and the Good Story Magazine Company. I've updated my project introduction appropriately. I've also updated the art credits for the magazine cover that I use as the featured image of the project page, based on information from Locke.
References #
Ashley, Mike (Ed.). Phantom Perfumes and other Shades: Memories of Ghost Stories Magazine, Ash-Tree Press (2000).
Locke, John (Ed.). Ghost Stories: The Magazine and its Makers (Two volumes), Off-Trail Publications (2010).
Seigler, James. "Ghost Stories Index by Author," from Ghost Stories: Stories of Ghosts (fan publication), Opar Press (1973).