Pulp writer Henry S. Whitehead, one of the more unlikely writers for the classic pulp Weird Tales, was born today (March 5) in 1882.
Whitehead is one of the many writers featured in The Beginner’s Guide to Pulp Fiction.
He graduated from Harvard in 1904 as a classmate of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He later attended Berkeley Divinity School and was ordained as a deacon in the Episcopal Church in 1912. He served as a pastor in New York City, then in 1921 became archdeacon of the Virgin Islands.
While living on the island of St. Croix, Whitehead began writing and corresponding with H. P. Lovecraft. His first pulp story, “The Intarsia Box,” appeared in Adventure in 1923. He would continue to write for Adventure and Black Mask, but Weird Tales was his primary outlet. He began writing for the magazine in 1924, with “Tea Leaves” appearing in the May issue. More than 25 of Whitehead’s stories were published in the magazine in the 1920s and ‘30s.
His career was cut short by his death in 1932 at the age of 50 in Dunedin, Fla., where Whitehead was working as rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd.
Brick Pickle Media 